October 19, 1999

CLAWS: The Marines are asking for bids on the Complementary Low Altitude (air defense) Weapon System or CLAWS. This will be a variant of the AMRAAM missile mounted on a Hummer truck.--Stephen V Cole

NATO military planners are warning that the alliance must start immediately designing systems, aircraft, and tactics that could deal with improved Russian-designed air defense systems such as the S300 and S400. Yugoslavia had a few of these systems but had never deployed them. Had it done so, the existing NATO (mostly US) systems would have had a much more difficult time in dealing with the defenses, and would have suffered considerable losses.--Stephen V Cole