The first decade of the 21st century has seen the Chinese military (People’s Liberation Army or PLA) undergo a number of major changes, which many observers around the world have kept a keen eye on. Indeed, among the world’s major military forces, the breadth and speed with which the PLA and the Chinese military industry have changed from the beginning of 2010 to the end of 2019 is quite remarkable.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has approved an extension in the tenure of Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa for another three years, a statement issued by the premier’s office said on Monday. The announcement comes nearly three months before Gen Bajwa was due to retire.
Apart from its tremendous commercial benefits, 5G – the fifth generation of mobile communication – is revolutionising military and security technology, which is partly why it has become a focal point in the United States’ efforts to contain China’s rise as a tech power and its allegations against Chinese companies.
The United States has spent 70 years and tens of billions of dollars training Arab militaries—with almost nothing to show for all the effort. Time and again, America’s Arab allies have failed to live up to martial expectations. The U.S.-trained Egyptian Armed Forces performed miserably in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. If anything, they did somewhat better under Soviet tutelage in the 1973 October War. The U.S.-trained Iraqi Army collapsed when attacked by a couple thousand Islamic State zealots in 2014. The U.S.-trained Saudi military fell flat on its face when it intervened in Yemen in 2015, and it has become badly stuck there.
Bottom line: irrespective of who wins or loses, the Pakistan Army will remain the ultimate arbiter on regional policy. And even if Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek does not win a single seat, and especially if it does, Hafiz Saeed will remain the finger in India’s eye.
Nawaz Sharif’s conviction confirms that a politician can’t be corrupt and anti-military at the same time in Pakistan.
Nawaz Sharif is the proverbial cat with nine lives. But his third, the longest and perhaps final term as Pakistan’s prime minister, came to an end last Friday when the Supreme Court of the country disqualified him from holding public office…Whether Sharif is able to make yet another comeback is still to be seen, but this development has raised concerns among observers around the world about the future of Pakistani democracy—however superficial it may be.
Delaney is part of a 27-person unit that comprises the Defense Digital Service, a sort of tech SWAT team within the Department of Defense. Engineers and data experts from across the country leave their jobs at companies like Netflix, IDEO, Palantir, and, yes, Dropbox and join DDS for tours of duty that typically last about two years. They spend that time revamping and often completely reinventing the “tools and practices that lag far behind private sector standards,” as the Pentagon itself puts it.
Anyway you spin it, what happened at the Riyadh summit was troubling if not outright outrageous and the explanation offered for what looked like a snub to Pakistan, or its elected civilian leader, would normally be unacceptable.
Cyber capabilities cannot be detached from other domains of warfare, such as electromagnetic, air, land, sea, and space. The future holds two potential battlefields that overlap: one fought between high-tech adversary militaries, and another, between highly specialised military units and insurgent forces in population-dense urban environments. In both situations, cyber capabilities must be integrated into all other domains of warfare.
