With a defense budget of €7,8 billion per year, or 2% of the country's GDP, Romania is one of NATO's good students, even if this effort is handicapped by a GDP of less than $300 billion and one of the lowest per capita GDPs in the European Union. The increase in the defense effort, which began in 2013 after Vladimir's return to the Kremlin and the significant hardening of the Russian posture in Eastern Europe, made it possible to increase the defense effort by 1,2% of GDP to 2% today, and to aim for 2,5% in the years to come,…
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With the CVX program, will South Korea build the ideal aircraft carrier for export?
At the beginning of the 2000s, the South Korean defense industry was still in its infancy, even if it had already designed certain armored vehicles such as the K1 heavy tank, the K200 armored combat vehicle or the Donghae light corvettes. Since then, relying on significant technology transfers in connection with its acquisition and local manufacturing programs, but also on the general immobility of Western armament manufacturers between the end of the Cold War and the middle of the 2010s, Seoul rose to the podium of designers and producers of advanced military equipment, such as in the field of land combat with a family of heavy armored vehicles…
Read the articlePoland to develop heavy infantry fighting vehicle to support its M1A2 Abrams tanks
Will Poland, on its own, completely neutralize the Russian ground threat in the years to come? In any case, this is the question that we can ask ourselves by observing the ambitions of recruitment, defense programs and acquisition of equipment which have been announced for a year now by Warsaw. Indeed, after announcing the order for 250 American M1A2 SEPv3 heavy tanks in July 2021, the Polish authorities announced the order for 32 AW149 helicopters from the Italian Leonardo in June 2022, 3 Mièçznick frigates from the British Babcock as well as 1000 K2 tanks and 672 K9 self-propelled guns in…
Read the articleWhy is the cruiser once again becoming a credible option for world navies?
On July 9, 1995, the USS Port Royal entered service, the last Ticonderoga-class cruiser to join the US Navy, but also the last cruiser produced in the West, or at least designated as such. On a planetary scale, it was only followed by the Russian nuclear battlecruiser Piotr Veliki (Peter the Great), the 3rd and last unit of the Kirov class to have joined the Russian Navy in 1998 after 15 years of construction and that the last 3 units were canceled following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Following this, none of the world's major navies produced a cruiser, until…
Read the articleJapan and South Korea plot rapprochement amid rising regional tensions
To deal with the rise in power of the Chinese but also North Korean and Russian armies in the Western Pacific theater, Washington can rely on 3 powerful allies, militarily efficient and modern: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. . Unfortunately for the United States, and contrary to the situation in Europe where yesterday's adversaries were able to put an end to their past tensions to face the Soviet Union from the end of the 40s, the risks in the Pacific theater were, if not less, in any case more localized, on the whole Cold War. In fact, far from being forced to…
Read the articleThe German Leopard 2A7 wins against the South Korean K2 Black Panther in Norway
Like the majority of European countries, Norway embarked on a forced march in exploiting the mirage of the benefits of peace in the late 90s, when its defense effort passed, in 15 years of time down to its lowest point in 2014, from 2,8% of its GDP to just 1,4% of it. Fortunately for the Norwegian armies, these savings came after a major modernization effort was made in the 90s, with the acquisition of 74 F-16 A/B to replace its aging F-5, 5 frigates from the Fridtjof Nansen class (one of which was lost in 2019) for…
Read the articleAfter Europe and Japan, the United States will strengthen its forces in South Korea
Since the beginning of the Russian assault on Ukraine, the United States has deployed more than 20.000 additional soldiers in Europe, to reach a total of 100.000 men and women of the 4 US armies present on European soil. At the same time, the American military presence in Japan has been significantly hardened, with the deployment of new anti-aircraft and detection systems, as well as new combat devices, while tensions with Beijing, particularly around the Taiwan question , keep growing. It will be the same in South Korea. Indeed, on a visit to Seoul to meet his counterpart Lee Jong-Sup,…
Read the articleAltay, Black Panther, Oplot: What are modern battle tanks worth? 3/3
Article from September 15, 2021 updated on January 27, 2023. It was said to be outdated or too vulnerable, yet the battle tank has experienced a remarkable resurgence of interest in recent years from the major world armies. After having presented the main Western, Russian and Chinese tanks in the two previous articles, we are going, in this final analysis, to focus on less known models, and yet powerful and promising, on the operational scene as in the field of export. Make way today for the South Korean K2 Black Panther, the Turkish Atlay, the Japanese Type 10 and the Ukrainian BM Oplot. South Korea :…
Read the articleWill South Korean tanks prevail in European armies?
Following in-depth consultation with France and the Nexter group, the Danish authorities announced on January 19 that they would transfer their entire fleet of CAESAR motorized guns, i.e. 19 8×8 systems heavier and better armored than the models in service within the Army as well as in Ukraine, in order to reinforce the defensive capacities of Kyiv. This announcement, rightly welcomed by the Ukrainian armies, given the performance of the system, is part of an unprecedented dynamic of European countries to support their ally, Sweden having promised 50 CV90 infantry combat vehicles and a number…
Read the articleFaced with the North Korean threat, the South Korean president wants to deploy nuclear weapons on his soil
2022 will have been a year of extreme tension in the world. But while much attention is focused on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, other potential conflicts have rapidly developed throughout this year on the planet. This is the case of the island of Taiwan, the object of the ambitions of Chinese President Xi Jinping, but also of the Persian Gulf with the rise of Iranian military capacities, or even of the Caucasus, with the fighting opposing Armenian and Azeri forces around of Nagorno-Karabash. But the most intense theater today is none other than the Korean peninsula, while North Korea has carried out no less…
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