TRENDING
Caitlin Foster

President threatens Turkey's economy if it kills Kurds

President Donald Trump took to Twitter Jan. 13, 2019, in an effort to reassure Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State in Syria that the US still has their backs.

"Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms," Trump tweeted. "Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone....."

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING
Alex Lockie

Putin buys WWII tanks for propaganda boost after T-14 program fails

Russia put on an intimidating show of force in 2015 by unveiling the T-14 Armata main battle tank, which represented a bold new design billed as an unstoppable NATO tank killer.

Russia was to make and field 2,300 T-14s by 2025, but as of 2019 only has some 100 on order and less than two dozen operating in tests, The Diplomat reports.

Four years later, Russia has scrapped plans to reproduce the tank that sputtered and stalled in Moscow's Red Square in the 2015 Victory Day parade, and found an older tank to do its job instead.

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING
Danita Catherine Burke

Why the new Arctic ‘Cold War’ is a dangerous myth

All too often the Arctic region is portrayed as an area on the cusp of military crisis. This is an easy narrative to sell; it harks back to the Cold War. Potent imagery persists of submarines trolling silently beneath the Arctic ice and nuclear ballistic missiles pointed across the North Pole.

During the height of the standoff between NATO and the USSR, the world feared a barrage of nuclear warheads streaming in from the frozen north – and this experience has imprinted on the collective imagination and created distinct ideas about the region. This fear, for example, motivated from the 1950s the construction of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Lines, a system of radar stations across the northern US (Alaska), Canada, and Greenland. The DEW Lines were meant to give the US and its NATO allies an early warning of an incoming Soviet nuclear strike.

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING
Jon Micheal Connor

How forensics experts help in counterinsurgency warfare

A relatively new weapon to combat the enemy is being used in Afghanistan and Southwest Asia. It's been around a little more than a decade and fits into the counterinsurgency warfare necessity of being able to identify who the enemy is by person versus just identifying an enemy organization.

The Afghanistan Captured Material Exploitation Laboratory is aiding combat commanders in their need to know who is building and setting off the enemy's choice weapon — Improvised Explosive Devices. With this positive identification of enemy personnel, coalition units working within NATO's Resolute Support mission can then hunt down the enemy for detention or destroy if need be.

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING
Christopher Woody

Navy's new strategy in Europe is allegedly confusing Russia

The National Defense Strategy document released in January 2018 emphasized dynamic force employment as a method to maintain the US Navy's combat capabilities while changing the duration and intensity of its deployments.

It was intended to be "strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable."

According to Adm. James Foggo, head of US naval forces in Europe and Africa and the chief of NATO's Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, it's already working — leaving Russia guessing about what the Navy is doing.

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING
Staff Sgt. Sinthia Rosario

Paratroopers jump with Santa Claus and gift presents to kids

U.S., NATO ally, and partner paratroopers participated in the 5th Quartermaster Theater Aerial Delivery Company's Operation Toy Drop Dec. 11-14, 2018.

Operation Toy Drop is an annual multi-national training event. It entails sharing airborne operations, tactics, techniques and procedures, strengthening relationships with local communities and with NATO allies and partners as well as developing interoperability.

"It's so much fun seeing other nations get in on our training and us to get on their training to see how they operate with these airborne operations, to see how we operate," said Sgt. Kyle D. Shields, a parachute rigger with the 5th Quartermaster, Theater Aerial Delivery Company, 16th Special Troops Battalion, 16th Sustainment Brigade.

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING

Lithuania arrests its own citizens suspected of spying for Russia

Several Lithuanians have been arrested and charged with spying for Russia, the Baltic state's chief prosecutor said, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow.

One of the suspects is Algirdas Paleckis, a politician who is known for pro-Russian views and has questioned Lithuania's membership of NATO and the European Union, Prosecutor-General Evaldas Pasilis said on Dec. 19, 2018.

Pasilis did not specify how many people were arrested.

Keep reading... Show less
TRENDING

Russia might be preparing to invade Ukraine right now

The Russian military is massing troops at its border with Ukraine, says Ukrainian and U.S. military intelligence agencies. The buildup includes more than 300 tanks and the support troops necessary to move those tanks, all within five miles of entering Ukrainian territory. It's the latest in a series of Russian provocations aimed at seizing Ukrainian assets.

Keep reading... Show less
MILITARY CULTURE

In a war with Russia, both sides could focus on this 60-mile stretch

The Suwalki Gap is the border between Poland and Lithuania that is anchored on one side by the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and a close ally of Russia, Belarus, on the other end. If Russia quickly rushes across the gap, it could cut three NATO countries off from the rest of the alliance.

There are a number of potential vulnerabilities in NATO territory if the Cold War ever goes live, but three countries are especially scared of an attack to close the Suwalki Gap, a spot where NATO territory is only 60 miles wide with Belarus on one side, Russia's Kaliningrad Enclave on the other, and relatively flat ground with little forest or natural defenses in the middle.

Keep reading... Show less