Link-O-Rama: Arms Edition

Apologies and Excuses

So much for resolutions! (Link) A bold prediction about my future blogging awesomeness followed by 1 post in 5 months is not a stellar beginning.  In my defense, the past 5 months have been as busy as any in my life.  These are the highlights of the past five months:

• The end of the semester
• chairing our graduate admissions committee
• A trip to the US to sit on a hiring committee
• A trip to the US a week later to attend a seminar at Brigham Young University
• Graduation
• A trip to Poland for a conference
• A vacation to the US for 5 weeks to visit family
• The return to Astana to start the new semester with a new role: acting department chairIn addition to the normal activities of getting ready for the semester (preparation of syllabi, courses, etc) I have had the new administrative tasks associated with my new position.  I also had an article accepted for publication that needed work to be ready for the publisher.  I have also been scrambling to put together my paper for the American Political Science Association Meeting (APSA) which is next week. 

I now have a better understanding of the wisdom of my PhD advisers who emphasized that life after graduate school was more busy.  The pressures and activities are a bit different, but it is definitely busy.

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Arms Links

With the preamble over, I am now going to post links to articles about arms.  I am doing this in conjunction with my PLS455/555 Politics of Arms in International Relations course at Nazarbayev University. I thought this would be a good resource for my students as they begin their case study assignments for the course. It is also a good way for me to organize these links and resources and to put together some initial thoughts.  In this edition I will keep my comments brief. I would like to do this more regularly and add more context and analysis. 

F-35

• Australia drops out of F-35 program. Large-scale weapons system collaboration is hard! Link
• A good roundup of lots of arms news.  News on Russian Sukhoi fighter jets, and the ongoing saga of the F-35 fighter. Link
• F-35B not doing well in carrier testing and certification. Link

Mistrel

• France returns Russia's money for the Mistrel.  This is a great example of the politicization of arms transfers. It's an interesting case of Russia importing (Russia is not a major arms importer) and being denied a weapon system that it really wanted. Link
• France needs to sell the Mistrels it is not selling to Russia.  That will prove very difficult. Link

Russian Arms and Navy

• Russia to develop a new "Doomsday" aircraft command center. Link
•  Russian navy to begin building new destroyer - with capabilities that are very impressive and challenging to the US Naval superiority. Does this mean a comeback for the defense industry in Russia? Link
• New Russian drone design. Link
• Seven new and scary Russian weapons systems.  In this sense scary is for the West, or potential military rivals of the Russian state.  Hypersonic weapons are a new class of weapons that pose an interesting dilemma.  They are definitely weapons of the offensive, but are meant to overcome missile shield technology that rendered earlier nuclear offensive capabilities less secure. This is a demonstration of a technological arms race. Link
• Morocco to buy Russian Amur class submarine.  Why? Link
• New love for an old Bear. The TU-95 and nuclear bomber advantages. Link
• Refurbished Russian submarine with all kinds of capabilities baffles US experts. "The Russians were always more innovative at this than we were."  What also struck me about this sub is its length.  It is half the length of a US aircraft carrier.  The Russians don't mess around when it comes to submarines. Link
• Russian air to air missiles R-73 are flying off the shelves of the arms bazaars. Link
• Story about Russia's new Armata tank. Link
• Interesting video of forum on Russian naval power in the 21st century. Link
• Russia selling powerful anti-aircraft missile system to Iran.  Link

India

• Predictions of US-Russian arms competition in India.  This is an interesting field of inquiry.  India just became part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), but is also a democratic state, unlike most other members of the organization.  India has traditionally been one of Russia's biggest customers, and I have dealt with the issue of Russian-Indian arms purchases in other posts (Link, Link, Link). Will closer security cooperation cement the relationship that has been built between the two countries? Link
• India is going to be buying a lot of arms in the near to medium future. 4.7 Billion dollars is a good start. Link

US Navy and Military

• US begins work on second "Gerald R. Ford" Class of Aircraft Carrier to be named after JFK. Link
• An interesting piece on the size of the US navy.  Arguments on one side are qualitative (our fewer ships can do more than many more ships were able to do earlier.)  Arguments on the other are quantitative.  Fetishizing numbers is not good policy.  However, arguing in terms of threats faced and the ability of the naval force, as presently constituted, to respond to those threats is good policy. Questioning the definitions of threats is the next step in such an analysis.  Policy in the absence of strategy is rudderless. Link
• Russian jammers supposedly render aircraft carriers useless.  Whither the advantage of carrier groups? Link
• The US is not selling, but is deploying F-22s to Europe to ease the minds of allies.  Increased Russian air activity within the context of the Crimean and Ukrainian conflict is increasing tensions in the region. Link 
• Strong market for used US M113 Armored Personnel Carriers and its variants.  I spent a lot of time in one of these in Baghdad 2003. Link I spent more time in the Bradley, though.
• I don't understand why the US Air Force hates the A-10 so much.  I think the Army would be happy to have these aircraft. Link
• 
  

China

• China is holding a large military parade next week and is having trouble attracting western leaders: Link  and another Link

Communist China generally shies away from the vast annual demonstrations of military might that were a hallmark of the Soviet Union, normally holding such events once a decade to mark the foundation of the People's Republic. 

It has struggled to attract world-wide interest for the parade as world leaders are wary of the tone of the event, and the risk of lending it legitimacy. 

Beijing is becoming increasingly assertive in the region and regularly accuses Tokyo of failing to show sufficient contrition for Japan's 20th-century invasion of China.

Other Miscellaneous Arms Links 

• Analysis of Central Asian Military capabilities.  This should be of interest to my students. Link
• Sweden and Brazil sign a deal for Gripen fighters. The deal includes financial terms, as well as details about the licensing and production of half of the fighters in Brazil.  The jet was also modified to fit Brazil's needs.  Link
• French Deliver Rafale fighters to Egypt.  Link
• This link maybe the most interesting.  It details the problem with Pilatus aircraft that was sold to Chad by Switzerland. The aircraft is not mean to be armed or used offensively, but apparently it has been.  This has led the Swiss to pull back on other potential exports. It is interesting to see a principled stance on arms transfers. Economic theories of arms transfers would predict that Switzerland is under too much financial pressure to export in order to support its domestic manufacturing for a product that has a limited domestic market. Interesting counterexample/mini case study to think about in terms of policy-making and the complexity of arms sales as a topic. Link