Current Events in Asia-Pacific

From Defense Aerospace Government Welcomes ASPI Strategic Insights Paper -Cutting Edge: The Collins Experience (Source: Australian Department of Defence; issued Feb. 23, 2006) The Australian Strategic Policy Paper, Cutting Edge: The Collins Experience, highlights the many initiatives taken by the Howard Government over the past ten years to both reform Defence procurement and deliver a world class submarine capability to the Royal Australian Navy. Through utilising our Alliance relationship with the United States of America, reforming the way we do business in Defence Procurement and investing in local industry the Coalition Government is delivering this st…

Clash for naval power in the Asia-Pacific (USNI News)

Satellite Imagery: North Korea Expanding Uranium Production (The Diplomat, 38North)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLUhqyapKo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ5wVpf4OHc

Australia Cedes the Seas (Wall Street Journal) Nutso.

Days after the announcement, Japan loosened decades-old restrictions on defence exports, in a long-anticipated change that will allow it to further ramp up arms sales, with analysts predicting some US allies — including Australia — will increasingly turn to Tokyo for key defence equipment ... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-27/us-allies-turn-to-japan-defence-supplies-as-iran-war-drags-on/106607656?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

From DNA India French 'Rafale' aircraft out of India's MMRCA race PTI Thursday, April 16, 2009 19:14 IST New Delhi: French fighter aircraft 'Rafale' has been knocked out of India's biggest-ever military tender to purchase 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force (IAF) estimated to be worth over 10 billion dollar. Defence Ministry sources said it rejected the 'Rafale' bid from the French manufacturer D'assault after careful and cumbersome technical evaluation process that began in May last and ended in February this year. With this, the race for the mother-of-all-deals, as the MMRCA tender is described here, was reduced to fi…

China's Aircraft Carrier Heads to South China Sea (ABC News)

China's Main Mission: South China Sea, Not Syria (The National Interest)

From Jane's Defence Weekly 19 April 2007 China marches forward By Timothy Hu The regeneration of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is shifting into higher gear as it takes delivery of a new generation of home-grown arms and steps up the development of sophisticated asymmetric technologies designed to thwart more advanced adversaries. Along with the continuing importation of Russian weapons, improved training and rising levels of professionalism, China is now firmly on track to become a credible regional military power. An array of new indigenous weapon platforms has been unveiled in the past year that is at least a generation ahead of the PLA's …

From DefenseNews [excerpt]

From Defense Aerospace [excerpt]

U.S. Deploys Sea-based Radar Amid North Korea Crisis (DefenseNews)

Global Security

Honolulu Advertiser April 18, 2007 Indonesia, U.S. Join Forces In Exercise By William Cole, Advertiser Military Writer About 80 U.S. soldiers are in Indonesia, including some Hawai'i National Guard members, for what is being described as "opening a new chapter" between the U.S. and Indonesian armies. Garuda Shield 2007 in West Java represents the resumption of brigade-level, army-to-army exercises after U.S. military ties with Indonesia were cut by the Clinton administration in 1999. The U.S. broke off ties after troops backed by the Indonesian government used deadly force to try to suppress East Timor's ultimately successful quest for independence. …

From AOL Defense [excerpt]

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress (pdf, CRS, via USNI News)

From Defense Aerospace Government Approves First Stage of Amphib Ships Project (Source: Australian Department of Defence; issued Aug. 11, 2005) The Federal Government has approved the first stage of the $2 billion Amphibious Ships project which will provide Navy with a world class capability to deploy land forces on operations. Defence Minister Robert Hill said the project will provide Navy with two new amphibious ships to be used on operations such as combat operations, regional disaster relief, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping and peace monitoring, and assistance to policing or military operations. Australian shipbuilders will be invited to tender for…

Lost At Sea By Robert D. Kaplan THE ultimate strategic effect of the Iraq war has been to hasten the arrival of the Asian Century. While the American government has been occupied in Mesopotamia, and our European allies continue to starve their defense programs, Asian militaries — in particular those of China, India, Japan and South Korea — have been quietly modernizing and in some cases enlarging. Asian dynamism is now military as well as economic. The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years down the road, according to the security analysts at the …

From Jane's Indian BMD shield could be in service by 2011 By Rahul Bedi 17 March 2009 A third successful test-firing of India's new ballistic missile defence (BMD) system in early March has given Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officials the confidence to claim that the system will offer an initial operating capability by 2011. They told Jane's that the BMD system would be declared operational after six more test-firings, including an integrated trial in which two interceptors will be launched at an incoming ballistic missile: one to destroy it at an altitude of 40 km and the other to annihilate falling debris at a height of 15 km. Integ…