Raw Intel

Are we giving China an opening in one of the last places we would want them to be? Maybe ... but if not, at least someone just decided to put down a marker on an important bit of forgotten real estate. Details over at USNIBlog. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=zbWS1ByajDQ:sTdiSLvjIIQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=zbWS1ByajDQ:sTdiSLvjIIQ:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=zbWS1ByajDQ:sTdiSLvjIIQ:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=zbWS1ByajDQ:sTdiSLvjIIQ:F7z…

Here’s Subic Bay back in its US Navy heyday. Here she is today. That isn’t the real change. Look at what is happening on the western side of the bay. 19 years ago in 2006, just some undeveloped bayside. Today? Why is it important? Subic Bay, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of Manila, sits within striking distance of China. It is roughly 1,100 kilometers (684 miles) from Shenzhen and Taipei, 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) from Shanghai, and 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) from Beijing, putting it well within the range of China’s intermediate-range ballistic missiles. …and the world is a very different place than it was in the Duterte era. Big things are happening…

One little nugget I’ve said too much that last week or so is that to many in the national security nomenklatura – especially in DC – the process is the product. The measure of effectiveness isn’t the ultimate delivery of useful kit to the fleet, but adherence to the process. Billions upon billions of dollars can be made for years and POM-cycles on end getting ready to think about possible things that might be of some use … maybe. We wind up with dead end programs that produce nothing. No one really is held to account. At the end of the day you have to do one of two things: 1. Like with the fail to transition that was ZUMWALT, you have to restart the legacy ARLEIGH B…

It has long been a dirty little secret that we made a decision to “accept risk” in defending our bases from attack. That momentary bet became a habit…and then part of the environment. The Army, especially during GWOT, didn’t just underfund air defense in general and treat it as a secondary career field—it never even considered what was needed to defend bases. The USAF? No better…and they relied on the Army for air defense. It was only 18 months or so ago they started to experiment with base defense. In the halls of the Pentagon, the military historians and Red Teams lost the argument to the accountants and the pet theories of The Smartest People in the Room™. When things …

For obvious reasons, the navalists amongst us (guilty) have an ear out for Odessa. Not only is it the last significant port on the Black Sea under the control of Ukraine, it has a history from the dawn of time as the key to any conflict in this area. The Russians must take it during this campaign. As such, this got my attention today; The Ukrainian military is reporting Russian warships in the Black Sea are shelling villages near the coast close to the nearby port city of Odesa. These attacks specifically targeted the settlements of Lebedivka, Sanzheika, Zatoka, and Bilenke, according to a Wednesday Facebook post from Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces. These vi…

The last year has seen a growing bi-partisan consensus that the United States and the People's Republic of China are in competition to set the global order for the next century. After a year to firmly set in the minds of national security leaders on both sides of the aisle, we find ourselves at a moment when Congress and the Executive branch of government are both in the mood to strengthen our nation and expand job opportunities by opening the door for more spending. Why haven't we seen the logical connection between the two? To explain the importance of this moment in time is returning guest poster, Bryan McGrath. Bryan, over to you. In a speech in Pittsburgh Wed…

Did you catch Biden's speech where he introduced him nomination for Secretary of Defense? In it, if you look at a certain angle, you can see an outline of what you can expect from him - broadly - for national security priorities. I have quotes and details over at USNIBlog. Come by and give it a read and tell me what you think. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=jU_INXPF9fs:1AVju-Le09Y:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=jU_INXPF9fs:1AVju-Le09Y:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=jU_INXPF9f…

We live in an era where in the blink of an eye we've gone from flip-phones to smart phones with the capabilities of both supercomputers a generation ago and entire movie studios in your back pocket. In that same time frame, what happened to the promised integration and operational utilization of aircraft carrier based drones - or Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or whatever we are calling them this week? This Sunday we are going to dive deep in to the topic and problem with our guests Trevor Phillips-Levine, Noah Spataro, and Andrew Tenbusch. We will use as the starting point for our conversation their recent article in War on the Rocks, "Winged Luddites: Aviators are the Bigge…

Our Navy would be such a more powerful force if we had kept with the mindset of the Aegis and Standard Missile evolution. Bit by bit, step by step, increment by increment, baseline by baseline, we got a stronger, more effective Navy. A few hiccups like in any long running program ... but the success is undeniable. The latest example; In a first-of-its-kind test, the United States has successfully used a small ship-fired missile to intercept a target Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), according to the Missile Defense Agency. The successful test shows the U.S. military now has another missile defense system capable of defending against North Korean ICBM’s…

The greatest tragedies from war, both directly and indirectly, are those that were clearly foreseen, knowable, or otherwise clear as day to anyone who wanted to see them. They did not happen in the shadows, they were allowed to happen because people with access to levers of power did not want to expend personal, professional, or real capital to take steps to prevent something that would be too horrible to think of should they come to pass. Little pain now to avoid great pain later is a more difficult concept to accept than it seems. The world in complicated. It is a human failing to not want to expend effort NOW to prevent something that will force harder effort in the fu…

