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In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. Georgia Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton North Carolina William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn South Carolina Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton Massachusetts John Hancock Maryland Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton Pennsylvania Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross Delaware Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean New York William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris New Jersey Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark New Hampshire Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Massachusetts Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island Stephen Hopkins William Ellery Connecticut Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire Matthew Thornton Share Leave a comment This Substack is reader-supported. 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A photo circulating from inside Russia appears to show a T-90M main battle tank fitted with the Arena-M active protection system riding on a tank transporter, a sighting that, if confirmed, would mark one of the clearer visual indications yet that Russia’s newest hard-kill defense against incoming threats is moving beyond limited trials and into […]View the full article

A spinning umbrella built to save armored vehicles from a kamikaze drone sounds like something out of a cartoon, but Russia’s military has patented exactly that. The Combined Arms Order of Zhukov Academy, one of the Russian Armed Forces’ premier officer training institutions, has designed and patented a rotating cartridge launcher meant to protect vehicles […]View the full article

Seven Russian warplanes sat inside hardened aircraft shelters on occupied Crimean soil this week, and Ukraine’s security service says it turned most of them into wreckage before dawn. Ukraine’s Security Service, known by its Ukrainian initials SBU, said its drones struck seven hangars at the Saky military airfield in western Crimea, destroying or damaging at […]View the full article

Russia has begun using a new autonomous version of its Molniya strike drone in Ukraine, a cheap fixed-wing attack UAV now being adapted to hit targets without the control antenna that made earlier models vulnerable to electronic warfare. The new variant was identified after a Russian Molniya struck a Ukrainian facility and was found without […]View the full article

Echodyne’s counter-drone radar has become one of the most widely deployed sensors on modern battlefields, showing up on test ranges in the United States, at military training grounds in Lithuania, and in active combat use in Ukraine, and the Kirkland, Washington company told The Defence Blog in a written interview that it is now racing […]View the full article

A Thai company has beaten out South Korean, Turkish, and Czech defense giants to win its first-ever export contract, and the prize is a vehicle built to carry Philippine Marines across water and onto beaches in one of the world’s most scattered island nations. The Philippine Navy has selected the AWAV 8×8, an armored amphibious […]View the full article

Thirty-eight companies have told Japan’s government they can build a drone that shoots down other drones, and the country’s defense chief wants one flying within weeks rather than years. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi disclosed the figure at a press conference following a cabinet meeting on July 3, 2026, confirming that the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics […]View the full article

A warship that needs less than half the crew of Japan’s older destroyers has joined the fleet, and it represents the tenth proof that a country facing a shrinking population can still build a modern navy fast. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries handed over the frigate JS Nagara to Japan’s Ministry of Defense on June 29, 2026, […]View the full article

A Taiwanese military unit that once had nine administrative vehicles at its disposal now has just one it can actually drive, according to a claim a lawmaker raised directly to the island’s defense minister this week, Taiwan’s FTV News reported. Kuomintang legislator Ma Wen-chun pressed Defense Minister Wellington Koo during a Legislative Yuan questioning session […]View the full article

Elite American and French forces spent a week in the desert heat of East Africa calling in live airstrikes together, sharpening the exact skill that decides whether a bomb lands on an enemy position or a friendly one. U.S. Air Force tactical air control party members and joint terminal attack controllers assigned to the East […]View the full article

New footage from American Rheinmetall shows the company’s XM30 infantry fighting vehicle concept in greater detail, giving the clearest promotional look yet at the front profile, main gun, turret sensors and running gear of one of two vehicles competing to replace the U.S. Army’s Bradley. The video arrives as the Army’s XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat […]View the full article

A new air defense missile system will move through a secure Kratos manufacturing facility under a roughly $36 million contract, adding another discreet but telling order to the United States push to rebuild missile and air defense production capacity. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions said July 2 that it had received the single-award contract for […]View the full article

A New Zealand-built drone boat became a moving radio-sensing platform during a British military trial at RMB Chivenor, where SYOS Aerospace supported the Trident Sprint series with its SM300 uncrewed surface vessel and helped integrate CRFS passive RF sensors into a wider battlefield network. The trial, led by the UK Ministry of Defence and MarWorks, […]View the full article

Nineteen companies have survived a brutal, weeks-long elimination round built to answer one question the Pentagon considers existential: can American industry build enough cheap, lethal drones fast enough to matter in a real war. The Drone Dominance Program, a Pentagon initiative jointly run by the Test Resource Management Center and the Defense Innovation Unit, announced […]View the full article

Ukraine is preparing a grant competition to develop humanoid robots for its Defense Forces, opening a new experimental track in the country’s wartime effort to move soldiers away from the most dangerous parts of the battlefield. The initiative was announced by Brave1 head Andriy Hrytseniuk during the Brave1 Advantage event, Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi reported. Brave1, […]View the full article

