Author: Defenceline Webdesk

Language politics – and the politics of language – are a hot topic across much of Central Asia. Stemming largely from the 70-year Soviet era, Russian remains a veritable lingua franca across the Central Asian region, including in Kyrgyzstan. In recent years, however, there has been a surge in attention to the role and development of Central Asia’s local languages, and heated debates about the role of Russian (and Russia) in Central Asian societies.  But those debates, often argued in absolutist terms, fail to wrestle with the nuanced reality of Central Asian’s multilingualism. “From my perspective, multilingualism is not a…

Erfan Fard, RealClearDefense The Fatwa Against Trump and Netanyahu Will Not Delay the Fall of Tehran Source link

WASHINGTON — The governments of Japan and Vietnam revealed this week that they’re in discussions to potentially launch a joint project to build new fast landing vessels. The defense chiefs for both nations met in Japan where they “agreed to commence discussions toward realizing concrete cooperation, including the possibility of the joint development and production of fast landing craft,” according to a readout from the Japanese Ministry of Defense published Wednesday. “They also concurred on further strengthening these efforts by promoting defense industrial cooperation among other areas,” the readout said. Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi offered a few — but…

After launching its 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP) in March, the Chinese government has been publishing sectoral plans, including the 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Beautiful China and the 15th Five-Year Plan for a New-type Energy System by the end of June. Apart from the domestic build-out of nuclear energy, both plans demonstrate China’s ambition to become a global leader in nuclear energy governance and reactor exports.  Almost simultaneously, the United States, Japan, and South Korea announced a new Memorandum of Cooperation at the NATO Summit to accelerate the deployment of small modular reactors (SMRs) in third countries, beginning with…

Bruce Allen Lubbering, RealClearDefense Credible deterrence against a regional threat requires a different philosophy Source link

The collapse of negotiations between the US and Iran can be traced to a single point of failure: the inability of the US military to keep the Strait of Hormuz open in the face of Iranian opposition.  The challenge has been long anticipated. The Navy has been thinking about it for 45 years, ever since it escorted tankers through the Persian Gulf in the 1980s and successfully thwarted Iranian efforts to control traffic. As a junior Marine officer, I participated in amphibious planning exercises to capture islands in the Strait. Yet, when the moment came for the Navy to implement…

According to North Korea’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Jo Yong Won, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and a member of the Presidium of its Political Bureau, held talks with Wang Huning, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Central Committee of China’s ruling Communist Party, at the Pyongyang Assembly Hall on July 15. “The ever-changing present international political situation has required the two countries to further strengthen the militant unity, support and solidarity and steadily intensify and develop the friendly and cooperation relations for the victorious advance of the common…

NextGenDefense NGSRI uses a Command Launch Assembly, precision-optics seeker, and solid rocket motor for engagements against simulated airborne threats. Source link

WASHINGTON ― The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) wants to loft a prototype satellite to low Earth orbit for beaming electrical power, both to other spacecraft and to the ground, within the next several years, according to a new solicitation to prospective commercial vendors. Space power beaming (SPB) “could enable a number of applications of interest to the Department of War such as edge computing, in-space manufacturing, and power delivery to forward operating locations and unmanned systems,” explained DIU’s “Commercial Solutions Opening” announcement, using the Department of Defense’s secondary name. DIU notes that while ultimately envisioned as a “multi-orbit” capability extending…

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has described the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) Railway project as “not just a transport corridor, but an important strategic bridge connecting the countries of the East and West.” In 2024, then-Chair of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Japarov referred to it as “a road of life.” The CKU Railway project, connecting Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang to Andijan in Uzbekistan via Kyrgyzstan, has been under discussion for more than 20 years, with progress sluggish due to a range of complicating factors. While the economic, infrastructure, and political benefits are clear for all three states, challenges to the…