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Marcus Schuler edits BattlePolicy, a daily defense-technology brief connecting the companies and capabilities behind modern war to the contest among Europe, the US, Russia, and China.
China's road-mobile DF-17 marries a medium-range ballistic missile booster to the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle — a maneuvering, low-altitude payload built to outwit missile defenses and hit fixed high-value targets at 1,800–2,500 km.
China's principal subsonic land-attack cruise missile — fielded from ground launchers, H-6K bombers, and warships, with reported nuclear capability and ranges exceeding 2,000 km — widely viewed as a direct counterpart to the US Tomahawk and Russian Kalibr.
China's man-portable, fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile — a Javelin-class top-attack system with imaging-infrared guidance, a tandem HEAT warhead, and no confirmed combat use.
Russia's mainstay sea- and submarine-launched cruise missile family, covering land-attack and anti-ship roles; first combat use in Syria (2015) and a primary weapon in the war against Ukraine's energy grid.
Russia's primary man-portable anti-tank guided missile — a SACLOS laser-beam-rider with a tandem-HEAT warhead, fielded since 1998 and exported widely to over 20 countries and non-state actors.
The AIM-120 AMRAAM is the West's standard active-radar beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, fielded on 14 fighter types and 42 nations, with a combat record stretching from 1992 to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The British-French Storm Shadow / SCALP-EG is a stealthy, air-launched cruise missile designed to destroy hardened targets from stand-off range, and the weapon that gave Ukraine its first long-range deep-strike capability.
The BGM-109 Tomahawk is the US Navy’s primary subsonic land-attack cruise missile — a precision stand-off weapon launched from ships and submarines and used in every major US conflict since 1991.
The FGM-148 Javelin is a man-portable fire-and-forget top-attack anti-tank guided missile — a Raytheon–Lockheed Martin joint venture, the symbolic anti-armor weapon of the war in Ukraine, and the NATO-standard infantry ATGM fielded by more than 20 operators worldwide.
China's medium/long-range surface-to-air missile system — a cheaper complement to the HQ-9, exported as the FK-3 and marking China’s first strategic SAM in Europe with its sale to Serbia.
China's indigenised short-range air defence system, derived from the Russian Tor-M1, providing mobile point and manoeuvre-unit protection against low-altitude threats.
China's medium-range SAM family — vertical-launch HQ-16A/B, export LY-80, and naval HHQ-16 — bridging the gap between long-range HQ-9 and SHORAD.
Russia’s latest tracked medium-range SAM — a 6-missile canisterized TELAR with active-radar fire-and-forget interceptors, fielded to thicken the lower tier of its integrated air defense.
Russia's autonomous short-range air-defense system — a single-vehicle, tracked SAM that carries 16 vertical-launch missiles for point defense against aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones, and a staple of Moscow's counter-drone shield.
Russia's mobile short-range gun-and-missile point defense system — designed to shield high-value assets from aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones, and both heavily used and increasingly targeted in Ukraine.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense — a wheeled, hit-to-kill interceptor system that destroys short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase, both inside and just above the atmosphere.
The Franco-Italian SAMP/T (Mamba) is Europe’s only long-range surface-to-air missile system with proven anti-ballistic-missile capability, fielding the Aster 30 interceptor and offering a road-mobile, 360° defense against aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles.
The NASAMS is a medium-range, distributed, networked air-defense system jointly developed by Norway and the United States, built around the ground-launched AMRAAM and proven in combat in Ukraine.
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is the United States Air Force's longest-serving strategic heavy bomber — a subsonic, eight-engine platform that has carried both nuclear and conventional payloads on every major American air campaign since Vietnam and is now slated to fly into the 2050s via the.
China's modular, long-range wheeled multiple-launch rocket system — built to strike targets up to 500 km across the Taiwan Strait with a mix of guided rockets and Fire Dragon tactical ballistic missiles, and the keystone of the PLAGF's deep-fires modernization.
Russia’s 300 mm heavy multiple-launch rocket system — the BM-30 Smerch and its modernised GLONASS-guided Tornado-S successor — delivering area saturation and precision deep fires out to 120 km.
The United States' wheeled, C-130-transportable precision rocket artillery system — battlefield-proven in Ukraine and known as the "sniper of artillery," firing GMLRS, ATACMS, and the future PrSM.
China's first indigenously designed CATOBAR carrier, the Type 003 Fujian, is conventionally powered yet launches aircraft via electromagnetic catapults—a first for any non-US navy.
Russia's sole aircraft carrier — a heavy, conventionally powered STOBAR ship designed in the 1980s, now crippled by repeated accidents and likely headed for the scrapyard.