South Korea and the United States raised the military alert level for the peninsula on Thursday after the communist North warned the truce ending the Korean War was dead and it was ready to attack.
North Korea ramped up tensions this week with a series of provocations rarely seen since the 1950-53 Korean War, including war threats, missile launches and a nuclear test that puts it closer to having an atomic bomb.
The joint command for the 28,500 U.S. troops that support South Korea’s 670,000 soldiers has raised its alert a …

Private military companies (PMCs) have become rather popular nowadays in terms of providing specialized expertise or services of a military nature. These units can compete with special services and regular armies. There are such companies in Russia, although they are not so widely spread in the country in comparison with their prototypes in the West. As experience shows, the PMCs will prevail in the future.
The history of private military companies started on June 24, 1997, when experts of the US Intelligence Department proclaimed the PMCs as a major tool in …

Russia is prepared to fight for the highly lucrative arms market of India. Delhi will assign $35 billion for the five-year program to completely rearm the national armed forces. A third of this amount falls for aviation. About $10.4 billion is to be spent on purchasing 126 up-to-date fighter jets. Several other billion dollars will be used to acquire 197 light helicopters.
ndia has become one of the largest arms importers during the recent years due to the nation’s complicated relations with Pakistan. A third Indo-Pakistan war may break out …

One day before U.S. President Barack Obama’s Canadian visit last week, Canadian fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers near Canadian air space, the defense minister said Friday.
“At no time did Russian planes enter Canadian air space, but within 24 hours of the president’s visit here … we did scramble F-18 fighter planes from NORAD in Canada command,” Peter MacKay said in a news conference in Ottawa.
The Russian planes were in international waters, about 118 miles (190 kilometers) northeast of Tuktoyuktuk, in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

President Obama announced today his plans for withdrawing US troops from Iraq. He did it from North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune, where thousands of Marines are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. (You can read his speech here.)
This is as much a message to Americans as it is Europeans: We have a new priority.
“America can no longer afford to see Iraq in isolation from other priorities: we face the challenge of refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan; of relieving the burden on our military; and of rebuilding our struggling economy and these are …

U.S. President Barack Obama, in his first major military decision as commander-in-chief, has ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to tackle an intensifying insurgency, the White House said on Tuesday.
But in an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Obama also said military means alone would not solve the problem.
U.S. officials have said Washington and its allies are not winning in Afghanistan, more than seven years after toppling the Taliban for giving sanctuary to al Qaeda leaders responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

NEW DELHI (AFP) — The head of India’s army on Wednesday confirmed that Pakistan has redeployed troops along the two countries’ tense border but said his forces were ready for all eventualities.
“The aspect of some (Pakistani) troops coming towards the east… we are aware of it. That has happened. They have come to the eastern border of Pakistan with India,” General Deepak Kapoor told a news conference.
“However having known this fact, let me assure you that the Indian army has factored this in its planning,” he added. “That is not …

GAZA (Reuters) – Foreign powers stepped up calls on Israel and Hamas on Tuesday to halt hostilities after four days of Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip and rocket salvoes by the Islamist militants deep inside the Jewish state.
The Quartet of Middle East peace brokers — the United Nations, United States, Russia and European Union — urged an immediate cease-fire, a U.N. spokeswoman said after telephone consultations by the group’s foreign ministers.
Israeli warplanes destroyed Hamas targets for a fourth day, including five ministerial buildings and a structure belonging …

Palestinians have fired more than 140 rockets and mortars into Israel proper over the course of the last two days, far less than forecast by the Israel Defense Forces. Yesterday, Palestinians launched upgraded Katyushas with a maximum range of 40 kilometers. The rockets landed in moshavim adjacent to Ashdod.
The two long-range Katyushas fired yesterday were made either in China or Iran. Their maximum range is just shy of 40 kilometers; those fired reached a maximum distance of 34.4 kilometers.

The head of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said Sunday that he had asked his fighters to be on alert for any possible Israeli attack on Lebanon following raids on Gaza that killed nearly 300 Palestinians.
In a televised address at a religious gathering marking the Shiite Day of Ashura south of Beirut, Nasrallah said “I have asked the brothers in the resistance in the south specifically to be present, on alert and cautious because we are facing a criminal enemy and we don’t know the magnitude of the conspiracies.”
“What …