Years ago Pakistan, China and Russia sold Tehran atomic weapons technology. In the late 1980s, Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s chief nuclear proliferator, sold Tehran uranium enrichment centrifuges, the blueprints for a Chinese nuclear bomb, and a package of nuclear technologies, including assistance for casting uranium metal and for working with polonium and beryllium, metals [...]

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Sounding the Nuclear Alarm - The U.S. will not have a credible arsenal unless Washington acts soon to replace aging warheads.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear weapons program has suffered from neglect. Warheads are old. There’s been no new warhead design since the 1980s, and the last time one was tested [...]

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Independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said the exercises reflected Russia’s determination to prepare for major military conflict.
“This was a dry run for a war with the United States,” Felgenhauer said of the missile launches, part of major military manoeuvres billed “Stability 2008″ involving all military branches.
“These are the biggest strategic war games in more than [...]

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But Russia’s own state-run defense industries, experts say, face a crumbling manufacturing base and pervasive corruption; they have produced little in the way of advanced armaments in the Putin era.
The Victory Day parade in Red Square in May was intended to showcase the nation’s military might. Instead, Russia’s arsenal showed its age. Most of the [...]

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Russia’s angry response to an accord between Washington and Prague on building part of a U.S. missile defence shield in the Czech Republic is reminiscent of the rhetoric of the Cold War. Although Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Moscow still wants talks on the missile shield, his Foreign Ministry has threatened a “military-technical” response if [...]

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Speak fraternally but carry a stick. Is there a new arms race—or just overdue retooling of armies?
Even as its leaders talk, Latin America is re-arming—or rather some South American countries are. In the broader region, including Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, total defence spending shot up to $38 billion in 2007 from $25 billion [...]

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By George Friedman
Oil prices have risen dramatically over the past year. When they passed $100 a barrel, they hit new heights, expressed in dollars adjusted for inflation. As they passed $120 a barrel, they clearly began to have global impact. Recently, we have seen startling rises in the price of food, particularly grains. Apart from [...]

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More than 80 percent of Americans now say that we are on the wrong track, but many if not most still believe that the history of other nations is irrelevant — that the United States is unique, chosen by God. So did all the previous world economic powers: Rome, Spain, the Netherlands (in the maritime [...]

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As the leader of the free world, the United States has a responsibility to lead. This has been our reality as a nation since the 1940s. As such, we need a well-funded military. Today, however, our military forces are desperately in need of recapitalization and modernization. We have been on a “procurement holiday” since the [...]

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