A USAF F-35A flies over the Toronto waterfront on 3 Sept 2021 during the 2021 Canadian International Air Show. Proposed US legislation would limit the total quantity of F-35s that could be procured and maintained by the US military services based on O&S cost targets. (US Air Force)  The US Air Force's (USAF's) top officer supports proposed legislation that would limit the total quantity of Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs) that could be procured and maintained by the US military services based on operations and s...

Two decades have now passed since Al-Qaeda militants targeted the United States mainland on 11 September 2001. Since the attacks, the fight against transnational militant Islamism has dominated security agendas in the US, Europe, and beyond, costing the US alone over USD 5.4 trillion and claiming the lives of more than 7,000 US military personnel globally. Despite these costs, the threat from militant Islamism has persisted – and indeed proliferated – since September 2001. At this 20-year mark, Janes Terrorism & Insurgency Centre (JTIC) data...

More than three weeks after taking control of Kabul, the Taliban announced on 7 September the formation of an interim government in Afghanistan featuring some cabinet members that are on a UN sanctions list and an acting interior minister who is on the FBI's wanted list.  Heading the caretaker government as acting prime minister of the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan', which is how the country will once again be formally called, will be Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, one of the group's founding members, with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head o...

Spurred in part by the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the EU's top security policy official said the moment is approaching for the Europeans to seriously consider creating a rapid reaction intervention force – and to overhaul how they would agree to use it in future.  EU foreign and security policy chief Josep Borell (left) told journalists after an informal defence ministers meeting on 2 September that they had discussed the creation of a European rapid reaction intervention force, which Slovenian Defence Minister Matej Tonin (r...

Large wildfires have spread throughout the world in mid-2021, in part attributed to climate change and the direct and long-term risk that it poses to lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems. Tens of thousands of people have had to flee their homes and firefighters have struggled to contain outbreaks in Algeria, Canada, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Mozambique, Russia (Siberia), Turkey, and the United States.  Early warning and monitoring systems are crucial for local authorities, citizens, researchers, and media outlets to rapidly identi...

Climate change, in addition to the criminal activity of organised crime gangs (OCGs) and systemic violence in impoverished locations, continues to drive forced migration to the US and elsewhere from the Central American region. Migration from the south has dominated the political agendas of former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. The issue has driven violent protests and terrorist attacks such as the August 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in which 23 mainly Latino people were killed.  Migration continues to motiv...

More than 40 Afghan Air Force (AAF) aircraft have been flown to Uzbekistan to prevent them from falling in the hands of the Taliban after the group regain control over Afghanistan on 15 August.  The arrival of the platforms at Termez Airport in southern Uzbekistan was reported by local media on 16 August, with commercial satellite imagery of the site subsequently confirming the relocation of a significant part of the AAF's fleet. Nearly 600 Afghans were reported as being aboard the aircraft and to be seeking asylum in Uzbekistan.  An Afghan A...

The UK Royal Navy (RN) is shaping up to take on a new threat: climate change. However, do those two subjects sit well in the same sentence? In the context of ‘Global Britain' and the implied requirement to send its diesel burning ships to the new geo-strategic target of the Indo-Pacific region, the RN's reliance on fossil fuels would appear unlikely to diminish in the coming years. It has a widespread estate and an ambitious shipbuilding programme, both of which will continue to demand a high use of natural resources.  The Royal Navy is using...

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capabilities on Sentinel-1A/B (S1A/S1B) satellites operated by the European Union's Earth Observation Program – Copernicus – have been used by open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts since S1A was launched on 3 April 2014. S1B followed on 25 April 2016. SAR analysis has become increasingly popular because of social media and the ability to share findings easily among groups of like-minded OSINT analysts.  The data collected by the satellites can be freely accessed using several platforms such as Copernicus's o...

Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding highlighted recent progress on aircraft carrier   John F Kennedy  (CVN 79) on 2 August, as shipyard President Jennifer Boykin confirmed the facility was again implementing m...

Wargames (兵棋推演, bīngqí tuīyǎn) have experienced a renaissance in China, with computer wargames in particular becoming popular among university students, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), think-tanks, and scientific research institutions. Driven by the government's strategy of military-civil fusion (MCF) and to enhance national defence education among the public, a series of yearly national wargame competitions has been created. Moreover, wargames have also become a useful platform to improve the PLA's professional military education (PME),...

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group that originated in Uganda, are engaged in an Islamist insurgency in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ADF considers itself part of the Islamic State's Wilayat Wasat Afriqiyya, also commonly known as its Central Africa Province (ISCAP) and officially changed its name to the Wilayat Wasat Afriqiyya in September 2020. Subsequently, the group has grown in strength and confidence, conducting brazen attacks including the largest jail break in Beni, Nord-Kivu province,...

Video footage and imagery sourced from social media and analysed by   Janes  between 13 July and 21 July appears to show that Russia has begun to withdraw equipment from a training ground in Voronezh, close to the Ukrainian border.   The equipment, which is assessed by   Janes  to belong to the Central Military District's 41  st  Combined Arms Army, was deployed over thousands of kilometres from central Russia to Voronezh during a buildup of forces in March and April. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on 22 Apr...

South Korean Defence Minister Suh Wook has issued an apology for the military's failure to prevent a Covid-19 outbreak among personnel of the Republic of Korea Navy's (RoKN's) Cheonghae Anti-Piracy Unit during a mission in waters off eastern Africa...

The Singapore Strait recorded an increase in the number of sea robbery cases for the first six months of 2021 despite an overall improvement in the maritime security situation across Asia during the same period.  According to figures released on 16...

Japan has expressed mounting concerns over recent exercises and increased military activity carried out by Russia around the disputed southern Kuril Islands.  The Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet carried out extensive naval manoeuvres from 23–28 June a...

The Australian Antarctic Program announced on 28 June that it would undertake winter data collection to inform “the geotechnical and engineering design, delivery and construction methodology of the Davis Aerodrome project”, a plan to construct the first permanent paved runway in Antarctica. According to the statement, the mission had been approved under an Antarctic Treaty Environment Protection permit to inform a ‘Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation'.   The Australian announcement closely followed the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Tr...

The 64th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), the central policy-making body for the UN drug control system, took place on 12–19 April 2021. The session was conducted as a hybrid meeting with both online and in-person attendees in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although commemoration of the 60th and 50th anniversaries of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances respectively generated more than the usual levels of support for the UN drug control treaties, increasingly divergent vie...

The Russian Navy and the country's Aerospace Forces have launched a joint exercise in the eastern Mediterranean Sea where the UK's Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is currently located on deployment, Russian newspaper  Kommersant  report...

Images have emerged online of the Russian Border Guard Project 22460 Rubin-class patrol boat   Rasul Gamzatov  (511) with a new fixed man-portable air-defence (MANPAD) surface-to-air missile system (SAM) installed behind its AK-63...