Czech paratroopers in Chrudim have received their first U.S.-made Flyer 72 HD light tactical vehicles, beginning the replacement of aging Land Rover Defender Kajman vehicles that have served the unit since 2009 and giving the Czech Army’s airborne force a more mobile platform for raids, command tasks and combat operations across difficult terrain. The vehicles […]View the full article

The combat jet that is supposed to replace an aging fighter fleet on the front lines of the Pacific flew back into Okinawa this week, months after the Air Force quietly admitted its permanent arrival has slipped by a year. An F-15EX Eagle II, escorted by two F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft, landed at Kadena Air […]View the full article

Drug cartels have started borrowing tactics straight from the Ukraine battlefield, and Washington state’s National Guard just bought the hardware needed to teach police officers how to fight back. The Washington Army National Guard issued a sole-source purchase order on July 1, 2026, for four Vector Defense first-person-view drones, two of the 10-inch class and […]View the full article

A missile system old enough to have fought in Vietnam is getting locked in for at least three more years of service, and the Army has confirmed only one company is allowed to keep it running. The U.S. Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama published a presolicitation notice on July 1, 2026, announcing […]View the full article

From New England to Puerto Rico, across the Gulf of America, skipping over the desert to the West Coast…the vast American coastline is littered with closed and abandoned shipyards. They surround us like ghosts haunting the ruins of a once great empire, whispering of what once was. Some have been repurposed so much it would require a national emergency to claw back the waterfront. Others only a bit, and another cohort almost frozen in aspic from the day they were closed. Every time there is a proposal to do something as straightforward as reviving Charleston or something more ambitious like Jan Sramek’s Solano Shipyard, those trying to make forward progress have to swim through a sea of excuses, defeatism, obstructive regulations, or outright greed from those who want to turn industrial future into just another mixed-use development for empty nesters—nationalizing national security risk and privatizing profit. There is some progress, but it is along the edges, like we see in Charleston linked above, what Davie is doing in Texas or on a very small but important way by companies like Saronic…but it isn’t on global seapower scale. It doesn’t have to be this way. With firm, visionary leadership, sustainable funding, and will—it can be done. That is what South Korea is doing. Plans to fully relaunch the long-dormant Gunsan Shipyard in South Korea got a boost as the company signed a letter of intent to build its first ships in nine years. The yard had fallen victim to a downturn in the shipbuilding industry nearly a decade ago and never achieved its full potential… This is serious work. The shipyard is a little more turnkey than some of our abandoned shipyards—but not by too much. It is the land that matters. The letter of intent calls for the construction of four 114,000-ton crude oil and petroleum product tankers. They identify the shipowner only as a company in Oceania. The plan is to operate J Ocean alongside HJ Shipbuilding to provide a large increase in total capacity. HJ is a mid-sized yard that also undertakes repair work but is constrained on the size of vessels. The Gunsan yard has an approximately 700-meter (approximately 2,300-foot) dock and was designed to build 10 to 12 ships a year, including ultra-large vessels. The U.S.A. has a population 6.8x that of South Korea. Our economy is 16.8x the size of South Korea’s. When my father’s generation came back from the Korean War, South Korea was little more than rubble and rural poverty. We can do this. Look at the graph below, then ponder that civilian shipyards are, in times of war, the difference between being able to carry on the fight against a determined enemy and finding yourself at an early culmination point, needing to come to the negotiating table. We do not need more think tank work. We do not need more studies. We do not need more problem appreciation. We have a little bit of a head of steam going. We need to up the pressure and expand the base, because that's what we once were and what we could be again. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

The U.S. Navy has told the defense industry it wants an alternative to its own primary radar-killing missile, and it wants companies capable of building as many as 600 of them every year. The Naval Air Systems Command, the branch of the Navy responsible for developing and buying naval aircraft and weapons, published a Request […]View the full article

X-Bow Systems said Monday it has delivered more than 1,100 solid rocket motors, a sharp production milestone for a U.S. defense market trying to rebuild a rocket motor supply base that has struggled to keep pace with missile and drone demand. The company did not identify every customer or program tied to the 1,100 motors […]View the full article

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has officially confirmed that its air defenses intercepted a “long-range operational-tactical missile,” adding new weight to OSINT reporting about an unusual high-altitude engagement over Moscow Oblast on June 30. The Russian ministry did not specify where the intercept took place and did not identify the missile type. However, the statement came […]View the full article

Engineers at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and Fleet Readiness Center Southwest built a 3D-printing method that lets sailors repair cracked composite panels on the F/A-18 Super Hornet right at the base where the jet is stationed, and they expect it to cut repair time by roughly 50 percent once it reaches the […]View the full article