ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE On January 21 st , Jordan reopened its main border crossing with Syria, a key Middle East trade route, after keeping it closed for three years,  an AFP photographer reported. The border gate was opened at 8:00 AM local time, while more than a dozen police officers and customs officials stood nearby. Several cars with Jordanian license plates lined up to enter Syria, with travelers expressing their joy at being able to cross the border, the photographer reported. “Today is a celebration for us and I wanted to be among the first to cross the border,” said Syrian businessman Mohammed Hisham, who resides in Jordan. Jordanian taxi driver Imad Sariheen called the reopening of Jaber a source of “great happiness for all of us” which will help ease “economic hardships” caused by the closure of the crossing. “Our conditions have worsened over the past years. Our work (driving taxis) was halted because of the closure of the border between Jordan and Syria,” he

Click to see the full-size image The oldest of North Korea’s approximately 20 undisclosed missile operating bases – Sino-ri houses a regiment-sized unit equipped with Nodong-1/-2 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) has been disclosed by  a study of Beyond Parallel published on January 21 st  discovered. Click to see the full-size image The key claims of the study are as follows: 212 kilometers north of the demilitarized zone is Sino-ri, an operation missile base that houses a regiment-sized unit equipped with Nodong-1 medium-range ballistic missiles. Click to see the full-size image It is presumably the oldest of  approximately 20 undisclosed missile operating bases . It is reported to serve as the headquarters of the Strategic Rocket Forces Nodong Missile brigade. “It may have also played a role in the development of the newest  Pukkuksong-2 (KN-15) ballistic missile first tested or unveiled on February 12, 2017 , shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration as pre

This combat footage was reportedly taken in the area of Bambari in the Central African Republic (CAR) earlier in January. According to reports, it was recorded during a major operation that included 50 hours of heavy clashes between Portuguese paratroopers and local militants. The operation led to the seizure of a rebel base in the area of Bambari.  Portuguese personnel are operating under the UN’s peacekeeping mission in the CAR. The Portuguese operation came in respnose to an allegd attack by members of the Union for Peace in the CAR (UPC) on the town of Bambari, in about 400 km from the capital Bangui. The goal of the attack was to seize resources and extort the local population by collecting taxes. The Portuguese military said that the operation was successful and its forces suffered no casualties.

On January 22, Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate Admiral Essen of the Black Sea Fleet held air defense drills in the Black Sea; On January 21, Steregushchiy-class corvettes Boikiy and Soobrazitelnyy of the Baltic Fleet tracked USS Gravely and USS Porter entering the southern Baltic Sea; On January 19, Krivak-class frigate Pitliviy of the Black Sea Fleet started tracking USS Donald Cook; On January 18, Buyan-class corvette Orekhovo-Zuyevo of the Black Sea Fleet conducted a training session on missile firing at a surface target in the Black Sea naval training ground; On January 17, first-of-class patrol ship Vasily Bykov of the Black Sea Fleet started to submit course tasks from the Novorossiysk military naval base. Click to see the full-size image

Two corvettes “Boiky” and “Soobrazitelnyy”, a part of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet, escorted the USS Gravely and USS Porter destroyers, which had entered the Baltic Sea,  the Russian National Defense Management Center told reporters on January 21 st . The USS Gravely is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and is the flagship of NATO’s First Permanent Naval Group. In addition to guided missiles, the destroyer is armed with a missile defense system. It became the flagship of the Standing NATO Maritime Group (SNMG) 1 during a ceremony in  Copenhagen, Denmark, January 14 th , 2019. Gravely was previously in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in May 2018 to participate in exercise Joint Warrior 18-1, an 11-day, semi-annual training exercise conducted in the coastal waters of the United Kingdom. The USS Porter is also an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer. On April 7, 2017, the destroyer participated in the strike with Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Syrian

In January 2019, the U.S. military has finally released  a unclassified version  of the Missile Defense Review. The report outlined plans to improve and expand the US missile defense shield, as well as add additional layers with space-based sensors and interceptors, technology to track and defeat hypersonic weapons, unmanned aircraft with lasers to shoot down threats and missile-hunting F-35 stealth fighters, among others. “Missile defense is accorded a high priority in our investment plans because the need to do so is evident from our rigorous diagnosis of the strategic environment and  detailed intelligence forecast of potential adversaries’ emerging and projected offensive missile developments. They seek to use offensive missile threats to coerce us, our allies and partners, and are adding new and unprecedented types of offensive missile capabilities to their arsenals. In the past several years, for example,  North Korea rapidly advanced and expanded its intercontinental bal

If there’s one thing everyone in today’s Washington can agree on, it’s that whenever an official or someone being paid by the government says something truly outrageous or dangerous, there should be consequences, if only a fleeting moment of media fury. With one notable exception: Arguing that the US should be quietly working to promote the violent disintegration and carving up of the largest country on Earth. Because so much of the discussion around US-Russian affairs is marked by hysteria and hyperbole, you are forgiven for assuming this is an exaggeration. Unfortunately it isn’t. Published in the Hill under the dispassionate title  “Managing Russia’s dissolution,”  author Janusz Bugajski makes the case that the West should not only seek to contain “Moscow’s imperial ambitions” but to actively seek the dismemberment of Russia as a whole. Engagement, criticism and limited sanctions have simply reinforced Kremlin perceptions that the West is weak and predictable. To curtail Mos