US Defense Secretary Mark Esper/ Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu © REUTERS/Christian Hartmann; Sputnik/Alexey Druzhinin US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper called his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu on Monday, as US President Donald Trump announced the US pullout from northeastern Syria. No details of the call were given by either side. Pentagon’s outreach comes amid a…
The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea and is geographically separate from the rest of Russia, practically bristles with S-300 and S-400 air-defense missiles, Oniks anti-ship missiles and Iskander surface-to-surface missiles. The Pentagon has a plan for destroying the defenses of Russia’s most heavily-armed European outpost, a…
The country is far from NATO’s 2% budget guideline, and its defense establishment is rife with dysfunction. The U.S. ambassador to Germany caused a stir last week by suggesting Washington could withdraw U.S. troops from Germany if Berlin continues to fall below its NATO commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. “It is actually offensive,” Richard Grenell told German media, “to assume that…
AP Photo/Mindaugas Kubis US Ambassador Richard Grenell’s renewed criticism of Berlin’s failure to spend more on defense and praising an idea to withdraw American troops from Germany has prompted a backlash in one of Washington’s key allies in Europe. The head of the left-wing party Die Linke’s parliamentary group has welcomed this idea. Member of…
The US is estimated to have around 20 nuclear warheads in Germany. A German lawmaker says the United States has to remove its nuclear weapons — presently kept in Germany— and take them to its own soil, in the event of relocating American troops from Germany to Poland. The chairman of the Left Party faction in the…
Russian aircraft and ships closely shadowed NATO vessels, says Commodore Josée Kurtz Commodore Josée Kurtz speaks to reporters during a tour of HMCS Halifax in April 2009 at the HMC dockyards in Halifax, N.S., when she was the commander of the frigate – the first woman in the Canadian military to command a warship. (Mike Dembeck/The…
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the BBC time is running out to save the key missile treaty -AFP/GETTY Time is running out to save a key nuclear missile treaty with Russia, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has told the BBC. Mr. Stoltenberg pledged a “measured, defensive” response if Russia did not come back into compliance with…
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff says he hopes other nations will soon sign up to join the effort to protect commercial traffic in Persian Gulf area Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford testifies during a House Appropriations subcommittee on budget hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 1, 2019. (Jacquelyn…
Germany and the Netherlands come together to build TEN (Tactical Edge Networking). German minister of defense Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch minister of defense Ank Bijleveld sign the TEN collaboration agreement. Image: Dutch MOD Government officials from Germany and the Netherlands have signed an agreement this week to build the first-ever joint military internet….
What does that mean for NATO? Russia? Add Germany to the ranks of the Hypersonic Missile Club. The German military has begun hypersonic weapons, according to a European defense contractor. The new missiles are a response “to threats of the concrete kind: keyword Putin’s missiles or even the new Russian tank,” Peter Heilmeier, sales manager…