Although warfare featuring tank armadas over vast territories is already a thing of the past, armor still remains the main striking force of modern armies. Requirements for any new tank are protection, mobility and firepower. Historically, Russia has always tackled these problems by developing new models and continuing to exploit existing ones. For that reason [...]

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Hezbollah may try to carry out an attack in the North with the help of another paramilitary organization, which can provide it with deniability, intelligence officers told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense committee on Tuesday.
“We clearly identify a great deal of activity among Hezbollah,” the intelligence officers said. “It is growing stronger on [...]

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Israel plans to conduct its largest exercise ever to set contingencies for massive missile attacks by Iran and Syria.
The government has been preparing for a five-day exercise in April that would simulate conventional and nonconventional missile strikes from Iran, Lebanon and Syria. Officials said the exercise would test emergency response as well as evacuation of [...]

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Israel and Iran have received the lowest ratings for the second year running, in a BBC poll of attitudes across the globe toward various countries.
Nevertheless, negative views of Israel declined over the past year.
Published on Wednesday, the BBC World Service poll asked people to rate Brazil, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North [...]

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As France jockeys to rejoin the command structure of NATO, a senior French official said Tuesday that, for the first time, conditions were right for Europe to become a more serious player in defense.
Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the European affairs minister, said that the United States was more open than ever to a French push for a [...]

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A second cause for worry is that the world is poised to enter a new nuclear age that threatens to be even more dangerous and expensive than the Cold war era of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Indeed, the outlines of this new nuclear age are already visible, and include: The connection between terrorism and nuclear [...]

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But while much good is being done, NATO is actually doing far less than it should be doing. The current pace of operations creates a crisis-like environment in which the urgent crowds out the important. For several years, NATO’s political and military leaders have had literally no time for strategic discussion or planning.
As a [...]

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By George Friedman
For the past year, Stratfor has been focusing on what we see as the critical global geopolitical picture. As the U.S.-jihadist war has developed, it has absorbed American military resources dramatically. It is overstated to say that the United States lacks the capacity to intervene anywhere else in the world, but it is [...]

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Russia’s nationalists are also outraged by Putin’s foreign policy, because it has alienated former Soviet republics and weakened Russia’s military. The nationalist Council for National Strategy published a devastating report on the decay of Russia’s military under Putin. Russian military procurement, it claims, has plummeted. For example, only three new military aircraft have been purchased [...]

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Therefore, although Russia has still to demonstrate it can successfully build and operate a modern, 21st century-era large aircraft carrier, it leads the world in designing and producing relatively cheap missile systems designed to “kill” such carriers at scores, and even hundreds of miles distance. The U.S. arsenal has no weapons to compare with the [...]

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Satellite photos have revealed that Sudan now has Chinese made A-5 fighter-bombers. The A-5 is a twin engine Chinese design based on the 1950s era Russian MiG-19 fighter. The A-5 entered service in 1970, and about a thousand were built. Exports began in the 1980s, mainly to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and North Korea. The [...]

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UKRAINE: U.S. backs NATO membership bid by new, more democratic Ukraine that emerged from 2004 Orange Revolution. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that would bring Western alliance to yet another of Russia’s borders, threatening its security. Key pipeline across Ukraine carries Russian gas to Europe, Ukrainian defense plants produce components for Russian nuclear missiles and [...]

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A CHILDREN’S program made by Hamas TV in Gaza shows a puppet stabbing US President George W. Bush to death in revenge for killing his family.
The puppet represents a Palestinian child.
In the episode aired on Sunday, the child-puppet is shown confronting a George Bush puppet and accusing him of killing his father in Iraq, his [...]

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At their summit in Bucharest this week NATO member states are expected to squabble over Afghanistan, missile defense and eastern expansion. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, is playing for time — and pinning her hopes on a new US administration. By Cordula Meyer and Alexander Szandar more…

Opinion: Why NATO Should Embrace Sarkozy with Open [...]

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Dutch politician Geert Wilders may be many things, but he is not the right-wing populist he is accused of being. What the debate over his film “Fitna” reveals most clearly is the West’s cowardice toward Islam. By Henryk M. Broder more…

A Muslim Responds to ‘Fitna’: ‘I’m Not the Least Bit Offended’
SPIEGEL Interview with Dutch Populist [...]

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