Geopolitics, Strategy & Technological Rivalries

Russia is seeking to further bolster its sub-surface capabilities, with new generations of conventional and nuclear propulsion submarines, which promise to be significantly more difficult to detect and track for western naval forces. This includes the Yasen, Lada, Borei and Kalina classes of submarines. Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (UAC) has announced …

Israel is a high-tech superpower and one of the world’s top weapons exporters with approximately $6.5 billion in annual arms sales. Since 1985, for example, Israel is the world’s largest exporter of drones, responsible for about 60 percent of the global market, trailed by the US, whose market share is under …

Psychological warfare involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, motives, reasoning,  attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups. Psychological warfare consists of attempts to make your enemy lose confidence, give up hope, or feel afraid, so that you can win. It is used …

During the first half of the twentieth century, armies grew enamored with the concept of “super guns”—huge artillery systems able to bombard cities up dozens of miles behind the frontline. During World War I, Imperial Germany deployed the infamous Paris Gun, which could launch huge 211-millimeter shells to bombard the …

Since the creation of the main battle tank during World War I, there has been a constant arms race between the development of anti-tank weapons and vehicle protection systems, however “Weapons’ ability to penetrate armor, however, has advanced faster than armor’s ability to withstand penetration”.   One of the technology …

“The greatest military threat to U.S. vital interests in Asia may be one that has received somewhat less attention: the growing capability of China’s missile forces to threaten U.S. bases in the region,” write Thomas Shugart and Javier Gonzalez in a report released last month by the Center for a …

Military studies have shown that adversaries have shifted to the use of underground bunkers to protect against the U.S. military’s precision strike capabilities that combine satellite navigation with guided missiles and bombs. To counter American precision strikes, China, Russia, North Korean, and Iran began burying facilities and hardening them with …

For decades, China’s presence in Africa has largely focused on economic, commercial and peacekeeping activities. Now, Beijing is building on that by establishing greater military links to protect its national assets on the continent and gain greater geopolitical influence.   The world’s second-largest economy has long described Sino-Africa cooperation as …

The US’s  GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) is a precision-guided munition weighing 21,500 pounds and was dropped from a C-130 Hercules aircraft. The MOAB isn’t the heaviest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal (that’s the 30,000-pound Massive Ordinance Penetrator ), but with a length of 30 feet and an …

Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) are surface-to-air missiles that can be carried and fired by a single individual or carried by several individuals and fired by more than one person acting as a crew. MANPADS were designed to be used by national military forces to protect their troops and facilities. With …