South China Sea

British fighter planes visiting Japan will fly over the South China Sea and Britain will sail aircraft carriers in the Pacific once they are operational in 2020, given concerns about freedom of navigation there, Britain’s ambassador to the United States said on Thursday. The envoy, Kim Darroch, told a Washington think tank that British Typhoon […]

Since World War II, the US has dominated the skies in any region in which it wishes to project power — but recent competition from countries like Russia and China threaten to erode that edge, and only a small group of elite pilots maintain the US’s edge in air superiority. Russia has deployed powerful missile-defense […]

You may love him. You may hate him. Either way, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. The tasks ahead of him are enormous. Most of the early focus has been on what he will do in regard to domestic policy. Abroad, however, he will find the challenges no less daunting. President […]

A U.S. Navy destroyer sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Friday, drawing a warning from Chinese warships to leave the area. The U.S. action was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, U.S. officials said. The […]

President Duerte in a somewhat expected move – denounces the United States of America. For what exactly he did this in exchange for, we do not publicly know. But, no doubt assured financial and economic Chinese backing played a role, as well as a tolerance for corruption and black market dealings (drugs). In turn, the […]

Xi’s reforms include establishing a joint operational command structure by 2020 and rejigging existing military regions, as well as cutting troop numbers by 300,000, a surprise announcement he made last year.

China has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware, but integration of complex systems across a regionalized command structure has been a major challenge.

This year, before Duterte became president on June 30, the Pentagon announced agreements with the Philippines that will allow for more frequent rotations of American troops and joint sea and air patrols with Philippine forces in the South China Sea. The changes were seen as a way of checking China’s disputed claims to territory there, including reefs and waters belonging to the Philippines.

The Philippines and Japan have both expressed serious concern over China’s actions in the South China Sea at a regional meeting of Asian leaders in Laos. Hours before leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met China’s Premier Li Keqiang at the summit in Vientiane on Wednesday, the Philippines released photos purportedly showing Chinese […]

Investigators have discovered mortar round shrapnel and the remnants of an IED in the preliminary findings of the post-blast analysis from the scene of the explosion. Bunching munitions together, such as mortar round, and tying them together, most typically on an electrical circuit/initiation system, and in conjunction with land mines, artillery shells, and/or homemade explosives (HME), such as pentaerythritol tetranitrate, more commonly referred to as PETN.

A few years ago, relatively early on in the war against ISIS, I was smuggled into Northern Syria along a PKK re-supply route.  Taking a small inflatable boat across the river which acted as the border between Syria and Iraq, my first stop in the Kurdish held areas of Syria (known as Rojava) was a […]

They’re holding a gun but they haven’t put the bullet in it yet, and they’re saying that’s not threatening.

The Russian occupying authorities suspended, for unknown reasons, the handling of citizens and vehicles crossing the administrative border with Crimea.