Every Friday, The Diplomat probes the web to find some of the best defense articles from the week articles from the week.
Here is our top ones this week. Have we missed something you think should be included? Want to share an important article with other readers? Please submit your links in the comment box below! Happy Friday!
After stepping up defense ties with Japan last week, India looks to expand its defense cooperation with Thailand and Australia during Defense Minister A.K. Antony’s trip to those countries this week. Defense News has the story.
Russia tested a new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) this week that Moscow is call its “missile defense killer.” Plus, Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces will hold 200 tests over the next 6 months.
In the first in a series of interviews with defense policymakers on important national security issues, Real Clear Defense has a probing interview with U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA). Forbes is brutally honest in the interview stating, “To be frank, I am afraid the U.S. will not be able to achieve a significant military ‘rebalance’ to the Asia-Pacific now…. given the severe defense budget reductions under sequestration.” Echoing the Naval Diplomat, Forbes said overall mil-to-mil ties between the U.S. and Chinese militaries could be beneficial, but warns that the U.S. should be “wary of engagement with China (especially military exercises) when it is done solely for its own sake.” James Brown at the Lowy Interpreter applauds the interview and Forbes, asking “when was the last time you saw an Australian politician give such a frank and detailed interview on questions of military strategy?”
The Pentagon attempts to define AirSea Battle concept in a new document released this week. The report reads, “ASB is a limited objective concept that describes what is necessary for the joint force to sufficiently shape A2/AD environments to enable concurrent or follow-on power projection operations. The ASB Concept seeks to ensure freedom of action in the global commons and is intended to assure allies and deter potential adversaries.” The real question now is whether this was enough to sell ASB to the allies needed to execute it in the Pacific theatre?
India is indigenously producing guided bombs that will allow fighter jets to strike with greater precision and beyond their actual range. "We are developing glide bombs which can be directed towards their intended targets using guidance mechanisms after being dropped from aircraft of the IAF," outgoing DRDO chief VK Saraswat said in an interview, the Economic Times reported. He added, “"Such a capability will allow the IAF pilots to drop the bombs at their intended targets from stand-off distances as the glide capabilities will help in enhancing the range of the bombs." Already two tests have been carried out.
Taiwan is deploying a powerful multiple-launch rocket system, called Ray Ting 2000 or "Thunder 2000," on an offshore island to guard against any amphibious landing by China, AFP reports.
In the stuff of Beltway dreams (or nightmares), many top American defense analysts from nine separate think tanks spanning the ideological spectrum came together to co-sign a letter to Congress on the defense budget. Breaking Defense reports that disagreeing on how reforms should proceed, the think tankers come to a consensus on the three most crucial issues for Congress to address in reducing the defense budget, lest they “gradually consume the defense budget from within.” The three issues are closing excess bases, reducing the Pentagon’s civilian workforce, and reforming military compensation. Fortunately, in the truest sense of U.S. egalitarianism, Congress appears to be ready to ignore the wishes of these experts just as they would every other American.