New Delhi (Sputnik): Ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to India in February, the US State Department approved the sale of integrated air defence weapon systems to India at a cost of $1.867 billion. Experts have said India wants to fortify its airspace with American systems along with the soon-to-be inducted S-400 missile defence system. In a major setback for the Trump administ [...]

The Covid-19 pandemic should be a rallying call to change an economic system that spends billions each year on the tools of war but can't produce a decent healthcare system, bestselling author John Perkins told RT. Perkins is best known for his book 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,' in which he describes how American corporate elites plunder other nations to enrich themselves. [...]

Despite the impact Covid-19 has had on the global economy, the US is seeking more funding to counter and confront China in the Pacific, as well as enhancing its military preparedness for scenarios involving nuclear warfare. The coronavirus outbreak has impacted the global economy in a unique and unprecedented fashion unseen since World War II. Around 63 percent of Japanese businesses have projecte [...]

Large-scale NATO military exercises are among the few major events not to be canceled due to the global Pandemic of COVID-19. Critics say this is a waste of both money and resources. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is being called-upon to reallocate the kingdom's military budget towards health and welfare in light of the global coronavirus illness (COVID-19) pandemic, by the Peace Pledge Union (PP [...]

Vladimir Putin has confided that US President Donald Trump privately lamented the "insane" US military budget. He also says Russia protects itself by making the costs of attacking the country too high for anyone to contemplate. The US has outstripped us” in terms of annual defense expenditure, the Russian president said in a new episode of news agency TASS's ‘20 Questions to Vladimir Putin� [...]

The head of the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation department sharply criticized the F-35 program’s schedule for incremental software updates on the high-tech aircraft, calling it “high risk” as the program falls further and further behind schedule. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft is basically a giant, flying computer, and its greatest asset, according to Air Force st [...]

The embattled USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), flagship of the new Ford class of carriers which the US Navy plans to eventually replace its Enterprise- and Nimitz-class warships with, is currently years behind schedule, and facing a slew of issues which US lawmakers have complained seem to have no “end in sight.” A new report by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT& [...]

The long list of problems plaguing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter continues to grow, with a Pentagon review finding over 800 software flaws in the costly aircraft, as well as defects that prevent its guns from hitting targets. The annual assessment by the Pentagon’s director of operational testing and evaluation, Robert Behler, revealed that the program that has cost over $400 billion so far has [...]

The Chinese navy is now in possession of the largest missile destroyer in Asia and the second-largest in the world, following the commission of the Type 055 destroyer Nanchang on Sunday. The Nanchang officially joined the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in a Sunday ceremony in Shandong’s port city of Qingdao, Xinhua News Agency reported. The advanced warship completed its final testing la [...]

The US government spent more money on defense and implements of war in 2019 than in any other year in the history of the country as part of its massive war machine against innocent people, Lee Camp, a writer, comedian, activist, journalist and host of the television show “Redacted Tonight” on RT America, told Radio Sputnik. Earlier this month, Congress agreed on a $738 billion National Defens [...]

The Australian taxpayer will foot the bill for a $85 million (AUS$125 mn) Growler fighter jet that burst into flames on the runway due to an engine fault. The US Navy will not reimburse Australia for the “dud” warplane. [...]

President Trump has been defending his purported withdrawal of US troops from Syria as a triumphant move to “bring our soldiers home”. He says it’s about delivering on his 2016 election promise to “end endless wars”. This is just trite electioneering from Trump. Already it is being admitted this week that the Pentagon is not actually bringing US troops home from Syria. Most of them are b [...]

US President Donald Trump has authorized $4.5 million in aid to the so-called Syrian Civil Defense (SCD), aka “White Helmets,” calling their work “important and highly valued.” The group’s critics point to its terrorist ties. “Over the course of the 8-year conflict in Syria, the SCD has rescued more than 115,000 people, including many ethnic and religious minorities,” the White House [...]

Russia and Turkey are discussing possible deliveries of Russia's Su-35 or Su-57 fighters, with Ankara expressing significant interest in this purchase, Russia's federal military-technical cooperation service reported, following Erdogan's visit to Moscow. [...]

The UK government has ruled out a peaceful intervention to save historic travel agent Thomas Cook, and 9,000 jobs, but has declined to rule out (a far more expensive) military intervention in the Gulf. [...]

Two massive update programs for bombs in the US nuclear arsenal will be delivered late. The weapons are just part of a huge arsenal overhaul that’s reaching maturity just as the US steps back from key arms limitation treaties and weighs the use of nuclear weapons in future wars. [...]

Ankara is holding talks on purchasing the newest Su-57 jets from Moscow, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. Turkey was forced to seek jet fighters elsewhere after the US refused to sell it F-35 warplanes. [...]

The F-22 was a pioneer fifth-generation jet in the US Armed Forces, combining multirole strike capabilities with the ability to stay off most radar screens due to its stealth coating. However, as it turned out, the latter comes at a price both in terms of maintenance time and money. [...]

The US has punished Turkey for buying Russian air defense systems by cutting it from the F-35 program. The rationale behind the move is speculative, and Ankara’s example may prompt other US allies to buy Russian, experts told RT. [...]

Some Norwegian politicians believe the uncertainty surrounding the price of the US F-35 fighter jets, the new backbone of the country's air force, is “absurd”. To settle an ongoing dispute surrounding the cost of F-35s once and for all, the Norwegian parliament's control and constitutional committee has asked Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen to name the price for the fighter jets based on t [...]

The United States earlier threatened to remove Turkey from it's F-35 program after Ankara refused to scrap a deal with Russia to buy Moscow's cutting-edge S-400 missile systems, which Washington claimed could compromise US-made aircraft. [...]

Although Washington already has its plate full trying to dissuade Turkey from buying S-400 air defenses, it is also “urging” India against buying the Russian missile system just ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit. [...]