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

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons Source- Eurasia Review Author- Michael Lelyveld China’s growing debt levels have continued to raise doubts about the country’s financial management after warnings that shadowy lending practices are putting banks and investors at risk. The government has waged a publicity campaign to calm financial concerns since March, when two international bond rating agencies lowered outlooks for China to “negative” from “stable,” citing slow reforms and faster loan growth. The findings by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P’s) and Moody’s Investors Service were followed by a warning from Fitch Ratings in April that debt levels had become “a mounting source of systemic vulnerability.” The government dismissed the reports last month after announcing that China’s gross domestic product rose at a 6.7-percent rate in the first quarter, keeping within the official target range. The results proved that the rating agency “pessimism”

Malabar Series of Exercises ( Image credits- VOA) Source- The National Interest Author- Kevin Knodell Washington and New Delhi are getting a lot more serious about military-to-military ties. As the United States and India become more wary of an increasingly assertive China, the two countries are gradually edging closer together. On May 16, American and Indian officials met for a “maritime security dialogue” in New Delhi. “The dialogue covered issues of mutual interest, including exchange of perspectives on maritime security development in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region as well as prospects for further strengthening cooperation between India and the United States in this regard,” stated an Indian Ministry of External Affairs press release. Washington and New Delhi are also close to formalizing a historic military cooperation agreement hazily called the “Logistics Support Agreement” — or LSA. The agreement would allow the two militaries to use each other’

Chinese J-11 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / USN) Source- The Diplomat Author- Robert Farley Earlier this week I wrote about the relative sizes of the U.S. and Chinese air forces, and how China needs to manage its anti-air “fortifications” in order to close the gap with the United States.  However, it’s worth a look to see how differently the major air forces of the Asia-Pacific have structured themselves. Let’s take the United States as a baseline (although the U.S. arrangement is one of the most unusual in the world, most people are familiar with the basic dynamics). As of December 2015, the United States operated 13,655 aircraft; 5,062 in the Air Force, 4,759 in the Army, 1,249 in the Marine Corps, and 2,585 in the Navy. Between the USAF, USMC, and USN, the United States flies 2,838 combat aircraft (fighters, bombers, and attack aircraft), constituting 21 percent of the total fleet. The rest of the U.S. air forces consist of helicopters and a wide array of su

IAF Mil MI-17 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Army) Source- Russia & India Report Author- Rakesh Krishnan Simha To understand how vulnerable helicopters are to shoulder fired missiles, click here to see the devastating impact of a Russian Strela 2M on a US-made Cobra of the Turkish military. It takes the Kurdish missile team about 15 seconds to achieve visual target acquisition, after which it takes the missile less than five seconds to smash into the target. The Strela-2M has a range of 4200 metres, which comes close to the AgustaWestland AW101 helicopter’s maximum flight ceiling of 4500 metres. In comparison, the Russian Mi-17V5 helicopter has a service ceiling of 6000 metres. Given the vulnerability of relatively slow and low flying helicopters to shoulder fired missiles, India’s governing elites should have picked the more survivable Mi-17 as their transport helicopter with their eyes closed. India has acquired 151 Mi-17s for transport

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Leon Panetta Source- Eurasia Review Author- Alireza Rezakhah Zachary Schreiber correctly predicted a drastic fall in global oil prices two years ago and is now issuing warnings over a financial catastrophe in Saudi Arabia. He has recently projected that Saudi Arabia will become bankrupt in terms of its financial structure because the country is facing two threats, that is, very high costs in the face of plummeting oil prices. Schreiber says that Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly suffering from high debts right now. According to his report, Saudi Arabia needs an oil price of over 100 dollars per barrel in order to make the ends meet. Schreiber has also noted that Saudi Arabia’s extravagant social programs are at loggerheads with reducing oil prices. The foreign exchange reserves of Saudi Arabia’s central bank previously stood at about USD 600 billion, but Saudis had totally squandered about USD 140 billion of those reserves between late 2014 an

Virginia Class USS North Dakota SSN ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar Though Russia continues to develop and build newer and ever more capable nuclear attack submarines such as the Project 885M Yasen-class, the U.S. Navy continues to maintain its technological edge by incrementally improving its Virginia-class attack boats. “I think we have a very focused program called the acoustic superiority program to make sure that we in fact keep our technological lead—our acoustical advantage—and that's a focus of every one of our developmental programs,” Capt. Mike Stevens, Naval Sea Systems Command’s Virginia-class program manager told me at the Navy League’s Sea, Air and Space symposium on May 17. “It doesn't do any good to build submarines that aren’t up to par, so it’s a main part of our focus to make sure those submarine do maintain their acoustical advantage—not just today but 10, 20 years