Despite Putin’s Swagger, Russia Struggles to Modernize Navy
By Andrew Osborn, Reuters: "Despite Putin’s Swagger, Russia Struggles to Modernize Navy President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy's combat capabilities a priority."
By Roger N. McDermott, Eurasia Daily Monitor: “In recent years, Moscow has placed growing emphasis on procuring modern and advanced platforms to increase the combat capability of its Air Force, subsumed within the Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS).”
By Kevin Eyer, RealClearDefense: “Much of what is discussed in Navy circles centers upon two broad topics: war-fighting and the material tools necessary to support a fight, now or in the future. However, an examination as to how the Navy goes about the actual procurement of the systems intended to support the military’s needs is seldom undertaken.”
By Gabriel Coll & Andrew Hunter, CSIS: “The U.S. military's vertical lift fleet of helicopters and tiltrotors is aging. With the exception of V-22 Osprey, no completely new aircraft designs have been introduced since the 1980s.”
By Ben Werner, USNI News: “The Navy is pushing a series of education reforms to better train enlisted sailors and officers to face the increasing military capability posed by near-peer competitors and to fight complex, high-end wars."
Air Force Changing How Special Ops Fighters Train
By Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics: "A Rand report from May 2018 found that the attrition rate during the initial Special Warfare assessment and selection course hovers at roughly 75 percent."