Tag: Europe

The Army will begin fielding a more lethal version of the Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle to Europe in 2018, roughly three years after U.S. Army Europe issued an urgent request for more firepower for the Vilseck, Germany-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment. A prototype of the new Stryker, outfitted with a 30mm cannon, was delivered to the […]

We’ve entered an age of irregular warfare. We aren’t designed to fight this kind of war, yet. “The future of the Army may not involve divisions, corps, tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles, said the Army’s chief of staff. And that future isn’t 100 years away, or even 50. It’s only about 25 to 30 years away.” […]

There was the parked car stuffed with gas canisters near the Notre Dame Cathedral, a possible effort to set off an explosion in the heart of Paris. There was the suspected plot to attack a train station in the Paris area. There was the effort by one of the Islamic State’s most prominent propagandists to recruit two […]

Obama administration wants to send nuclear bomb-grade material to Belgium, where security has been shaky

Muslim officers working for London’s Metropolitan Police were often racist toward white officers. But few people take seriously the claim that a minority can be racist against a non-minority. What’s often called “reverse racism” is dismissed as being racist itself. The conversation, it would seem, is closed on this issue. Only whites can be racist. If minorities have negative views of whites, it must be because of their history of oppression.

In a bid to stem the flow of migrants, the EU struck a controversial deal with Turkey.

In exchange for political sweeteners such as visa-free access to the Schengen zone for Turkish people, Ankara agreed a ‘one-in-one-out’ system for migrants trying to cross into Greece.

Implemented in March, it is aimed at halting the mass movement of migrants into Europe by sending those who do not apply for asylum or if their claim is rejected back to Turkey.

This is a likely explanation for the meteoric rise in Turkish smugglers, as new ways are found around security measures implemented by governments, leading to ever-shifting routes.

The impact expands further than the operational F-35 inventory, as there are 42 aircraft currently on the production line that has received parts from the same provider. That includes three three Norwegian aircraft scheduled for delivery early next year. It is unclear if those parts will need to be replaced or if other nations planes will be impacted.

There is often a fine line between pity and fear when it comes to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have landed on European shores in the last year. On one hand, it’s difficult not to feel an outpouring of sympathy over pictures of babies born on perilous rescue missions, or the bodies of children washed up […]

Though hidden from public view, the escalation in espionage activity is part of a broader renewal of conflict and competition between the United States and Russia after a two-decade lull. Surging tensions now cut across nearly every aspect of the U.S-Russia relationship.

Russia’s new, asymmetric approach is perhaps best exemplified by its state-run nuclear contractor Rosatom’s strategy of creating security vulnerabilities in Europe. A recent report from a think tank in Finland – where Rosatom partly owns a nuclear power plant being built in Pyhajoki – suggested that the Kremlin is striking deals such as these to create dependencies in other countries. Separately, Lithuania has said it may file a lawsuit over the poor-quality construction of the Astravets nuclear power plant, which is being built by Rosatom in neighboring Belarus with no supervision and at a very low cost. Lithuanian officials are worried that Rosatom is using substandard Russian security systems that are likely much weaker than their Western equivalents – a state of affairs that analysts believe could pave the way for a nuclear disaster. Recent reports that at least ten workers died in mysterious circumstances while working at Astravets, and that a 330-ton reactor shell was dropped thus triggering an emergency situation, have hardly reassured Vilnius. Outside of Europe, Rosatom is also playing a very delicate role in Iran’s nuclear program, working on the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant while the Obama administration tries to preserve its controversial Iran nuclear deal.

Formed in the early nineties, just after the country won its independence, the Latvian Special Forces, like those in other countries, are considered elite soldiers. Their operations include counter-terrorism, search and rescue, sea landings, underwater missions, attack and detention, and airborne operations.

The investigators for Italy’s antidrug unit were used to measuring the flow of hashish from Moroccan fields to European shores one speedboat or Jet Ski at a time. So when the phone rang with a tip that an enormous freighter loaded with hashish was plying international waters south of Sicily — bound for Libya, hundreds of miles […]