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05 Feb 26. Russia-US: Threat of nuclear escalation remains very low despite lapse of arms control treaty. Earlier on 5 February, the last remaining nuclear treaty between Russia and the US expired. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) capped the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the two countries could deploy. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in September 2025 that Russia would abide by the limits established in the pact for another year if the US did the same. Earlier on 5 February, the Kremlin stated that it had received no response from the US on extending the treaty. Instead, US President Donald Trump has expressed support for a broader deal involving China, the world’s third-largest nuclear partner. Russia suspended its participation in New START on 21 February 2023, after announcing a ‘temporary’ suspension of US inspections at Russian facilities in August 2022. We assess that the lapse of the treaty will increase the risk of nuclear proliferation and reduce already-limited trust between Russia and the US. However, its expiration will not elevate the currently remote threat of a nuclear escalation in the medium-to-long term. (Source: Sibylline)
04 Feb 26. India and US maintain momentum in defense ties. Amid deepening security ties between India and the U.S., New Delhi has significantly increased procurement of military equipment from Washington even as supplies from Russia, for long India’s biggest source of weapons, decline significantly. Analysts however say that in the coming years, one of the world’s biggest arms importers is turning to countries that will give it access to critical weapons technology. Nearly negligible a decade and a half ago, defense trade with the U.S. has jumped to $20 bn, making it New Delhi’s third-largest arms supplier after Russia and France. In November, an Indian state-owned firm signed a $1 bn deal to buy 113 F404 engines from General Electric Aerospace to power a domestically manufactured light combat aircraft called the Tejas Mk-1A. The fighters are crucial for India’s efforts to shore up the strength of its air force in the face of neighboring China’s growing military power. India is also in the final stages of negotiating a deal to co-produce General Electric’s F414 jet engine in the country to power a more advanced fighter jet called the Tejas Mk2 as well as initial batches of a fifth-generation fighter jet it is developing. Those deals represent a major milestone in the India-U.S. defense relationship according to Dinakar Peri, an analyst in the Security Studies program at Carnegie Foundation.
“That is significant because for a long time, India has not bought much offensive military equipment from the U.S. except, say, Apache helicopters and howitzers. It has mostly bought support platforms,” he pointed out. “But now over the next 15 to 20 years, an estimated 350 to 400 fighter jets that will be made in India will have American engines at the heart of the planes. That is almost 40 to 50 percent of the sanctioned fighter strength of the Indian Air Force.”
While India is building fighter jets for its air force, New Delhi lacks the know-how to make engines to power the aircraft. In November, Washington also approved arms sales of Javelin anti-tank missiles and Excalibur precision artillery projectiles to New Delhi worth $92.8 m. India will also lease two additional MQ-9B Sea Guardian predator drones for the Indian Navy, to expand maritime surveillance across the Indian Ocean. The defense deals came amid tensions that persisted for months over 50% tariffs that Washington had imposed on Indian goods – the highest in the world – until a trade deal reached this week slashed the duties. Analysts say security ties have remained insulated from the friction over trade.
“In the turbulent first year of Trump 2.0, if there has been continuity in the relationship, that has been in defense. Both countries are persevering with the security partnership such as military exercises and signing new contracts for weapons,” according to Brigadier Arun Sahgal, who directs the Forum for Strategic Initiatives here.
“In fact defense is the only silver lining in the relationship and will provide the necessary accelerator to maintain balance in the relationship,” he said.
The defense partnership is driven by Washington and New Delhi’s need to balance China’s rising power in Asia. While approving the supply of anti-tank missiles and artillery projectiles, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said that the sales would strengthen its strategic relationship with India, which it called “an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress” in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia. In recent years, India’s procurement of military equipment from the U.S. has included Apache helicopters, Super Hercules transport planes and maritime patrol aircraft. But as India pushes to modernize its armed forces, it is accelerating efforts to increase defense production at home and upgrade its military capabilities to counter regional rival China. The so-called “Make in India” and “Self-reliance” drive has gathered urgency amid recent hostilities with Pakistan and China — Indian and Chinese troops were engaged in a four-year-long military standoff following a border skirmish in 2020. A four-day conflict between India and Pakistan last May was their worst in decades. India’s most ambitious indigenous defense project is developing a fifth-generation fighter aircraft. While initial batches will be powered with the American F414 engines, New Delhi has turned to France to gain access to crucial technology. A deal is in the final stages of approval to co-develop and co-produce engines for the aircraft with full technology transfer.
“We are about to start engine manufacturing work in India with the French company Safran,” Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said in August.
New Delhi is also leaning toward a French fighter jet to equip its air force. The Defence Procurement Board, which evaluates defense equipment acquisitions, recently approved a proposal to buy 114 Rafale jets from France’s Dassault Aviation. While more approvals will be needed, analysts say the deal is in the final stages. India has previously bought 36 Rafales.
“France provides the alternative as India seeks strategic autonomy. New Delhi does not want too much dependency on the U.S., especially amid the current geopolitical uncertainties,” pointed out analyst Peri.
During a meeting last February between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump, the American president said that the U.S. is paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters.
