Former UK chief of the defence staff Lord Houghton of Richmond has told a parliamentary committee that the purchase of two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, worth £6bn in total, was a "bad idea".

A US congressional committee has released an early version of a spending bill that would prevent the sale of F-35 jets to Turkey, in an attempt to stop Turkey buying the Russian-made S-400 air defence system.

The US has warned the European Union that plans to boost defence cooperation within the bloc would risk undermining the 70-year NATO transatlantic partnership.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has described the increasing US military presence in the Gulf region, as a response to growing tensions with Iran, as “concerning”.

The Swedish Defence Forum has submitted a report to Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist that seeks to overhaul the Sweden’s defence capabilities, including the addition of four new regiments, and a special brigade that could support Finland in a crisis or war.

BAE Systems is cooperating with the UK Government to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, after the German Government placed a ban on arms trading with the Middle Eastern nation.

Japan’s defence minister Takeshi Iwaya has announced that pieces of the Japanese F-35 stealth fighter, which crashed into the Pacific Ocean in April, have been found, but the flight recorder’s memory part was missing.

After an internal review, the Indian Army could deploy a number of air defence units, including its Akash air defence system and the Russian-made Kvadrat, near the Pakistan border to intercept incoming aerial threats.

The US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies has released the first satellite images of China’s first homemade full-sized aircraft carrier, a project that is still yet to be confirmed by Beijing.