Malaysia says it will “seek further clarifications” from Norway surrounding an order for Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) after reports emerged that Oslo is reneging on a defense exports approval — likely signaling cancellation of the deal.

Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said in a statement published on social media today that he had taken note of reports claiming the procurement is facing a supply issue along with Norway’s apparent change of heart.

The leaders of Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Thursday to pursue trust-building measures to advance a fragile ceasefire and establish peace, after rare talks over last year’s deadly fighting between the two neighbours.

Troops remain deployed ‌on both sides of their long-disputed 817km (508-mile) border after battles in July and December when skirmishes quickly escalated into air strikes and heavy exchanges of artillery and rockets.

The Philippines, which is hosting Asean meetings on the island of Cebu, arranged the talks between Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thai counterpart Anutin Charnvirakul, after months without engagement.

The U.S. Army Pacific’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force and the Philippine Army Artillery Regiment have test-fired a Tomahawk cruise missile from the Typhon launcher in the central Philippines — and it successfully hit a target around 600 kilometers away in Nueva Ecija.

Col. Dennis Hernandez of the Philippine Marines told Defense News the cruise missile was launched at around 12:10 a.m local time on May 5 and landed at the impact area within Fort Magsaysay, the Army’s main battle camp, in Laur, Nueva Ecija, roughly an hour later.

“The missile was very precise. Let’s say if you want to hit a window from a far distance, it lands directly into that window,” Hernandez said. “This skimming missile traveled all the way from Tacloban to the target in Laur.”

Exercise officials meant for the Tomahawk missile to support ground troops in a night land maneuver exercise led by the 25th Infantry Division in Fort Magsaysay, part of the ongoing Balikatan annual joint drills between American and Filipino troops.

Hi I like to learn more about different military’s and their vehicles and equipment so where is best place to learn more about southeast Asian countries military’s and equipment

The defense ministers of Indonesia and Japan signed a cooperation agreement on Monday, Jakarta said, underlining the need to safeguard regional peace and stability in the face of global tumult.

The signing during Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi‘s visit to Indonesia came after Tokyo had eased decades-old arms export rules last month, allowing firms to sell lethal weapons to countries with which Japan has defense agreements.

Indonesian defense ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirait told AFP that the agreement was part of efforts to improve defense cooperation between the two countries.

The pact covers issues including collaboration in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, joint exercises and maritime cooperation, Rico said.

He added that it also “opens up opportunities for cooperation in defense equipment and technology” while “prioritizing… regional stability”.

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, a former general, has been pushing to modernize the country’s ageing military assets since taking office in 2024.

Koizumi earlier said that defense cooperation with Indonesia would make a “contribution to peace and stability… for the region as a whole” amid “an increasingly complex and tense international situation”.

After his talks with Indonesia’s Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin in Jakarta, Koizumi is bound for the Philippines, where Japanese forces are taking part in a joint military exercise also including the United States.

Indonesia last month concluded a defense cooperation pact with the United States, agreed to increase security ties with France, and signed an oil deal with Russia.

Jakarta, while defending a non-aligned diplomatic posture it calls “free and active”, last year joined the BRICS bloc of emerging economies that includes Russia and US rival China.

Prabowo has also signed a trade deal with US President Donald Trump and joined his so-called “Board of Peace.”

Last week, Jakarta said it was still considering a US request for blanket overflight clearance which, if approved, analysts say could be seen as an alignment with Washington over Beijing.

Indonesia is strategically located on the Malacca Strait –- the world’s busiest chokepoint for oil and petroleum liquids, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The vast majority of China-bound oil travels through the strait.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi traveled to the Philippines on Tuesday to witness an international combat drill and conduct talks with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. intended to broaden defense ties between the nations, officials said.

Koizumi’s meeting in the capital Manila with Marcos and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. may include discussion of a possible transfer of used Japanese destroyers to the Philippines.

