Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Gellerj Source- The Diplomat Author- Benjamin David Baker South Korea is going indigenous in its attempt to upgrade its missile defense capabilities. In 2006, the country announced that it would create the Korean Air and Missile Defense System (KAMD), an integrated air-land-sea structure for the detection and destruction of incoming North Korean missiles, including nuclear short-range ballistic missiles. The hardware involved in KAMD currently consists mostly of U.S. and Israeli platforms. The U.S.-designed Patroit PAC-2 and 3, supported by the Israeli EL/M-2080 Green Pine radar, make up the mainstay of the South Korean land-based anti-missile arsenal.  At sea, the Republic of Korea Navy’s (ROKN) Sejeong the Great-class frigates and the Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin-class destroyers are equipped with the U.S. SM-2 Block IIIA/B missiles and AN/SPY-1 radar. That might change. Seoul is set to complement the seaborne SM-2 with an i

USS Carl Vinson ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar The U.S. Navy is struggling to meet its worldwide commitments with only ten aircraft carriers in the fleet. The service has been down to ten flattops ever since USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was retired in December 2012. The Navy will only return to eleven ships once USS Gerald R. Ford is commissioned in 2016, but that vessel won’t be ready for deployment until 2021. But the law requires the Navy to operate a minimum of eleven carriers. The service is operating under a temporary exemption that allows it operate only ten vessels. But because the Navy is struggling to meet requirements with the current number of operational carriers, Congressman Mike Conaway (R-Texas) has introduced legislation to that would require the service to maintain a fleet of no less than twelve carriers. The law used to require the Navy to operate twelve flattops until the last

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons An open letter: In recent days, it has become quite a fashion for all those "intellectuals" to return the awards that they have won stating the state of the intolerance in the country. This left me thinking as to propriety of the actions of these so called intellectuals.  The reason that is stated is the fact that there are increasing intolerance in the country. But the moot question is " has anything new happened since the new government in the centre led by Modi taken over. If you talk about those deaths in some states, why is that you are not blaming the state government who is responsible for the law and order of the concerned state? Why blame the centre who does not have any control over the security scenario in these states? Why not ask the chief ministers of these states as to why they failed to protect the citizens? The moot question that keeps lingering in my mind is why you are not crying when a soldier lays do

OSA class missile boat (Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Military) Source- Russia & India Interest Author- Rakesh Krishnan Simha Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was arguably the greatest naval strategist of the 20th century. In his book, ‘The Sea Power of the State’, the man who transformed the Russian Navy into a global force, wrote: “Naval warfare aimed directly against land targets will play an ever greater part in any future major conflict.” On the night of October 5, four Russian missile boats with a displacement of a mere 1000 tons each started raining down cruise missiles down the throats of ISIS and US-backed terror groups. Flying at treetop level over a distance of 2600 km through Iran and Iraq, and avoiding populated areas, the missiles slammed into terrorist hideouts without warning. The precision strikes left the US and its allies shocked, rattled and envious. Many observers couldn’t begin to fathom how these tiny ships could be so devastat

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Department of Defense Source- The National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar The United States has built many great fighters over the years. The P-51 Mustang, the F4U Corsair, F-86 Sabre, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-22 are among the best warplanes this country has ever produced. This article is not about those machines. There have been plenty of times when American ingenuity has fallen flat on its face. This article is about the dregs of U.S. warplane designs—the worst of the worst. But from each of these failures, we can learn something and make sure it never happens again. It’s only a failure of you don’t learn something from it. Bell P-59 Airacomet: Bell’s P-59 Aircomet was America’s first attempt at building a jet fighter. However, compared to its British and German contemporaries—the Gloster Meteor and the Messerschmitt Me 262—the P-59 was an abysmal failure. In fact, during tests against Lo

Russian S-400 Missile ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Соколрус) Source- The Diplomat Author- Ankit Panda India has agreed to procure Russia’s advanced S-400 Triumf surface-to-air anti-ballistic missile system in a deal valued at around $10 billion dollars. Once completed, the S-400 deal could represent the largest one ever between New Delhi and Moscow and a major coup for Russia, which has sought to sell its S-400s across the world. According to Indian state media, the S-400 deal was agreed to between Indian Defese Minister Manohar Parrikar and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu during a meeting of a high-level bilateral group on military and technical cooperation. The deal will likely be announced formally during the anticipated state visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russia later this year. The S-400 is an impressive piece of equipment and is an evolution of the S-300 anti-ballistic missile defense system. The S-400 is manufactured by Almaz-Antey and

Trans Pacific Partnership leaders ( Image credits- Flickr / Wikimedia Commons / Gobierno de Chile) Source- Eurasia Review Author- Geethanjali Nataraj The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that was agreed to on 5 October 2015 covers almost a third of world trade and 40 per cent of global GDP. By not being part of the TPP, India risks losing out. According to a Center on Global Trade and Investment study, India’s nominal GDP is likely to be trimmed by more than 1 per cent as a result of trade and investment diversion caused by the TPP. The ensuing negative effects on India’s economy by way of revenue and job losses will be large. India is less integrated into the global economy than China, who is also excluded from the TPP. India has a share of only 2.1 per cent in global trade (five times less than China’s) and cannot do with further trade diversion. One reason for China’s current clout is its active integration into the global economy over recent decades. Today it leads

USS Virginia SSN-774 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- David Axe The U.S. Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan underscores what service leaders and lawmakers have long known — the Navy is going to have too few attack submarines. To compensate, the sailing branch wants to pack more firepower into the subs it will have. The Navy’s goal is to maintain at least 48 attack subs as part of a roughly 300-ship fleet. But the 2016 edition of the Navy’s shipbuilding plan, published in April, shows the total number of Los Angeles-, Seawolf– and Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack subs declining from 54 in 2015 to a low of 41 in 2029. “The decline is the result of the retirement … of Los Angeles-class attack submarines,” Eric Labs, an analyst with the official Congressional Budget Office, wrote in an October report. “Those ships are reaching the end of their 33-year service life, having generally been built at a rate of

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Army Source- The Diplomat Author- Ali Ahmed In late September, India’s media reported on a military exercise to be undertaken by one of the country’s three “strike” corps, 21 Corps. Since then, Indian military watchers have encountered only silence on the exercise. This is uncharacteristic of India, on two counts. One, India has always undertaken such exercises with a flurry of publicity, even if the military details are necessarily kept under wraps. There is sense in publicity in that it reassures the public of a vigilant military; it is good for the government’s image as “strong on defense”; and it sends a deterrence message in the form of military readiness to India’s neighbor, Pakistan. Yet this autumn’s round of exercises is an interesting shift in India’s information strategy. The silence could well be for a mundane reason: During October the formation moved into an exercise location in the desert sector and i

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Haha 169 Source- The National Interest   Author- Gordon G. Chang Thursday, China’s Communist Party announced its decision to allow all couples to have two children. The move is a relaxation of the notorious one-child policy, which was rolled out beginning in 1979. The liberalization is subject to approval from China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress. Many hailed this change as a step in the right direction. “Thumbs up,” wrote Le Yun of Guangdong University of Technology on his microblog. Yes, but thumbs down for announcing a change both too little and too late. And thumbs down for not changing the most intrusive aspects of the draconian program. First, a little background. The liberalization of the one-child policy had been expected—and virtually inevitable. China, after all, is heading toward accelerated demographic decline. The country’s population is now projected to peak in 2028, well before the 2030–