But analysts in New Delhi rule out the possibility of India opting for the F-35, pointing out that stringent controls attached to U.S. military equipment are a deterrent in buying advanced equipment from Washington.
“With fighter jets the problem is the conditions attached to their sale. Modern military hardware for example requires a constant software upgrade. All this gives the U.S. leverage in control over the equipment, which India would not want,” according to Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation.
He says India’s caution has redoubled amid the global turbulence witnessed in the past year. “We were getting friendlier towards American imports but there will be a rethink. Yesterday the U.S. was New Delhi’s close friend, today it is no longer a friend to the same extent, what tomorrow holds we don’t know,” said Joshi.
Although India has diversified its purchases away from Russia, it is still a top weapons supplier – partly because Indian military systems continue to require Moscow’s support, and partly because it is willing to supply advanced systems and share technology with New Delhi, with which it shares a close partnership. As New Delhi spends bns of dollars to strengthen its defense in the coming years, India will turn to countries that are willing to share technology and produce military equipment in the country. Part of the production of Rafale fighter jets, for example, is expected to take place in India, once the deal gets the green signal. Analysts say it remains to be seen if similar deals can be struck with the United States.
“India will continue to maintain the pace of its defense relationship with Washington, but to sustain it beyond a certain point, it has to move beyond being purely transactional and move into the realm of joint production and joint development of weapons,” according to Sahgal. (Source: Defense News)
04 Feb 26. HASC chair seeking $450bn for defense in reconciliation. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told Breaking Defense the next NDAA will focus on expanding the defense industrial base. The fiscal 2027 budget season has barely started, but the head of the House Armed Services Committee is setting two major goals for the year: securing $450bn for defense in an upcoming reconciliation bill, and using the next defense policy bill to expand the defense industrial base. In an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense, HASC Chairman Mike Rogers said that he is working with his Senate counterpart, Sen. Roger Wicker, to lock that funding in.
“We’ve informed our leadership of that,” he said Wednesday. “We’re not talking about something frivolous here. We’re talking about national defense.”
That $450bn would be three times the $150bn secured for defense in last year’s reconciliation effort — which itself represented the first time defense money was secured through the reconciliation procedure. However, Rogers argued that the funding would be necessary to achieve the target, laid down by President Donald Trump, of a $1.5trn defense budget for FY27. Rogers explained his math thusly: If the White House requests a budget equivalent to last year’s, at about $1.03trn, and rolls over the $20 bn left over from last year’s reconciliation bill, that leaves a gap of about $450bn to hit $1.5trn. And while appropriators have final say on defense spending during the normal budget process, authorizers, such as Rogers, have control in reconciliation. However, getting $450bn in defense spending into a reconciliation bill and passed into law could be an uphill battle. While Republicans are able to pass a reconciliation bill without help from Democrat votes, they will face tight margins and a narrow timeframe for doing so, as Democrats are projected to take back the House in the upcoming midterm elections. And securing Republican support for additional defense funding in reconciliation is not a given: A recent blueprint for the second reconciliation bill put out by the House Republican Study Committee did not list defense among other priority areas such as home ownership and health care. However, Rogers stressed that a $1.5trn defense budget is necessary to be able to pay for major modernization projects including the Golden Dome missile shield, sixth-generation F-47 fighter jet, and Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.
“We have all these big ticket items that we have to do, and you can’t do that on a trillion-dollar budget. You just can’t,” he said. “So that’s the sobering side of the story that I think we’re going to be able to offer to our colleagues when it comes to getting the votes to do this.”
What To Expect In The FY27 NDAA
Meanwhile, HASC has already begun early work on the FY27 National Defense Authorization Act, which will prioritize the expansion of the defense industrial base, Rogers said.
“We tilled the soil last year by trying to improve acquisition processes to make it more commercial, so that it’s easier for industry to work with the government,” he said. “That was on purpose, because we do have to expand the defense industrial base. It’s gotten very small, and it’s atrophied, and it needs a lot of attention.”
Following the end of the Cold War, the defense industry narrowed to just six prime contractors, after the infamous Last Supper meeting in 1993 where Pentagon leaders told defense executives to consolidate or risk going out of business. Over the past decade, the industrial base has grown, as venture capital-backed defense tech startups like Anduril and Palantir entered the scene. But Rogers said he would like to see a larger number of commercial companies start making products for the Defense Department.
“That’s our question to these folks, and we’ve already started bringing them in and asking them, ‘What can we do to incentivize you to get into the defense production?’” he said. “Taking the traditionals and non-traditionals, what can we do to incentivize you to grow? [For] the primes, what can we do to incentivize you to expand?
HASC still is in its early stages of understanding the problem and doesn’t have “preconceived ideas” about exactly what legislative steps may need to be taken to widen the aperture for new entrants to the defense sector, Rogers said.
“I don’t know what all the obstacles are going to be,” he said. “I’m expecting some of them may be outside our jurisdiction. For example, tax policy. There may be something about our tax structure that disincentivizes expansion. If so, let us know so we can work with our counterparts on the Ways and Means Committee to address that.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Homeland Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need.
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