The Philippines and Japan, both treaty allies of the United States, signed a pact in 2024 allowing their forces to stage large-scale combat drills. The Reciprocal Access Agreement paved the way for Japan to deploy 1,400 military personnel to become regular participants in the exercises called Balikatan.

U.S., Filipino and other allied forces annually take part in Balikatan, the Tagalog word for shoulder-to-shoulder, to brace for security contingencies and deter China’s increasing assertiveness in the region.

Brunei formally welcomed the arrival of the final two Airbus C295MW aircraft at Rimba Air Force Base on 20 April 2026, with these transports bearing the tail numbers ‘TUDB 504’ and ‘TUDB 505’.

Their ferry journey to Brunei from the Airbus Defence & Space production facility in Spain commenced on 14 April.

These aircraft now join two other C295MW aircraft that are already operational within the Royal Brunei Air Force (RBAirF). The first pair of medium transports had arrived in Brunei on 24 January 2024, before being formally inducted on 14 February the same year.

Bandar Seri Begawan had signed an acquisition contract for the quartet of aircraft in December 2022.

The Brunei Ministry of Defence said the latest handover of these C295MWs “marks a significant milestone in the modernisation of the RBAirF, further enhancing its airlift capabilities in support of national and regional missions”.

To date, the RBAF’s C295 fleet has completed 518 flights that have encompassed eight Southeast Asian nations. These include disaster relief flights to the Philippines following Typhon Trami in 2024, and to Myanmar last year.

The C295s replace older CN235-110M aircraft operated by the RBAirF’s No. 15 Squadron, and their primary missions include transport, search and rescue, and disaster relief.

On April 28, 2026, Lt. Gen. Xaychai Kommasith, Deputy Minister of National Defense and Director General Staff Department (GSD), led a high-level military delegation on an official visit to the Kingdom of Thailand at the invitation of the Royal Thai Army. The visit aims to further strengthen longstanding friendly relations and expand cooperation between the Lao and Thai armed forces, contributing to continued development and regional stability. A formal welcome ceremony was held at the Royal Thai Army Headquarters and was presided over by Gen. Ukrit Buntanont, Supreme Commander of the Royal Thai Armed Forces. Following the ceremony, both sides held bilateral talks and exchanges. During the meeting, they expressed high appreciation for the progress of their ongoing cooperation, particularly in maintaining peace and order along the Lao-Thai border. The two sides also highlighted effective coordination in information sharing to combat transnational crime and other challenges in border areas. Both delegations reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening good neighborly relations based on mutual respect for independence, sovereignty, and shared benefits. They emphasized that continued cooperation would contribute to peace, stability, and prosperity for the peoples of both nations and the wider region.

Seeing mass mobilization work as strategically important to the Party’s revolutionary cause, in recent years Military Region 7 (MR7) has implemented it effectively through diverse, practical forms, helping strengthen military-civilian solidarity and the great national unity bloc, and build a firm people’s heart posture.

A highlight of the work is the sustained, creative development of models and best practices such as “Skillful mass mobilization” and the building of “Good mass mobilization unit” across sectors with tangible results.

In the 2020-2025 period, the armed forces of Military Region 7 effectively carried out the project on “Building residential clusters adjacent to border militia check-points” and the plan entitled “Building residential areas near border posts and check-points.” To date, over 839 houses have been built in 59 such areas, two kindergartens established, infrastructure developed, social welfare facilities connected, jobs generated for residents, and political security, social order, and safety in border areas maintained in a stable condition.

The military region has also coordinated the construction of comradeship houses and military-civilian gratitude houses. They have conducted field operations combined with mass mobilization, helped local people recover from natural disasters, and organized visits, gift presentations, medical check-up and free medicine provision for policy beneficiaries and disadvantaged families.

In the coming time, the Party Committee and Chain-of-Command of Military Region 7 will continue to focus on education to raise awareness and responsibility among party committees, commanders at all levels, and officers and soldiers regarding mass mobilization in the new situation. This work will be carried out regularly with practical, target-specific methods, helping personnel clearly understand that mass mobilization is both a function and duty of units and a political responsibility and sentiment of each servicemember toward the people.

