Current Events in Europe

From Defense Aerospace Rafale International Moves A Step Forward In Greece By Reinforcing Its Presence in Athens (Source: Rafale International; issued March 4, 2008) Today, March 4 2008, Mr. Eric Trappier Rafale International Managing Director has inaugurated the Rafale International office, located 80-88 Syngrou Avenue, 117 41 Athens in presence of H. E. Mr Christophe Farnaud, Ambassador of France in Greece, during a ceremony held at the French Embassy. Rafale International’s three partners have been supplying aircraft to Greece since 1974, with the purchase of 40 Mirage F1 at first, followed by the signature in 1985 of the TALOS contract for the acquisiti…

From DefenseNews Russian Navy to Start Sorties in Atlantic-Tass REUTERS, MOSCOW Russia’s navy said on Wednesday it would start sorties in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, the latest move by an increasingly assertive Moscow to demonstrate its military might. “The aim of the sorties is to ensure a naval presence in tactically important regions of the world ocean,” Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told President Vladimir Putin, according to a transcript of the meeting supplied by the Kremlin. Buoyed by huge oil revenues, Russia under Putin has been boosting military spending while at the same time using diplomacy to broaden Moscow’s influence. Earlier …

From Defense Aerospace Italy Awards Order for Four FREMM Frigates (Source: compiled by defense-aerospace.com; posted Feb. 1, 2008) PARIS --- The Italian Ministry of Defense has signed a contract for the second batch of the FREMM multi-mission frigate program it is developing jointly with France. No value has been provided for this contract, which covers four additional ships. The contract was awarded to OCCAR, the European Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation, which is acting as the program’s joint executive, Italian Defense Undersecretary Giovanni Lorenzo Forcieri told reporters during a Jan. 31 media event in La Spezia. This contract brings the tot…

From DefenseNews Posted 01/10/08 15:27 U.K. May Delay Carrier 18 Months By ANDREW CHUTER LONDON — British defense officials are considering delaying the Royal Navy’s 3.9 billion pound ($7.7 billion) program to build two aircraft carriers for up to 18 months or longer to help plug a yawning hole in the defense budget. Partners in the BAE Systems-led alliance set up to deliver the 65,000-ton carrier have been asked to look at ways of adjusting the spending profile on the program to help overcome cash shortages at the MoD over the next three years. Britain is cooperating with France to design the carriers, which will be the Royal Navy’s largest warships ever. “O…

From Aviation Week ARES Blog NATO's Defense Spending in Real Terms Posted by Joris Janssen Lok at 1/10/2008 4:23 AM The figures on NATO nations' 2007 defense expenditures, released by NATO, show dramatic differences in how much each nation contributes to the North Atlantic Alliance (see also related post). In real terms, current prices and current U.S. dollar/local currency exchange rates, NATO's 26 countries in 2007 spent this on defense: U.S.: $545.3 billion, that's roughly $45,500 per head of the population. Figure out for yourself what kind of car you can buy for that kind of money. U.S. military personnel number more than 1.3 million. U.K.: $63.…

From Russia Today December 20, 2007, 10:51 Ssshhh! Guess who's 90 today! KGB is the Russian abbreviation for Committee for State Security, the organisation serving as the Soviet Union's premier security agency, secret police and intelligence agency. It is now known as the FSB (Federal Security Service) and is marking 90 years since its foundation. The first incarnation of the KGB, the Cheka, was established on December 20, 1917. It was headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky. At first there were only 23 employees. Amongst its first objectives was to stop the looting of wine cellars and profiteering - but it did not stay that way. “Secret services are necessary, …

From Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report - Russia: Kosovo and the Asymmetry of Perceptions 12.18.2007 Russia: Kosovo and the Asymmetry of Perceptions By George Friedman Kosovo appears to be an archaic topic. The Yugoslavian question was a 1990s issue, while the Kosovo issue has appeared to be one of those conflicts that never quite goes away but isn't regarded very seriously by the international community. You hear about it but you don't care about it. However, Kosovo is getting very serious again. The United States and Europe appear committed to making Kosovo, now a province of Serbia, an independent state. Of course, Serbia opposes this, but more…

From Defence Talk Russia walks away from CFE arms treaty Agence France-Presse | Dec 13, 2007 MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday walked out of a key Cold War treaty setting limits on troops and weapons across Europe, but promised there were no immediate plans for a major military build-up. Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty was suspended from midnight in Moscow (2100 GMT Tuesday), the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Such a step has been caused by the exceptional circumstances connected to the content of the treaty which concern the security of Russia and demand that we take immediate measures," the ministry sta…

Report: Brit navy ill-equipped for a major war The Associated Press Posted : Sunday Dec 2, 2007 11:37:19 EST LONDON — Britain’s navy is no longer equipped to fight a major war because of years of underfunding and cutbacks, a newspaper said Sunday, quoting what it described as a leaked Ministry of Defense report. The Sunday Telegraph said the navy would have to struggle even to repeat its role in the Iraq war and is “far more vulnerable to unexpected shocks” because of its “under-resourced” fleet of “aging and operationally defective ships.” The paper said the report was ordered by Defense Secretary Des Browne and concludes: “The current material state of …

