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

KPV heavy machine gun ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / George Shuklin) Source- Russia & India Report Author- Rakesh Krishnan Simha India’s resurgent defence industry manufactures a bunch of high profile weapons platforms under licence from Russia. These include the Sukhoi-30 MKI air dominance fighter, the T-90 “Flying Tank” and stealthy Krivak III (Talwar) class frigates. These high-profile weapons provide the Indian armed forces a decisive edge. At the same time, there are several Russian weapons that are critical elements of India’s war fighting strategy. Some of these platforms have been produced in the thousands but rarely merit a mention. PK machine gun The PK (Pulemyot Kalashnikova or "Kalashnikov's Machinegun") is a 7.62 mm light vehicle-mounted machine gun used by India’s frontline infantry. As well as a general purpose machine gun, the PK is used as a co-axial weapon on India’s Russian origin platforms like the T-90 and T-72 tan

USS Carl Winson ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Derek Lundy With China set to reject the upcoming ruling on the South China Sea by the UN's Permanent Court of Arbitration, what’s the next step to containing the simmering dispute?  President John Kennedy’s 'flexible response' strategy might provide an answer. In early 1961, Kennedy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara realized that the US’ massive nuclear arsenal could help prevent major war with the Soviet Union, but could not be relied on for emerging challenges; lower-level conflict and intimidation in the peripheries of the Cold War. They knew they needed a wider range of military, diplomatic, political and economic options readily on hand so that US measures could be appropriately calibrated to address these new concerns. As Kennedy put it to Congress that year, the US posture "must be sufficiently flexible and under con