Americas * The U.S. approved BAE's Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures system for export. * The General Accountability Office released its study (PDF) of 15 ACAT II and ACAT III programs - those not reaching the lofty spending heights of the major defense...

Middle East / Africa * As happens periodically, Russia is again making noises about (French) selling S-300 anti-air missiles (or the rebadged Antey-2500 variant) to Iran. The last two times such sounds emanated from Moscow, Russia was able to use the prospect as a...

Middle East / Africa * Israel will order another 14 F-35s for $110 million a piece, including logistical support, training, parts and maintenance, which appears to be a much better price than the U.S. itself has been able to manage. The 14 fighters will join an...

The F-35 needs some code rewrites before it can be released as initially combat ready, according to the head of Lockheed's aeronautics division. The radar tracking parts of the mission systems software had problems, but the Lockheed executive said the problem was...

In a clever game of resource swapping, Germany is now receiving 20 Leopard 2A7 main battle tanks in return for having lent a number of Leopard 2 A6M tanks to Canada for its immediate needs in the Afghanistan deployment. Canada, as promised, procured 20 Leopards from...

Perhaps learning from the expensive lessons of the present, designers of the future fighter F/A-XX may have reason to make stealth a lower priority. And, interestingly, the Chief of Naval Operations appears to agree. The limits imposed by stealth, coupled with extra...

* Unlike other western nations, Germany's public has been interested and concerned about Saudi Arabia's record on suppressing minorities and women, as well as lending help to organizations affiliated with violent extremism. With four out of five Germans indicating...