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United States policy on Iran is little clearer than it was the day President Barack Obama took office, according to GSN’s soundings among US diplomats and Central Command (Centcom) planners. Central tenets of policy, the means and ends, continue to be blown around by the storm of events in the Islamic Republic. And engagement has been thrown decisively off course by Iran’s festering domestic political crisis.

Yemen’s little-noticed southern unrest has finally gained some serious recognition with the 15 December publication of a Human Rights Watch report into the brutal reaction of state security services to the mostly peaceful southern protests. The report – In the Name of Unity: The Yemeni Government’s Brutal Response to Southern Movement Protests – documents the heavy-handed suppression of the Southern Movement (Al-Thawra Al-Janoubi) coalition.

In the division of labour between the regular Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), the principles of decentralisation

The division of responsibilities between Iran’s naval forces, outlined in a new report, will frustrate enemy attacks but not change the outcome of any future conflict with the United States

Economic as well as political problems are adding to fears that Yemen is sliding towards state failure. The Kingdom’s military acceleration along the border in November illustrates the considerable force with which Saudi Arabia is prepared to intervene in its neighbour’s affairs

Since the beginning of 2009, there have been signs that the long-awaited overspill of jihadist violence from Yemen into Saudi Arabia has gathered pace, leading up to last month’s Saudi offensive against militant targets in the Yemeni borderlands.

The French believe they can swing a much-needed sale of Rafale fighters as Kuwait enters a new procurement cycle. But even if planned deals are about renewal rather than expansion, MPs have tough questions for a government that is struggling to command confidence

The fighting in northern Yemen has long had a severe humanitarian impact, but it was only in October that refugee agencies were able to raise the profile of the crisis, after bombing attacks that struck civilian targets

It is not just through trade and financial controls that the United States and its allies are gradually encircling Iran in an effort to throttle the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. And the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states are playing a larger role in this process than seemed likely earlier this decade, when Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz led a move towards rapprochement with Tehran. Thus, according to GSN’s contacts in the

Despite an increasingly sophisticated military infrastructure, a fatal crash and a number of technical faults at a recent air show have undermined President Ahmadinejad’s threats of retaliation if the US or Israel were to strike

After a dazzling record in the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi Army Air Corps (IrAAC) was destined to play a leading role in the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990.

Like Iraq’s air force, the country’s military helicopter force became a politically sensitive issue after the fall of Saddam Hussein due to the perception that such forces were extensively used in internal repression. It was arguably General Norman Schwarzkopf’s agreement to let Saddam use his helicopters after the 1991 Safwan ceasefire that sealed the fate of the uprising against him at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Nevertheless, no modern military can function without helicopters, much less one involved in the most intense counter-insurgency in the region. As a result, the modern Iraqi helicopter force is developing faster than other aspects of the country’s air force.

The IrAF plans to have 38 squadrons by the second half of the next decade. It currently has eight. Of the 30 unformed squadrons, aircraft orders and training account for 17 squadrons

Demands for the return of Saddam-era jets stranded abroad by international sanctions and a raft of contracts for fighter and training aircraft illustrate the IrAF’s impatience to achieve ‘strategic independence’ by 2020

The latest bloodbath in Saada, causing tens of thousands of civilians to flee, has made international news. The roots of the crisis, and the continuing confrontation in the south, present a complex challenge to Ali Abdullah Saleh