ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Written by  Nikolas K. Gvosdev ; Originally appeared at  The National Interest ne of the major blind spots in how the U.S. national security apparatus responds to and formulates policy for issues that arise across the Eurasian heartland is how the American government has chosen to bureaucratically define the region. Namely: the continued inclusion of Russia within the diplomatic confines of a larger European bureau has intellectually limited assessments about Russia’s position in the world by framing Russian action primarily through a European lens. Not only does this undercount Russia’s ability to be a major player in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, it has also, in my view, tended to overweight the importance of the Baltic littoral to Russian policy. Poll U.S. experts and at the top of any risk prediction for 2019 will be the threat of a Russian incursion into the Baltic states—and the importance of continued efforts to reinforce NATO’s north-eastern frontier as a re

IMAGE: degandr.ru Written by  Maksim Klimov ; Originally appeared at  VPK , translated by  AlexD   exclusively for  SouthFront It is meaningless to build fifth generation submarines without taking into account modern methods of their detection The main tactical property of submarines is stealth. With this in mind, the dramatic increase over the past quarter century of the effectiveness of their search and defense sharply raised the question of revising the appearance of modern and promising submarines, their role and models of application in modern war. Until the issues of protection against detection are resolved, it is pointless to start designing the next generation boats. According to the theory on the matter, science is arguing still, but the fact remains that a number of successful detections and search operations performed by anti-submarine aircraft of the naval aviation with a special configuration of a conventional search radar “Initiative” (development of 60s), en

A fresh photo has appeared online showing a Russian soldier with a patch of the Manbij Military Council of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF is a Kurdish-dominated group which controls the area of Manbij as well as most of northeastern Syria. On December 28,  the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are the core of the SDF, announced  that they are inviting the Syrian Army to take control of Manbij to protect it from a possible Turkish invasion. A group of Russian and Syrian troops were already deployed in the village of Arima, west of Manbij, earlier this week. Click to see the full-size image

On December 24, a car bomb exploded in a Kabul government compound and then gunmen attacked it, according to local media. Interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said that a number of gunmen raided the compound where the Ministry of Public Works and other offices are located. At least one police officer was killed and seven others were wounded in the attack. The health ministry says that at least 16 people were wouned in the incident. “More than 200 people have been evacuated by the security forces, but many are still being held as hostages by the militants,” Rahimi said. According to reports, at least 2 gunmen were killed. The rest is them is involved in exchange of fire with security forces. Click to see the full-size image

Click to see the full-size image Since the November incident between a Ukrainian Naval group and Russian coastal guards in the Black Sea, Russian officials as well as representatives of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have repeatedly warned that the Kiev government is reinforcing its military group in eastern Ukraine and preparing provocations to trigger a military escalation there. The data below is taken from reports of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine ( SOURCE ). It allows to get a general look at the recent deployments of military equipment and offensive weapons by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the period from December 18 to December 21. The maps also includes similar data collected by the OSCE SMM about actions of the LPR and the DPR during the same period. Ukrainian Armed Forces: December 18: Three self-propelled howitzers (2S3 Akatsiya, 152mm) at the railway station in Kostiantynivka (60km north of Don

Originally appeared on  armsdata.net ; Translated by  AlexD  exclusively for  SouthFront Operational service and combat patrol areas Before the advent of sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, attack submarines could carry out an attack on enemy targets only from launching positions located at a relatively small distance from its coast. Attack submarines of Projects AV-611, 629, 658 and 667A had to be in the combat areas (operational service). Each submarine was assigned main and reserve areas of combat operations (combat patrols), within which firing positions and waiting areas were allocated. In the period of threat the ship passed from the waiting area to the firing areas (starting) positions. Once at the firing position, the attack submarine was able to launch missiles at the intended targets as quickly as possible after receiving the order. The waiting areas and firing positions were designated in such a way as to allow long-term manoeuvring of submarines with maxi