the IAF is to replace the C-130J that crashed so that the fleet strength matches earlier plans of 12 aircraft

Economic Times article

PLAN commissions Type 056 Jiangdao class corvette Quanzhou into East Sea Fleet

Thailand deploys Gripens to Australia for first overseas exercise

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Flying with the ‘shark’ callsign, the Gripens have been conducting primarily air-to-air missions at PB14, carrying simulated AMRAAM and AIM-9X AAMs for blue force offensive counter air and red force defensive counter air missions. “It’s a new jet and can do multi-role missions, but we thought we would take it easy by doing only air-to-air missions for this first time,” RTAF 701 SQN Commander, Wing Commander Chareon ‘Tonic’ Watanasrimongkol told media in Darwin.
The six Gripens have operated without tanker support, instead using three auxiliary tanks for their two daily missions of up to 2.5 hours over the vast Bradshaw and Delamere Ranges south of Darwin. The aircraft have enjoyed good availability in Darwin, only dropping their first mission due to aircraft unserviceability 10 days into the exercise.

The Thai detachment brought 15 pilots to PB14, with only five of them having previously attended Pitch Black. “One of our main objectives is to give the pilots a big learning from the exercise in terms of fighting with Gripen with international forces in multi-link networked scenarios,” WGCDR Watanasrimongkol explained.
He said the Gripen compares very favourably to Thailand’s Lockheed Marting F-16 Block 15 fighters, which are undergoing a mid-life upgrade to a standard similar to international Block 50 configuration. “Performance-wise they are very similar, but avionics-wise it’s a different world,” he said. “These are different generation aircraft: Gripen is much better in terms of the human-machine interface, and with the datalink system this increases the SA of the pilots a lot.”
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Despite delays, US Navy’s Virginia class sub headed for on-time delivery

The problem with giving the Kurds substantial military support is they could turn and attack Turkey, Iran, Syria or Iraq as they have done in the past in a quest to establish an independent Kurdish nation of 30 million. The Kurdish nation would encompass southeast Turkey, northwest Iran, northeast Syria and northern Iraq. None of those nations are going to willingly give up territory.

And yet the Kurds seem to be the only ones likely to be able to take on the ISIL and show some results. Am actually surprised to see Islamic nations not taking a more direct role in the conflict and just watching from the sidelines..ISIL is a far graver threat to their own security than the Kurds, who IMO, deserve their own nation anyway.

The situation with ISIL and the current situation in Iraq is due to willful blindness by the current and recent past US Administrations.

Much of the funding and weapons for ISIL comes from the Persian Gulf states, especially Qatar.

When the Saudis were confronted with ever-increasing objections to “occupation” by US forces on their soil, the US agreed to withdraw in 2003. Qatar stepped up and became the new host to US Forces at Al Udeid air base and the naval base at Juffair Bahrain was expanded. Doing so gave Qatar a level of immunity from serious scrutiny from the US, which needed the bases to facilitate continued operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. The US turned a blind eye to Qatar’s shenanigans.

I believe the original intent of funding the ISIL insurgency was to bleed money/men from Shia Iran. It was a Sunni vs Shia thing. This is based on earlier reports which seemed to indicate ISIL was targeted against Iranian-backed Shia proxies in Syria and Hezbollah supporters of the Syrian government and Shia-led government in Iraq. As ISIL grew in numbers, the anti-Iranian focus has been lost as seen by their unruly mob attacks against the Kurds, who are predominantly also Sunni.

Expect Obama to do little in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East. He was shamed into a handful of air strikes and airlifts of food and water to prevent genocide of the Yazidis. Obama opposes involvement in Iraq and made withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan a centerpiece of his 2008 election campaign. Obama and America’s leftist believe everything happening in Iraq can be blamed on evil George BusHITLER and Tony BLIAR. For Obama to provide substantial military support to the Iraqis would be seen as vindication of Bush/Blair policies. Obama does not want to upset his core constituency just prior to the elections on 4 November. If that core doesn’t vote, Obama’s Democrat Party could suffer serious loses. Obama will not risk that happening.

The bottom line is ISIL is a second order effect of policies which seems to be a good idea at the time. Now its a grand mess.

Unfortunately, what you’re saying is coming true. 🙁

US officials say airstrikes against Islamic State to remain limited

It seems to me that the best option in this scenario is to arm and train the Kurds to not only defend themselves but also take the fight to the ISIL in other parts of Iraqi territory that is not under Kurdish control. All the while, hoping that the Iraqi Army and AF also fight back..although whether they have the stomach for a bloody conflict in semi urban, urban areas is suspect.

Russian naval forces force US submarine out of territorial waters