Israel’s Prime Minister Designate Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to form a government any day now, but his right-far right coalition still hasn’t given up courting a broader membership. The target right now is the center-left Labor Party led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak has reportedly been offered the opportunity to keep his ministership, and [...]
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced today that the army will phase out the so-called “stop-loss” program, which is being used to keep around 13,000 people in the military against their will, by 2011. “To hold them against their will … is just not the right thing to do,” Gates declared at a Pentagon news [...]
A top Russian defense official today confirmed that a contract has existed for two years to supply the high-end S-300 surface to air defensive missile system to Iran, something which has long been rumored to be the case. Russian spokesmen would not discuss the revelation but were quick to point out that the missiles had [...]
In the months since he took power, President Barack Obama has escalated the number and severity of drone attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) dramatically. Officials are reportedly no longer satisfied, however, apparently one can only kill so many Wazir tribesmen before setting their sights on bigger game. Now, top officials are urging [...]
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced today that his nation would begin a “large-scale” rearmament campaign for both its army and navy starting in 2011 in response to persisting threats to the nation’s security. Pointing to NATO’s continued expansion and the increasing amount of military forces massing along Russia’s western borders. Medvedev warned of “a serious [...]
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell tried to play up the seriousness of the alleged Iranian drone shot down by US forces inside Iraqi airspace, declaring it to be one of “multiple methods of destabilizing the government in Iraq, of providing extremist groups with the means to attack our forces and Iraqi security forces.” The sentiment was [...]
Talks between Israel’s outgoing Kadima government and Hamas appear to have fallen through, and there will be no prisoner swap to free jailed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in return for hundreds of Hamas detainees. Official rhetoric which emphasized the enormous value of the captured soldier and the relatively little value placed on the average detainee [...]
The reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftkhar Muhammad Chaudhry yesterday brought an end to the government’s imposition of emergency rule over much of the nation and turned massive protests into celebrations in short order. But what Pakistani officials have been trumpeting as cooler heads prevailing may in fact have been brought about by military chief General [...]
Despite the growing harm being done to US-Russian relations by the proposed US missile defense system in Poland, Obama Administration officials maintain that it is vital to defend against the Iranian “threat.” But in addition to having cost over $144 billion since 1985, a growing number of reports put into doubt whether the system would [...]
US forces attacked and shot down an Iranian drone last month just inside the Iraqi border. The drone was in Iraqi air space for over an hour before the attack, but was still less than 8 miles into Iraqi territory. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros declared that “this was not an accident on the [...]
