This Edition of DefenceIntegration.org presents the latest news, Industry         reports and Recruitment Opportunities in the overlapping fields of the     variousmodes of combat; Land, Sea and Air. We have attempted to address each of    these developments in turn beginning with my report on Chairing a Conference on Land Systems in the Digitised Battlespace. Aerial Combat systems are reported on by the global Integrated Review of Aerospace and Automotive which is the cross-product of the mobility fields covered by SAE-UK.org and further represents my personal views after having lead Conferences on both Air and Land Combat Systems. Sea Defence in also covered in this copy with Defence Integration being the name of the game for our article on the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle which combines Light Armament and amphibious capability in a way previously unseen - but just look at the cost. Its amazing technology but at $10,000,000 per vehicle, when the development costs are included, the increased capabilities have to be weighed against the price tag.

I would suggest that the willingness to expend such funds reflects the anticipated increase in demand for Rapid Reaction incursions during the coming decades. From my own perspectives and experience, the number, cost, scale, and diversity of armament programs such as the EFV and JDAM missile program would constitute a determined militarisation within the NATO co-alition. There’s nothing ‘cold’ about our present war time commitments, as I inadvertantly mentioned recently, we appear to have left the Cold-War era approach of defence through the threat of mutual annihilation to an older and more physical approach to dealing with our insoluble, geopolitical conflicts. In conclusion then, we are living in the beginning of an era where the struggle for world peace has devolved back to bloody, conventional warfare.

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