Raw Intel

South Korean Hanwha Aerospace used the ADEX 2025 exhibition to unveil the K-NIFV, a next-generation infantry fighting vehicle the company says was developed to cut costs, raise domestic content and respond to new threats exposed by the war in Ukraine. Built from the firm’s Redback design, the K-NIFV is being pitched for both export and […] The post South Korea unveils next-gen K-NIFV fighting vehicle first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Russian Navy’s intelligence vessel Yantar is operating near UK territorial waters, prompting a heightened military response amid concerns about threats to critical undersea infrastructure. In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Defence Secretary John Healey said, “A Russian spy ship – the Yantar – is on […]View the full article

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said long-range strike drones overnight hit Russian air defense systems and a combat aircraft at the Belbek military air base in Russian-occupied Crimea, damaging equipment valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. According to a statement from the SBU, long-range drones operated by the Alfa Special Operations Center struck key elements […]View the full article

Is four months too short a turnaround for a guest on Midrats? Not if the topic at hand keeps running to the top of your read board. From the unending diplomacy responding to the Trump Administration’s unending drive to get Greenland’s geography—and the resulting security—more firmly under American control, to the sitcom-worthy deployment of a couple of dozen “Coalition of the Freezing”—Greenland can’t-stop-won’t-stop from gathering eyeballs and attention. So, we’re bringing back Elizabeth Buchanan for another visit. We’ll use her recent article in The Spectator as starting off point, A buyer’s guide to Greenland. We go LIVE at 6pm Eastern. If you are reading this after th…

Russia has warned of potential military action in the Baltic Sea, with senior Kremlin official Nikolai Patrushev stating that the Russian Navy could be used to break what Moscow describes as a possible maritime blockade, according to reporting by Militarnyi. Patrushev, an assistant to the Russian president and a central figure in Russia’s security establishment, […]View the full article

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on March 14 that developing a domestic air defense system has become a top priority for Ukraine’s defense leadership, tasking Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov with leading efforts to strengthen the country’s ability to protect its airspace. Speaking to journalists, Zelenskyy said Ukraine must pursue several parallel options to improve air defense, […]View the full article

Soldiers assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps Signal Detachment conducted live-fire familiarization training with the 5.56mm L-variant Drone Round at Oak Grove Training Center in North Carolina on April 9, 2026 — putting a new class of kinetic counter-drone ammunition to the test against small unmanned aerial systems without any modifications to their standard rifles. […]View the full article

A U.S. advanced propellant company with a 15-year operational relationship with the Department of War has officially launched as a dedicated defense entity, bringing three drop-in fuel replacements designed to extend the range, endurance, and strike capacity of American aircraft, missiles, and rockets without requiring changes to existing propulsion systems. CycloKinetics, Inc. announced its formal […]View the full article

The U.S. Army is nearly doubling its investment in its primary short-range air defense system for fiscal year 2027, requesting $461 million for the Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense program, known as M-SHORAD, up from $296 million the previous year, as the service races to rebuild air defense capabilities it dismantled two decades ago and now […]View the full article

The U.S. Marines stationed on Okinawa, Japan, can now sink enemy warships from land and shoot down drones from the back of a truck, after the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment formally received both the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System and the Marine Air Defense Integrated System in June 2026, completing the weapons fielding that transforms […]View the full article

Nishati Power Technologies announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued it Patent No. 12,671,257, covering hybrid power generation technology built specifically to solve that problem for troops operating far from any power grid. The issue Nishati’s patent addresses sounds technical, but it plays out as a very physical headache for soldiers in the […]View the full article

REGENT Craft’s autonomous Seaglider drone, Squire, took part in a 13-day military experimentation event called Silent Swarm in Michigan, testing electronic warfare payloads alongside uncrewed systems from across the U.S. military, the Rhode Island-based company announced Tuesday. Silent Swarm ran July 13 to 24 across Michigan’s Northern Lower Peninsula and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training […]View the full article

Photos and video from Exercise Thunderstruck 3.0 show Oklahoma National Guard convoy vehicles fitted with wire mesh cage screens, a low-cost defense against first-person-view drones that Ukrainian forces have used on the battlefield since 2022. The exercise, held September 12 at Camp Gruber Training Center, centered on unmanned systems and drone threats. Images from the […]View the full article

Spanish drone autopilot maker UAV Navigation-Grupo Oesía is working with the European Space Agency on a way for military drones to navigate using signals from low Earth orbit internet satellites when GPS and other satellite navigation signals are jammed, spoofed or unavailable, the company said on October 8. The research is funded by ESA’s NAVISP […]View the full article

German defense AI company Helsing on Oct. 26 unveiled Contra, an autonomous, AI-controlled air defense system designed to protect countries against large-scale drone and missile attacks, along with two new interceptor missiles, the jet-powered AD-1 Inferno and the rocket-powered AD-2 Ambush, the company announced. Helsing said Contra fuses data from sensors and weapons into a […]View the full article

BZ to the Army for selecting some excellent weapons to tweak a bit to suit their specific requirements, and then add to their weaponeering tool kit. As covered by Syndey Freedberg at the end of last week; ...the Army has chosen to mix two very different Navy weapons together in its prototype MRC (Mid-Range Capability) unit: the new, supersonic, high-altitude SM-6 and the venerable, subsonic, low-flying Tomahawk. “Following a broad review of joint service technologies potentially applicable to MRC, the Army has selected variants of the Navy SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles to be part of the initial prototype,” says a Rapid Capabilities & Critical Technologies Office (R…

First published in AUG09.Just another old man walking around in his garage, eh? These days he’s long retired, living with his wife, Shirley, in a trim split-level below a wall of rimrocks near the college where he used to teach. Every day he tramps out to the studio behind his house to paint and draw. You ever wonder what they have seen? Maybe, just maybe --- you don't want to know. He is 91 years old now, among the handful of last men surviving from America’s worst military defeat, the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines during that desperate winter and early spring of 1942. American Heritage magazine has a must read article that personalizes what is often f…

We’ve all seen it; those who promote, protect, and mentor the “deep select” Golden Boy become personally – and professionally – invested in their success. Not content to give them opportunities to succeed or fail on their own, when things do not turn out a perfect as the CV and as those mentors promised they would, the wounded instead make excuses, defend, and deflect any criticism of The Chosen One. Though years and decades pass, they still treat grown men on the edge of middle age as if they are still that promising young staffer they once were – poised for greatness at some point in the future. They never really achieve regular success, but give you the appearance tha…

If it's April, it's time for a return visit by Ross Kennedy to Midrats! A little under a year ago, we had Ross on to discuss the impact of COVID and related structural issues to the global supply chain. A year later, we find conditions have not just remained, but with war in Ukraine and a new COVID variant working its way through coastal China, in many ways the global trade in essential items has turned for the worst. If you are worried about the cost and availability of fuel, food, and everyday items you've spent the last decade assuming were always going to be there at a price you're happy with, then you need to join us from 2-3pm Eastern this Sunday. Ross is a U.S.-bas…

We need more and more clear and direct talk like this from senior uniformed leaders throughout NATO; In a remarkable speech in Prague today, the Czech Republic’s most senior army leader demanded, as an “absolute necessity.” that the service embarks on its “biggest rearmament” ever. Major General Karel Řehka, chief of the General Staff of the Czech Republic Army, told delegates at the Command Assembly convened to announce the army’s strategic and procurement plans for 2023 that “serious challenges await us,” as he reflected on the “crisis” in Ukraine. “The biggest rearmament of the army in the country’s history is no longer just a wish, but an absolute necessity,” Řehka s…