Improved Saudi-Iran relationship has Israel nervous — about Iran, and about China
According to government sources, the Israeli Ministry of Defense paused a large arm sale to a Middle Eastern nation when the Saudi-Iranian deal was announced.
According to government sources, the Israeli Ministry of Defense paused a large arm sale to a Middle Eastern nation when the Saudi-Iranian deal was announced.
“[It] is an incremental path. There is no end state,” according to MDA chief Vice Adm. Jon Hill, who noted the military would "beautify" incoming platforms to make them more palatable to locals.
It's been a whirlwind of a year — and the defense establishment has plenty of thoughts on how it's unfolded and what might come next.
The diplomatic rapprochement may signal a win for regional stability and for Beijing, but it’s too early to tell what will actually change on the ground, experts told Breaking Defense.
Despite the previous Conservative Party government pledging to increase military spending to 3 percent GDP by 2030, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stopped short of making any such commitment and has deferred a new defense spending review until after 2025.
A joint statement announcing historic resumption of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran credited "the noble initiative" of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
"Well, there's one country in the region that's undergone the biggest peacetime militarization since the Second World War and that's the People's Republic of China," said Australian Shadow Defense Minister Andrew Hastie. "So they can make comments like they have, but it's kind of ironic given what they're doing with their military."
US Indo-Pacific Command's independent budget request is roughly $4 billion more than what it received last fiscal year.
China's growing number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are "designed to find, fix, track and target US forces and allied forces. They're designed to help kill sailors, airmen, soldiers, and Marines," said Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, head of the Space Force's Indo-Pacific component command.
The company is using private capital to build its hunter satellite, called Jackal, to shadow adversary satellites seeking to evade US tracking.
In a new report, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says China is outpacing the US in 37 out of 44 critical technology research areas.
Chinese counterparts are declining to engage even on working-level dialogues, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner, raising greater fears that misinterpretation could spark conflict.
The new satellites will be integrated into SDA's first operationally capable set of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, called "Tranche 1," the SDA spokesperson explained.
Iran has consistently supplied Russia with Shahed-136 loitering munitions for strike missions but a recent UK intelligence update indicated that there have not been any reports of “one way attack” UAV’s being used in Ukraine since February 15.
In an excerpt from "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," Paul Scharre writes about how China became the world's leading exporter of digital authoritarianism.