Agnes Helou is Breaking Defense's Middle East Bureau Chief, with close to a decade of experience in covering regional defense and strategic topics. She was the managing Editor of Security and Defense Arabia, an Arabic language defense website and magazine, and covered the Middle East and North Africa defense and security topics for Defense News for three years. Her reporting expertise covers the Gulf, North Africa, Middle East and Southern Europe.
Agnes has a master’s degree and is pursuing her PhD in media economics from the Doctoral School of Literature, Humanities & Social Sciences in Lebanon. Her interests include artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, air defense, maritime and border security regional strategic issues.
Analysts told Breaking Defense there might be a couple reasons firms that are going big in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America won’t be in Washington next week.
If the US cuts aid, Egyptian authorities may have to either attempt to assuage the human rights concerns — or look elsewhere for some or all of the $1.3 billion in annual military funding it currently receives from Washington.
EDGE, a conglomerate of more than 25 subsidiaries, is looking to Brazil as entry into a “niche region that has the ambitions to build up their militaries but don’t face pressing military threats,” one analyst said.
The integrated USV system is meant to demonstrate command and control capabilities, and provide marine security features including situational awareness and automatic threat detection.
The Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement promotes deterrence and more military integration, but Bahrain likely wanted more, one analyst said.
The combination of a swarming drone launched from a ground robot could be attractive to European militaries who are currently building up their ground forces, analyst Ryan Bohl told Breaking Defense.
Both task forces are meant to boost security in the region, and one specifically patrols a key waterway that’s been the site of what the US called Iranian maritime aggression.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said that while the Gulf nation “welcomes” cooperation with any country, it won’t come at the expense of relationships with another.
The Emirati conglomerate is “trying to find a niche region that has the ambitions to build up their militaries but don’t face pressing military threats,” analyst Ryan Bohl told Breaking Defense.
This week senior US official Jake Sullivan said no announcement was “imminent,” and experts told Breaking Defense several real obstacles remain in the diplomatic path.
The Mohajer-10 is purportedly an upgraded version of Mohajer-6 drone, though an analyst told Breaking Defense it’s difficult to know its capabilities before it sees combat.
“Since these boats have limited capabilities to navigate in difficult weather conditions, the Navy has a plan to get large-sized patrol boats that can navigate in difficult weather conditions, and have greater firepower,” the head of Lebanon’s navy told Breaking Defense.
