On 7 November, Trident Juncture 2018, the largest collective defence exercise NATO has seen in recent decades, which was held in Norway and adjacent waters of the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea, including Iceland and airspace of Finland and Sweden, came to an end. [...]

Western leaders argue that the growth of NATO along Russia’s border together with the militarization of Eastern Europe is necessary for preserving peace with Moscow. Nothing could be further from the truth. There has been an unmistakable trend in the realm of geopolitics since the start of the new millennium – of which Ukraine and Georgia may represent the next phase – and it bodes absolutel [...]

From traffic accidents to troops relieving themselves in public places and bars left without beer, this year's edition of NATO-led Trident Juncture drills has every chance to leave lasting memories in Norway and beyond. [...]

French President Macron did his best to show through body language that his bromance with Donald Trump was still alive. But the US leader, who came to Paris after calling Macron’s EU army plan “insulting” didn’t seem interested. Emmanuel Macron smiled, winkled and hugged Trump as the two met at the Elysee Palace in the French capital on Saturday. [...]

The imminent introduction of oil trading in yuan is a very bold move by the Chinese, because the US will not give up the basis of its hegemony – the dollar as the world’s reserve currency – without a fight, Max Keiser, host of RT’s financial program ‘Keiser Report' has said. [...]

The US serviceman killed in an insider attack in Kabul is identified as Brent Taylor, a mayor from Utah. While shocking to some back at home, this is only the latest such incident in a war that even top brass now call unwinnable. [...]

The Afghanistan war cannot be won militarily and peace will only be achieved through a political resolution with the Taliban, the newly-appointed American general in charge of US and NATO operations has conceded. [...]

Russia is preparing to defend itself against aggression while Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the INF Treaty signals that the US is readying for a war, according to Andrei Belousov, a top Russian Foreign Ministry official. Sputnik talked this over with Tony Kevin, a former Australian diplomat and author of the book "Return to Moscow." [...]

The Russian Aerospace Forces have carried out over 40,000 missions, including over 21,000 sorties during the night time, in the course of their operation in Syria, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the fifth ASEAN and Dialogue Partners Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM-Plus) in Singapore.   [...]

Earlier reports suggested that the deal between Moscow and Jakarta could fall under the US Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), despite attempts to secure a waiver for Indonesia. [...]

The Arctic is becoming an arena for a fierce competition to control transportation routes & natural resources of global importance. The upcoming Trident Juncture exercise is NATO’s attempt to demonstrate dominance in the region. NATO says that Russia has nothing to worry about, because the exercise – which will be held in Norway and Iceland between October 25 and November 23 – “doesn� [...]

US penalties against Saudi Arabia over the alleged murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi may never be implemented. But just in case, the oil-rich kingdom has threatened to hit back using several effective weapons. Washington pledged ‘severe punishment’ if the Saudis ordered the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi-born journalist, who disappeared nearly two weeks ago shortly after he e [...]

In a recent cybersecurity test aimed at determining the resiliency of major weapons systems developed by the Pentagon, “testers playing the role of adversary were able to take control of systems relatively easily and operate largely undetected,” according to a government watchdog. [...]

New Avangard hypersonic glider warheads are just months away from entering military service, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, adding that Russia is the first in the world to develop the breakthrough technology. A hypersonic glider is a type of projectile that can fly and maneuver in the upper atmosphere at speeds of over Mach 5. [...]

The USS Harry Truman, a 104,000 ton Nimitz-class aircraft carrier capable of deploying some 90 combat and support aircraft, has entered the North Sea in preparation for Trident Juncture, a series of drills which are expected to become the largest alliance exercises in the region since the Cold War. [...]

If the pain of birth is the price of life, Syria’s birth as a truly independent nation has come at the price of eight years of brutal and merciless struggle. As with the Vietnamese people, so with the Syrians. Their struggle against imperialism and hegemony has earned them a place at history’s table that can never be relinquished. Because, if you penetrate beyond the obfuscations peddled by We [...]

As the entire F-35 fleet was yet again grounded for technical inspections, in the wake of its first crash in September. RT looks at the abject history and prospects of the most expensive Pentagon program in history. Over $300 billion has been spent on the project to create a state-of-the-art fifth-generation multi-role fighter since 1992, with the eventual cost likely to easily cross the trillion [...]

The first time an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter crashed was on September 28, 2018, and the US grounded its entire F-35 fleet to assess and remedy the problem. The failure highlights far greater problems in the procurement and production process responsible for both the high cost and low performance of the plane. [...]

The entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets has been grounded to inspect the aircraft for suspected faulty fuel tubes, the US military said. The decision comes in the wake of a Marine Corps’ F-35B crash in South Carolina last month. [...]

In keeping with an agreement reached by Russia and Turkey to resolve the situation in Syria’s Idlib, jihadist groups have until October 10 to withdraw their heavy weapons from the demilitarized zone in the province. In an interview with Sputnik, a Syrian Army representative said that groups such as Hayati al-Sham, largely made up of al-Nusra, Huras ad-Din and the National Liberation Front milita [...]

Although many people in Serbia hold “poor” memories of NATO’s 1999 bombing of their country, it was, in fact, done precisely to protect them from their own government, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said in Belgrade. He was answering questions about the bombing and about the NATO campaign against the government of the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, during a meeting [...]

The Saturday evacuation is the latest in a series of airlifts coming amid the Syrian Army's ongoing offensive on jihadists who still control small pockets of Deir ez-Zor, much of them empty desert. A number of wounded Daesh* terrorists militants have been evacuated by US helicopters from Syria's eastern Deir ez-Zor province, local sources said, as quoted by the Syrian news website Arabi Today [...]