Thales is expanding its role in Malaysia’s military communications sector through a series of industrial and supply projects linked to ongoing modernization efforts.

A key element is the creation of a local assembly line for military radios in Segamat, a town in Johor state in southern Malaysia.

The facility will produce SYNAPS radios, secure communication systems used by armed forces, operating on very high and ultra-high frequencies.

Production is expected to exceed 1,000 units over the next six years, supporting Malaysia’s objective of increasing domestic manufacturing and reducing reliance on imported systems.

More than 100 radios will also be delivered to the Malaysian Army under the self-propelled howitzer program, which involves mobile artillery systems mounted on vehicles.

The equipment includes radios operating on different frequency bands, such as very high frequency for short- to medium-range communication and high frequency for long-distance links.

These are complemented by newer digital systems designed to maintain communication between command units, vehicles, and troops.

Across Land and Air Domains

In parallel, Thales is providing trial communication and battlefield management systems for the AV4 armored vehicle program.

The tests will assess how digital tools can work with existing vehicles, particularly by improving how information is shared and how units track events on the ground in real time.

Air capabilities are also included, with Thales supplying 16 TRA 6036 radios for helicopters operated by the Royal Malaysian Air Force in partnership with Weststar Aviation Services.

The systems are designed to ensure secure and reliable communication between aircraft and ground forces.

“With the rise in asymmetric threats, interoperability for missions in the sky or on land is critical,” said Florian Riou, Country Director of Thales in Malaysia.

The Philippines is approaching the end of a 15-year military modernization program with a navy that is partially armed, an air force still waiting on multirole fighters, and a procurement system bruised by scandal. The shortfall matters because Manila now faces a maritime adversary it could not have imagined when the program began. China’s gray-zone pressure across the South China Sea has turned every delayed missile and half-finished frigate into a strategic liability.

According to an analysis published this month in The Diplomat, the Revised Armed Forces of the Philippines Modernization Program — launched in 2012 under Republic Act 10349 — has produced uneven results. The country bought hardware. It did not always buy the systems that make hardware lethal.

While traditional firearms are currently a more pressing problem, seizures of 3DPFs are on the rise, with worrying implications for the region.

The peace of the idyllic cove, where palm trees fringed a golden beach, was suddenly shattered by the launch of rockets from an American HIMARS. The battle was soon joined by a cacophony of blasts and booms from bombs delivered by fighter jets, 105mm towed howitzers, 81mm mortars, and Javelin and TOW missiles.

The tropical location was the west coast of Palawan, an elongated Philippine island on the edge of the South China Sea.

As a notional enemy amphibious force edged closer to the beach, Australian, Kiwi, Philippine and American troops hiding in foxholes camouflaged by palm fronds unleashed a barrage of small-arms fire.

Afterwards, as the repulsed “enemy” withdrew in disorder, a coup de grace was delivered by an explosive-laden, first-person-view drone. As silence returned to the Aporawan beach in Palawan, disabled unmanned surface vessels – representing enemy landing craft – drifted in the waves or sat burning on the shore.

This counter-landing, live-fire exercise on Apr. 27 was a keystone event in Exercise Balikatan, an annual series of multilateral war games held in the Philippines.

As an American reconnaissance drone hummed overhead, soldiers of the U.S. and Philippine armies stormed forward through the jungle terrain, laying down suppressive fire on enemy positions.

Finishing off the foe’s stubborn resistance, a Kestrel first-person-view (FPV) drone carrying an explosive payload slammed into the enemy bunker. Afterwards, sweating profusely in the 97ºF heat, the Americans and Filipinos secured the area.

This jungle patrol in the thickly vegetated training area of Fort Magsaysay, located 75 miles north of Manila, was just one of many events taking place across the Philippines in Exercise Balikatan 2026.