Here's a video that shows operations at F21 Wing at Lulea-Kallax Air Base in northern Sweden. Link

From DefenseNews Posted 11/28/07 15:54 Norway Notes Raised Russian Submarine, Air Activity By GERARD O’DWYER, HELSINKI The second half of 2007 has seen an increase in submarine activity out of Russia’s Northern Fleet Base (NFB) in Murmansk, according to fresh “tracking” reports produced by the Norway Armed Forces’ Military Intelligence Unit (MIU) for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) The increase in submarine activity mirrors a rise in scheduled and unflagged exercises by Russian air Force in the North Atlantic and off Norway’s western coast, the report observes. However, the report notes that Norway’s territorial waters and airspace have not been violated by the i…

From Defense Aerospace Diamond Cuts the Waves (Source: UK Ministry of Defence; issued Nov. 27, 2007) The Royal Navy's newest and most powerful Type 45 destroyer - Diamond - was launched today, Tuesday 27 November 2007, from BAE's shipyard at Govan, on the River Clyde. Thousands of local people turned out for the launch, including many local schoolchildren. The Type 45 destroyers are the larger and more powerful replacement for the existing Type 42s. The destroyer will carry the world-leading PAAMS system (Principal Anti-Air Missile System) which is capable of defending a Type 45 and ships in its company from multiple attacks by the most sophisticated anti-s…

British nukes were protected by bike locks By Meirion Jones Newsnight producer BBC News Newsnight has discovered that until the early days of the Blair government the RAF's nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key. Inserting a key into a nuclear device There was no other security on the Bomb itself. While American and Russian weapons were protected by tamper-proof combination locks which could only be released if the correct code was transmitted, Britain relied on a simpler technology. The Dr Strangelove scenario The British military resisted Whitehall proposals to fit bombs with Permissive Action Links - or PALs - which would prev…

From Jane's Russia commissions first Project 20380 corvette By Richard Scott 20 November 2007 The first Project 20380 multirole corvette for the Russian Federation Navy was commissioned on 14 November after completing contractor's sea trials and state acceptance tests. Named Steregushchiy, the 2,200-tonne-displacement ship is the first of a planned class of up to 20 ships. A further four units of the class are currently in build. Designed by the St Petersburg-based Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau, the Project 20380 corvette is intended to operate in coastal waters, reflecting the Russian Federation Navy's current emphasis on the protection and securit…

From DefenseNews Posted 10/23/07 09:03 Russia to Upgrade TU-95 Bomber AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, MOSCOW Russia has begun a "serious modernization" of its TU-95 strategic bomber, a workhorse of the Soviet and Russian air forces for over 50 years, the plane’s design bureau said Oct. 23, according to Interfax. The upgrade of the TU-95 MS, the Russian equivalent of the U.S. B-52 bomber, will include artificial intelligence technology, the news agency cited the president of the Tupolev design bureau, Igor Shevchuk, as saying. British and Norwegian fighter jets were scrambled this summer after TU-95 bombers were spotted close to Norwegian airspace, part of increasi…

From Stratfor GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT 10.16.2007 The Russia Problem By Peter Zeihan For the past several days, high-level Russian and American policymakers, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Russian President Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, Sergei Ivanov, have been meeting in Moscow to discuss the grand scope of U.S.-Russian relations. These talks would be of critical importance to both countries under any circumstances, as they center on the network of treaties that have governed Europe since the closing days of the Cold War. Against the backdrop of the Iraq war, however, they have taken …

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From Navy Times CV costs could halve U.K. fleet, papers say By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Posted : Monday Oct 1, 2007 12:45:34 EDT The expense of adding two new planned aircraft carriers may cost the Royal Navy almost half of the other ships in its fleet, British newspapers reported Sunday. Citing an internal communique leaked from within the U.K. Ministry of Defence, The Times newspaper of London reported that spending on the two new 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth-class flattops might force the admiralty to decommission five other warships by April 2008, and further cut British warships in the coming decades. London’s The Telegraph newspaper reported that draw…

From RIA Novosti Russia to boost Ground Forces air defense - commander 15:59 | 21/ 09/ 2007 MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian army will adopt a modernized version of the Tor-M air defense system in 2008, the Ground Forces press service said Friday. The Tor-M (NATO reporting name SA-15 Gauntlet) is a low to medium-altitude, short-range surface-to-air missile system designed for intercepting aircraft, cruise missiles, precision guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic targets. "More than 50% of air defense systems in service with the Ground Forces are outdated," the press service quoted Colonel General Nikolai Frolov, commande…

From Aviation Week Russia Trumpets Conventional ''Nuke,'' With More Smoke Than Fire Sep 20, 2007 By David A. Fulghum, Amy Butler and Douglas Barrie Video of Russia's "Father of All Bombs" suggests that the design doesn't quite meet Moscow's claims of being the equivalent of a nuclear weapon without the radiation, nor that it was dropped from a high-speed bomber. And while Russia is showcasing its massive new conventional bomb, the United States is continuing its focus on developing smaller weapons that create less collateral damage. The weapon appears to be considerably more powerful than the U.S. built MOAB, but without the flexibility of launch from a fast…