RUSI Defence Systems

What Does the Future of Land Fires Look Like?

Adam Coffey

The Royal Artillery’s ability to fight peer and near-peer threats has stagnated after two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Modernising Defence Programme now offers the Royal Artillery a chance to consider the future of fires.

Australia’s Aegis Destroyer Will Improve its Defensive Capabilities

Debalina Ghoshal

The Royal Australian Navy is leveraging the latest Aegis combat system, SM-6 interceptor missiles and its new Hobart-class destroyers to limit its vulnerability to proliferating ballistic and cruise missile threats in the Indo-Pacific region. This has implications for interoperability with allies and deterrence.

Enter the Tempest

Justin Bronk

The new £2 billion Tempest programme aims to both keep the UK in the combat aircraft business and secure for it a place in the next major European fighter project. Initial mock-ups unveiled with the announcement give some clues about design priorities, but funding the project long term may be challenging

A Fourth F-35 Variant?

Andrew Hartland

With an inherently high thrust-to-weight ratio and modified digital flight control system, an F-35 variant could operate off the Queen Elizabeth class carriers with fewer penalties to the baseline F-35A design than the current F-35B and hence fewer performance trade-offs

Counter-UAS – a ‘Wicked’ Problem?

Adam Coffey

Finding, striking, jamming, blocking, sustaining, and generally being disruptive, are all now realistic outputs from UAS. Given these multiple potential and proven uses for UAS even by non-state actors, the military conversation has very much moved on to how to counter them.

The European Fighter Cooperation Question: How Many UK F-35s?

Justin Bronk

The ongoing Combat Air Strategy under development within the Ministry of Defence faces a difficult choice, with significant capability, industrial and geopolitical cost trade-offs involved. The F-35 is at the centre of this dilemma.

Networked Air Warfare – Where Next?

Andrew Hartland

Cross-platform networking architectures, coupled with innovative UAV design concepts, could offer a more efficient unmanned alternative to expensive fast jets.

The lights are going out all over Europe

Joss Meakins

The threat of significant Russian cyberattacks against Western energy infrastructure is an increasingly clear and present danger

UK Basing Posture Renews Naval Capability

James Shinnie

With new UK facilities opening in Oman and Bahrain, an examination of these future bases offers helpful insights into the shape of UK strategic international engagements post-Brexit.

China and the Globalisation of Armed Drone Strikes

Scott N. Romaniuk & Tobias Burgers

China’s rapid progress in developing and exporting armed and unarmed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles has significant implications and is undercutting long- running US efforts to control the spread of this technology around the world

SpaceX Falcon Heavy: That’s No Moon … It’s A Tesla!

Alexandra Stickings

Taiwan’s Illustrative Minehunter Troubles

Shang-Su Wu

Taiwan has had industrial financial viability problems with the construction of new minehunting vessels. These problems are indicative of the difficulties Taipei faces in its indigenous military modernisation efforts aimed at ameliorating its military inferiority vis-à-vis China.

Potential Chinese Railgun Testing Illustrates the US Navy’s Biggest Long-Term Challenge

Justin Bronk

Pictures of what appears to be a test installation of a naval railgun on a PLA Navy landing ship suggest China is moving forward with sea trials of a weapon which can threaten all Western surface assets. At the start of a huge ship-building plan, China is ideally placed to capitalise on this technology.

Unmanned Systems and the Re-emergence of Naval Expeditionary Capabilities

George Galdorisi

As part of a renewed focus on naval expeditionary operations, the United States, United Kingdom and other nations are testing a variety of unmanned systems to enhance the capabilities and cost effectiveness of amphibious forces against future global threats

Defining Integration: UK and US RC-135 Co-Basing

Mark Cramer

The RAF’s acquisition of the RC-135 ‘Airseeker’ represented a deliberate effort by both the RAF and US Air Force to set the conditions for further integration. The current lack of greater progress on this vision will represent a lost opportunity for both air forces that will only serve to drive up operating costs.