More than once, mostly on the Midrats Podcast, I have said something to the effect, “Bravo Zulu to the Iranian engineering team who developed the Shahed. Everyone is copying them left, right, and sideways. Even the Americans are trying to steal their engineering valor.” Well, belay my last: I was not just wrong, but mind-numbingly wrong. Let’s set the record straight. The Shahed drone is as American as apple pie—OK, perhaps apple strudel! The Dornier Drohne Anti-Radar (DAR) was an unmanned aerial vehicle developed by Dornier GmbH to detect and destroy enemy radar installations, especially those used for air defense, within a defined target area. The development project w…

As a mercantile republic - that is our natural state, don't forget that - our ultimate power is not our military. It is the byproduct of our system of government and the values we like to believe our nation was founded on. It is something that for too long was taken for granted. Yes, there is much ruin in a nation, and the substance of that ruin is the hard work of generations that came before. Work to build a stable society, a vibrant economy where people who work hard are rewarded with the fruits of their labor. As secure society where people can plan their lives and that of their children in the knowledge that threats both foreign and domestic will be kept at bay. Almo…

For those who missed the previous announcements, please read the previous posts for the details, but after 18 2/3 years here, I will no longer be posting on blogspot. Worry not, just click here to go to substack. That is where I'll be. View the full article

As of Monday night, after a bunch of OSIT accounts said that the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) had passed through Gibraltar, more and more reports indicate the contrary, she and her escorts are off Namibia, about to head around the Cape of Good Hope instead. It was kind of fun watching the competing reports. There are quite a few reasons to do this. We’ll find out the reason this time at some point, but don’t get lost in the details. It isn’t nothing. As usual, The Other Sal went to the chartroom to make sure everyone understood the state of play. Stop for a second—there is a gift here if we are willing to accept it. Remember one of the fundamentals we like to revisit her…

For those who’ve watched for a long time, especially over the last decade, our service academies and war colleges have drifted further toward academic leftist orthodoxy and away from their core competence as serious military organizations. The last eight months have been a whirlwind of change, as efforts are finally underway to refocus these institutions on their core competency. The two most high-profile Navy centers of higher education (with the Naval Postgraduate School a close 3rd, sorry fellas) are the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) in Annapolis, MD and the Naval War College (NWC) in Newport, RI. We have covered the need for a depolarization and re-militarization at both …

If you think there is a good news story around the Navy's portion of the defense budget over the next few years, you haven't been paying attention. Pondering over at USNIBlog. Grab a drink and give it a read. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=PQiHzpMMBx4:4cceqdxyaV0:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=PQiHzpMMBx4:4cceqdxyaV0:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=PQiHzpMMBx4:4cceqdxyaV0:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=PQiHzpMMBx4:4cceqdxyaV0:F7zBnMyn0Lo http://feeds.f…

Show LinksThe Congress, the Golden Fleet, and the Shipbuilding Industrial Base in 2026 You can listen at this link, subscribe to the podcast, or via the Spotify widget below. SummaryIn this episode of Midrats, Sal and Mark engage with Eric Labs, a senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), to discuss the complexities of shipbuilding costs, the role of the CBO in providing independent estimates, and the challenges faced by the U.S. Navy in maintaining and expanding its fleet. Eric shares insights on the differences between CBO and Navy cost estimates, the impact of maintenance on overall ship costs, and the importance of a skilled labor force in shipbuilding.…

There are good things, smart things, happening in The Philippines; "Meetings have already been set and probably we may have the Japanese and the Australians join in," Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez told Reuters. "They would like to join in for joint patrols to make sure that there's the code of conduct and there's freedom of navigation," adding it was still "an idea under discussion". If the plan materializes, it will be the first time the Philippines has joined multilateral maritime patrols in the South China Sea, a move that would likely anger Beijing, which claims most of the sea as its territory. The United States - quietly and wit…

15-months later, we have a lot more information from the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) ... and none of it is going to make you feel better. I am of the "responsibility of command" school, but if you don't feel and smell a larger story here, you aren't paying attention. More, along with links to the Command Investigation, are over at USNBlog. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=nqUlw-LvaTU:8nYxI3l1WTM:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=nqUlw-LvaTU:8nYxI3l1WTM:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/b…

With the growing tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border (and Belorussian while we are at it) when Midrats regular Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg writes something, you need to pay attention. He recently co-authored an article with Michael Kofman at the Washington Post titled, "Here’s what we know about Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine." What is the nature of Russia’s military buildup? And how long can Russia keep its forces in these forward positions? Our research on Russia’s military capabilities offers some clues. This is a solid snapshot and quick read of what the Ukrainians are facing. Russian forces near Ukraine total at most 60 battalion tactical groups (BTGs), alon…