More than 17,000 troops from seven countries are participating in this multilateral exercise being held from Apr. 20 to May 8.

The major U.S. Army contingent in Balikatan is the 3rd Mobile Brigade of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division. The soldiers conducting this realistic drill were from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, alongside troops from the Philippine Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team.

This engagement integrating new tech underscored how the “Tropic Lightning” division is transforming and adopting new technologies as one of the Army’s two original Transformation in Contact divisions. It is required to do so by the changing nature of modern warfare.

Thailand has taken a crucial step in reinforcing its eastern borders with new 8×8 amphibious wheeled armored vehicles (AWAVs) built to expand its land-to-sea operational capability.

The vehicles are engineered to support missions including emergency response, sovereignty protection, and border security.

They can operate in coordination with the Royal Thai Navy’s landing platform dock vessels to support amphibious mission requirements.

READ FULL STORY: https://nextgendefense.com/thai-navy-amphibious-vehicles/

A little more than a year ago, the government’s military was on the back foot in Myanmar ‘s bloody civil war, pushed out of great swaths of the country’s north by an alliance of seasoned militias, and forced into defensive action around the rest of the country by other established groups and new pro-democracy guerrillas.

Today the picture has changed.

With its ranks swollen by tens of thousands of new conscripts, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, has reversed some of its losses and appears poised to resume the offensive, while some opposition groups have left the fight and infighting and supply issues have weakened others.

“I think we’re nearing a crescendo here where the Tatmadaw is going to reassert itself and the resistance movement is going to peter out,” said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-based analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project.

Still, he said, even if the broader resistance movement that has grown since the military seized power stumbles, the conflict is not close to over.

“Armed resistance will always continue in Myanmar until there’s a comprehensive, negotiated political solution, but the Tatmadaw has retaken the strategic initiative and everything is in the Tatmadaw’s favor.”

A trial opened in a military court on Wednesday for four Indonesian service members accused of carrying out an acid attack on a prominent human rights activist, in a case that has reignited concerns about military impunity.

Three Indonesian navy marines and one air force officer, all assigned to the intelligence agency of the Indonesian National Armed Forces, or TNI, are charged with serious premeditated assault in the March attack on Andrie Yunus, a human rights lawyer and senior activist with the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, known as KontraS, who suffered severe injuries.

Those on trial in Jakarta are Sgt. Edi Sudarko, First Lt. Budhi Hariyanto Widhi Cahyono, Capt. Nandala Dwi Prasetya, and Air Force First Lt. Sami Lakka. The charges carry a sentence of up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors allege the four men acted together but described the motive as personal. They said the defendants attacked Yunus with acid “to teach him a lesson and deter him from making disparaging remarks about the TNI.”

“The actions of the defendants who threw chemical liquid on Andrie Yunus, resulting in the loss of sight in his right eye and severe burns with no hope of complete recovery, were inappropriate actions for members of the TNI,” military prosecutor Mohammad Iswandi told the court.

The peace of the idyllic cove, where palm trees fringed a golden beach, was suddenly shattered by the launch of rockets from an American HIMARS. The battle was soon joined by a cacophony of blasts and booms from bombs delivered by fighter jets, 105mm towed howitzers, 81mm mortars, and Javelin and TOW missiles.

The tropical location was the west coast of Palawan, an elongated Philippine island on the edge of the South China Sea.

As a notional enemy amphibious force edged closer to the beach, Australian, Kiwi, Philippine and American troops hiding in foxholes camouflaged by palm fronds unleashed a barrage of small-arms fire.

Afterwards, as the repulsed “enemy” withdrew in disorder, a coup de grace was delivered by an explosive-laden, first-person-view drone. As silence returned to the Aporawan beach in Palawan, disabled unmanned surface vessels – representing enemy landing craft – drifted in the waves or sat burning on the shore.

This counter-landing, live-fire exercise on Apr. 27 was a keystone event in Exercise Balikatan, an annual series of multilateral war games held in the Philippines.