Israeli defense sector companies presented in Warsaw their product offerings, which may attract the interest of the Polish Armed Forces, Border Guard, and other services responsible for defense and the protection of strategic infrastructure during the “Defense and Homeland Security Conference.” The event was organized by IMPROVATE Group from Israel and the Polish company JJB Defense from Szczecin.
NATO Allied Air Command said yesterday that two Royal Norwegian Air Force F-35 planes from Evenes Airbase had to be disembarked after two Russian Bomber Aircraft TU-95 Bear H escorted by 2 SU-33 jets flew close to NATO Airspace in the High North.
Using the model that has been built and written up – reliably, quantitatively and objectively describing the armed forces of the decided majority of countries of the world – using publicly available data published by institutions, such as the SIPRI Institute from Stockholm and Transparency International, we are now describing the armed forces of the European states, with particular emphasis on the current war in Ukraine.
Russia strikes with the Oreshnik missile, threatening Ukraine and Europe. Zelensky signals readiness for concessions over occupied territories, provided Ukraine joins NATO. Poland is modernizing WR-40 Langusta launchers for 1.3 billion PLN, purchasing 232 AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles for F-16 and F-35 jets, while the future of the Orka submarine program remains unresolved. WB Group achieves success in ESSOR-HDR radio interoperability tests. German intelligence warns of a possible Russian escalation by the end of the decade.
Ensuring national security today should primarily rely on building a deterrent capability so visible that an adversary would not dare to attack, fully aware that they would inevitably face defeat. This is why the world’s greatest powers are investing unimaginable sums of money into inventing and developing ever more advanced weapons technologies. Recently, China announced that it is building its first ultra-modern aircraft capable of entering space and conducting combat operations there.
One of the regions of the world where the risk of the outburst of a conflict currently seems high is the Far East. The strongest military power of that region, or rather the second most powerful in the world, is China. Its strength is growing rapidly, because two generations ago it was actually a third world country. However, it has been developing rapidly since around 1980, and the rate of growth of China’s GDP has frequently been in double digits. China’s GDP has increased approximately tenfold since then, and as China is also a huge country – demographically, one of the two most populous countries on Earth, alongside India – the effect of this growth has also been impressive and has globally changed the balance of power, including military power. So what does the actual military potential of the countries of East Asia and the Pacific look like now?
We are pleased to present a reprint of an interview with Dariusz Wichniarek, a former soldier and Captain of the Naval Special Operations Unit – Formoza (Polish Navy SEALs), and Vice President of Business Development at Advanced Protection Systems. APS is a Polish company and a global expert specializing in detecting and neutralizing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The company continuously develops its products through collaboration with partners from the United States and Saudi Arabia, as well as through practice gained during exercises with NATO allies and battlefield experience in Ukraine. The interview by Julian Nettlefold was originally published in “Battlespace C4ISTAR Technologies” no. 4(27)2024.
The Middle East is one of the most geopolitically unstable regions in the world, where clear civilizational, cultural, and economic differences emerge. The divide between technologically advanced Israel and the surrounding Muslim countries, along with the long-standing conflict currently escalating between Israel and Hamas, once again highlights the civilizational and military gap between the sides and the challenges posed by armed confrontation in a region full of tensions and political differences. It is therefore worth examining the actual military capabilities of the individual Middle Eastern armies.
What military potential do the armed forces of individual countries around the world actually have? Is it possible to assess which countries are preparing for war on the basis of publicly available data? Popular rankings usually use a method of calculation – of the number of soldiers in active service and reserves, the number of tanks, aircraft, guns, ships and other equipment. They are seemingly reliable, because they are numerical. But they can generate huge systematic errors because, in order for them to be more accurate, increasingly more details, which are difficult to evaluate and compare, need to be taken into account. So a rational, quantitative approach is needed, based on reliable, objective, quantifiable data. Therefore, it would be useful to build a model objectively showing the quality of the armed forces of the countries around the world, which is simple enough to be understandable and simultaneously useful to a large circle of analysts and commentators.
For decades, the biggest competition for state-owned military manufacturing plants was foreign purchases. Private arms companies remained out of favor, although they were and still are several times more efficient than state-owned companies. The government promises that this is changing.
The election declarations about defense and the Polish arms industry have not yet stopped reverberating, whereas the government is already smoothly moving on to further promises. Although announcements of ideas about including private companies in production for the defense sector have been made in the past, there has been little enthusiasm to implement them to date. How will it be now?
SektorObronny.pl talks to retired Brigadier General Professor Stanisław Koziej, former head of the National Security Bureau about why Poland is not in the NATO Nuclear Sharing programme, whether we have a chance of becoming its member in the future and how this should be done.
