The Russian armed forces were set to bolster its air force's fighter jets by adding more nearly three dozen planes to its existing fleet of fighter jets, a high ranking defense official said last week. The new aircraft include 16 Su-34 bombers, 17 Sukhoi-30SMs fighter planes and 10 Yakovlev-130 planes for both combat and training, Tass reported.
The Su-34s were expected to be delivered to Russia’s Aerospace Forces by next year, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said Friday.
"This year, we expect above the plan supplies of four aircraft, and the overall amount of order for this year is 16 Su-34," Borisov said. The jets have "shown its best characteristics in the Syrian conflict, has a huge potential for modernization and is almost a plane of the new generation," he added.
But the Sukhoi-30SMs and the Yakovlevs were expected to be delivered to the Russian air force at some point later this year, Borisov said.
The news of Russia's expanding air force arsenal of weaponry came just weeks after the country's defense ministry announced it would be getting 170 new planes in addition to 905 new tanks for the army and 17 new ships for the navy, according to the Associated Press.
Tensions between Russia and the U.S. have been festering in recent months, something that has led some European Union member states to warn of potential Russian military action against America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) over its continued occupation in the Baltic region, the EU Observer reported.
The U.S. military accused Russia of violating an arms control treaty by deploying a ground-launched missile last week. Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul Selva didn't seem optimistic about the turn of events.
"The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe and we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility," Selva testified during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday.
Holland was the first European country I set foot in as a lad, and it continues to have a special place in my memory. But the country I encountered in the summer of 1970 is all but unrecognizable now. In a fit of cultural enervation, social ennui, and just plain suicidal stupidity, it was among the first Western countries to throw open its doors to the avant-garde of Islam, and is now paying the price. So with the Dutch elections now looming, the question is: can the tide of Muslim social conquest be reversed?
The question is precipitated by the extraordinary sight of riots in Rotterdam this weekend when the Dutch government forbade the Turkish minister of family affairs from landing in Holland in order to openly campaign among Holland's Turkish "emigrant" community on behalf of Turkish strongman Erdogan's latest power grab, which is coming up for a vote on April 16. Naturally, she simply snuck across the border from Germany into the Netherlands, but the Dutch somehow managed enough backbone to block her.
Police using water cannon, horses and dogs moved in to disperse the crowds after several hours of demonstrations on Saturday evening. Protesters hit back, throwing rocks at the police, while hundreds of cars jammed the streets blaring their horns.
Tensions tipped over into violence after a day of fast-moving events, triggered when Turkey's family affairs minister Sayan Kaya was stopped from attending the rally by being expelled from the Netherlands. Ms Kaya could be seen in images on Dutch NOS television appearing to argue with officers about the situation.
Now, it's back, disguised as a "refugee crisis." This is not to gainsay the genuine human misery resulting from the dislocations in the Middle East -- dislocations caused for the most part by Islam itself. But it is not the West's obligation to solve the Islamic ummah's problems. The Muslim attack on 9/11 succeeded beyond Osama bin Laden's fondest dreams; seized upon by the Left, it has pit the West against itself, unable to articulate what it stands for without being accused of a chimerical racism, unilaterally disarmed in the face of withering media/establishment scorn.
This will not end well. With no tradition of assimilation or integration in Europe, the restive Muslim minorities will only grow louder in their complaints, more violent in their attacks on the religio-cultural foundations of Christendom, and more driven to complete the conquest of the West their holy book demands of them. The Europeans, foolishly, swallowed the Marxist myth of "multiculturalism" whole -- not in the manner of the American melting-pot, ethnic holidays and festivals and the like, but of co-equal cultures peacefully coexisting side by side in what was once a largely mono-ethnic state like Holland or Sweden. It was a beautiful fairy tale, but one that has foundered on the rocks of reality.
Knowing and endorsing the end game, the Left would have you believe that is a failure of the host cultures, and their refusal to sit quietly while their entrails are being devoured. The backlash -- Wilders in Holland, Marine le Pen in France, perhaps even Frauke Petry in Germany -- has finally begun, as politicians now openly wonder how many Europeans will have to die in order to accommodate a dysfunctional, alien, and largely hostile culture's desire for "a better life."
Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea beginning in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two.
China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fueled concern in Japan and the West, with the United States holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation.
The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July.
It will return to Japan in August, the sources said.
“The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission,” said one of the sources who have knowledge of the plan. “It will train with the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea,” he added, asking not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media.
A spokesman for Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force declined to comment.
Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei also claim parts of the sea which has rich fishing grounds, oil and gas deposits and through which around $5 trillion of global sea-borne trade passes each year.
Japan does not have any claim to the waters, but has a separate maritime dispute with China in the East China Sea.
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