Royal Navy

July 24, 2023 | |

Iranian Air Force Conducts Training Exercise

The Iranian air force began an annual air force drill on July 23, a week after the United States announced it was deploying additional assets around the Strait of Hormuz in response to Iran’s growing...

July 20, 2023 | |

U.S. Boosts Middle East Combat Power to Deter Iranian Maritime Aggression 

To counter Iranian attempts “to threaten the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters,” the Department of Defense announced on July 20 the deployment of a portion...

June 7, 2023 | |

Iran Hijacking Attempt Thwarted by U.S. and British Navies

The U.S. Navy and the UK Royal Navy aided a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on June 4 being harassed by fast-attack vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN). The U.S. Navy’s...

August 12, 2021 | Alan Howard, Dr. Brenda Shaffer

The Hidden Dangers of a Carbon-Neutral Military

If the U.S. military goes electric, it could be good for the planet—and bad for national security.

July 15, 2016 | Reuel Marc Gerecht

The Chilcot Report

The Chilcot report on the Iraq war ought to elicit two emotions: sympathy and pity for former British prime minister Tony Blair. As was evident by late 2002, when Europeans saw the fri...

February 27, 2015 | Reuel Marc Gerecht

Violent Extremist vs. Holy Warrior

Is Barack Hussein Obama wrong to avoid appending “Islamic,” “Muslim,” “Islamist,” or even “jihadist” to the terrorism that has struck the West with...

March 12, 2014 | Reuel Marc Gerecht |

The World Senses Our Wariness of Power

With this administration, it’s always tricky, if not impossible, to separate intention from naiveté, and idealism from “realism.” Barack Obama came into office mistrustin...

June 15, 2011 |

The First Time

Desert Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia by Charles Townshend Belknap Press, 624 pp., $35 THIS BOOK IS an exquisite history of the excruciatingly diffi...

June 9, 2010 | Benjamin Weinthal Jerusalem Post |

German Nuke Tech Reaching Iran via Dubai

BERLIN – Dubai's free trade zones continues to be used to smuggle sophisticated German technology that can be used for Teheran's nuclear program, according to a report in the Sund...

May 1, 2008 |

Pirates of Somalia: The Curse of the Failed State


On April 4, MY Le Ponant, an 850-ton three-masted luxury sailing yacht owned by CMA CGM S.A., a French firm headed by Lebanese-born businessman Jacques Saadé that is the third-largest container shipping company in the world, was en route from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean when it was seized in international waters in the Gulf of Aden by Somali pirates. A week later, after the owners had paid a ransom reported to be around $2 million, Le Ponant docked at the port of Eyl in the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland and the 30 crew members – twenty-two Frenchmen, six Filipinos, a Cameroonian, and a Ukrainian – were released. French forces, however, tracked the attackers to the nearby fishing village of Jariban where helicopter-borne commandos disabled the escape vehicle with sniper fire and seized six of what is thought to have been an original band of twelve fugitives. The six prisoners were flown to Paris where they were arraigned before a French court on charges of theft, hijacking, and hostage-taking.

July 10, 2007 | Dr. J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

The Security Challenge of West Africa’s New Drug Depots

Last week, gendarmes in the Senegal seaside resort of Nianing seized fifty-one 24-kilogram sacks containing a record 1.25 metric tons of cocaine with a street value of over $100 million....

March 24, 2007 | Dr. Walid Phares Real Clear Politics

Royal Navy Incident: Iran’s Plan to Drag the U.S. and the U.K.

The capture of British Navy servicemen by Iranian forces is not simply an incident over sea sovereignty in the Persian Gulf. It is a calculated move on behalf of Teheran's Jihadi chess playe...