Britain will build at least six new warships designed to command fleets of drones across the air, surface and seabed, moving away from earlier plans for a next-generation destroyer in favour of a “hybrid” navy built around crewed and uncrewed systems. The Royal Navy will procure a minimum of six Common Combat Vessels to replace its six ageing Type 45 air-defence destroyers, with the first ships expected from the early 2030s, the Ministry of Defence said on Monday. The decision shelves earlier p
MGG Geopolitics
The 11th joint strategic air patrol flown by China and Russia on June 27, over waters near Japan and South Korea, will read to many in the region as just another entry in a lengthening logbook. That sense of routine is the point. What began in 2019 as a single, attention-grabbing flight of Chinese H-6K and Russian Tu-95MS bombers close to Japanese airspace has settled into a fixture of the regional calendar, and the steady accumulation of these missions has become the message that Moscow and Bei
MGG Geopolitics
Australia has begun flying its newest surveillance and electronic-warfare aircraft from the country's north, widening its ability to track Chinese military movements through its maritime approaches as Beijing sends its navy further south. An MC-55A Peregrine from the Royal Australian Air Force's 10 Squadron deployed to RAAF Base Darwin this month for its first operational test and evaluation flights, the Department of Defence said. The missions resemble the maritime patrols flown by the air for
MGG Geopolitics
June 25: Boeing won a US Space Force contract worth as much as $2 billion to develop and build two new military communications satellites, beating incumbent Lockheed Martin Corp. and handing the company’s troubled space unit a rare boost. The award covers the next phase of the Mobile User Objective System Service Life Extension, or MUOS SLE, a programme designed to keep secure narrowband communications available to American and allied forces. The first satellite is scheduled for delivery in 203
MGG Geopolitics
When reports emerged in late April that Japan had offered India the design plans for its prized Mogami-class frigate, the significance went well beyond a single contract. According to the South China Morning Post, Tokyo proposed letting India build the ships in its own yards using Japanese materials, with each hull costing about US$500 million and armed with anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. It is also the clearest sign yet of a strategy that is reshaping naval power across the region. Japan is
MGG Geopolitics