Raw Intel

Navier’s N30 Quanta-D hydrofoil vessel completed a round of testing with U.S. Department of War customers last week, running mission profiles in front of special operations evaluators, the company said. The San Francisco Bay Area maritime technology company said the exercise, called Technical Experimentation 26-3, tested the boat’s performance in real mission scenarios. Navier did […]View the full article

China is officially announcing that its 2012 budget is increasing by 11.2% to about $106B. It is broadly agreed that this significantly understates total military spending. After about 25 years of double-digit growth China is now clearly the second biggest defense spender behind the US, with a budget that more than doubled in the last 5 years alone. There is more to it than just new kit though: some of that money is spent on improving quality of life for sailors to ease recruitment and retention, as China is facing serious demographic constraints and deep socioeconomic shifts. Associated Press | Bloomberg. The US DoD Inspector General is reviewing the F-35’s qualit…

Here is one hard fact; Australia has 1.7% of the population of Communist China. Additionally, Australia is 80% of the landmass of Communist China. Australia is also heavily reliant on China with regard to trade. 39% all goods exported in 2019-20 go to China, while 27% of all goods imported were from China. This is top of mind to the Chinese Communist Party. As they have in other parts of the world, once China gets comfortable with their economic leverage, they will begin to use it against you. They are not too good at it, and more often than not they come out as rather thuggish. They also lack cultural competence to see that what may work in some parts of the w…

Zeebrugge. If you have been there or to its inner city Brugges you know what a beautiful and peaceful place it is - as most all of Belgium is today. In 1918 though, Belgium was a nightmarish slaughterhouse where the bodies of millions were blended into the beaten earth - where like Okinawa and Iwo Jima over a quarter century later - the living earth would move with a blanketed mass of maggots. In one of history's subtle hints she will give you early if you wish to listen, Britain found herself on the edge of starvation due to a threat few understood or even knew of at the beginning of the war - the submarine. Something new, unexpected and decisive needed to be done.…

Americas Northrop Grumman won a $3.9 billion deal for Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile ground subsystems support. This contract provides for sustaining engineering, maintenance engineering, test and assessment, modification of systems and equipment, software maintenance, developmental engineering, production engineering, repair and procurement. The LGM-30G Minuteman III is a three-stage, solid-fueled, intercontinental-range ballistic missile. The Minuteman III is the sole land-based component of the US nuclear triad. Estimated completion date is July 6, 2039. The US Air Force detonated a warhead for its hypersonic weapon, Lockheed Martin AGM-183A Air-laun…

Most everyone knows that the Korean War, though mostly a South Korean and American affair, was a UN action. Students of the war know that many nations contributed forces to the fight, with the United Kingdom and Turkey known by most. Just a bit more than half a decade after liberation from a crushing Imperial Japanese occupation, the Philippines joined the fight as well. They didn't hide in the rear either. The below won't be a surprise to people who served in the US Navy. We, more than most, know the quality per pound of the people we served with of Philippine extraction. Take a moment to acknowledge an underknown battle and the heroism of an unappreciated fighting nat…

Americas The Pentagon’s blue-sky research agency recently announced that it selected 10 organizations to develop enhanced, less bulky night vision goggles to keep the crimp out of servicemembers’ necks. And so they can see better at night. The program, dubbed Enhanced Night Vision in Eyeglass Form (ENVision), will be divided to solve those problems in two separate technical areas. The five organizations selected in the first technical area will try to reduce the size and volume of night vision goggles. The Netherlands will base its soon-to-be received MQ-9A Reaper medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles in the Caribbean region. The Royal Netherlands Air F…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $93 million contract modification, which adds scope to procure special tooling and test equipment in support of electronic warfare capabilities for F-35 Lightning II low rate initial production for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers, and non-US Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will take place in New Hampshire, Maryland and expected completion date is in November 2024. Lockheed Martin won a $304.9 million modification. Under it, the contractor will produce and deliver Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Interceptors and associated one-shot devices to support US government requireme…

Back in the November 2007 issue of The Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan published an essay that still comes to mind on a regular basis a decade and a half after its publication; America's Elegant Decline. I first mentioned it ten months after its publication while I was in Afghanistan, and then only briefly. At 15, I think it is time to see how it holds up. 15 years is a long time - but it also passes quickly. 15 years from now would be January of 2038. You know all that talk about "2040" in the last year, well you're one POM cycle away ... and while some things we think about the future to come will be roughly correct, some will be quite off. That is normal and should be expe…

EA-18G at Pax The USA’s electronic attack fighters are a unique, overworked, and nearly obsolete capability. With the retirement of the US Air Force’s long-range EF-111 Raven “Spark ‘Vark,” the aging 4-seat EA-6B Prowlers became the USA’s only remaining fighter for radar jamming, communications jamming and information operations like signals interception [1]. Despite their age […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has launched the next phase of its Super Squadron Test by relocating the first wave of F-16 Fighting Falcons from Kunsan Air Base to Osan AB in South Korea. Starting July 28, the 36th Fighter Squadron at Osan began receiving F-16 aircraft as part of the broader initiative to evaluate whether […] The post U.S. Air Force tests super squadron model first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has opened a new effort to develop a class of low-cost interceptors designed to counter massed missile attacks, with the goal of producing modular weapons priced at less than $750,000 each. On August 27, the agency issued a solicitation under its Nimble Options for Buying Layered Effects (NOBLE) program, […] The post Pentagon seeks low-cost missile interceptors first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

The U.S. military has selected Zone 5 Technologies as one of two companies to participate in its Counter NEXT program, an initiative launched by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to rapidly field new systems capable of shooting down or disabling hostile drones — a growing threat in conflicts from Eastern Europe to the Red Sea. […] The post Zone 5 interceptor selected by Pentagon for counter-drone program first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

South Korea has begun full-scale production of domestically developed 76mm armor-piercing high-explosive (APHE) shells designed to penetrate and destroy enemy warships from within, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). The Defense Acquisition Program Administration held a kick-off meeting on October 28 at the Pungsan Technology Research Institute in Daejeon to mark the start […]View the full article

So, here we go. Point of order: in the last 24 hours there has been a lot of reaction to the headline, but not more than that. This is only a couple of minutes, so listen to the whole thing. Stop. Some of you did not listen to the whole thing. Scroll up and hit play. I’ll wait for you here. . . . OK, I look forward to the plan to grow the fleet after nuking the program that was supposed to help grow the fleet. Excuse my cynicism, but I’ve played Charlie Brown to OPNAV/NAVSEA’s Lucy and the football way too many times to expect it to magically work this time. Perhaps it will, but we are just about out of time. As we wait for the magic beans brief, we need to review how we…

The Israeli Air Force said it intercepted two unmanned aerial vehicles that crossed into Israeli airspace from the east, according to a statement released on December 25. In a statement, the Israeli Air Force said that the Air Force’s Air Control Center identified the two drones a short time before they crossed from eastern territory […]View the full article

As we discussed in the opening of last Sunday’s Midrats Podcast, I really have no idea why we keep publishing significant national security related documents on Fridays…but it is what it is. As it has been four days, there has already been more than a few opinion pieces written about it and to be blunt, a lot of it is a bunch of hot garbage. Even though I think everyone should agree with me, and one day you will, I would ask—after reading the rest of this post—that you read the National Defense Strategy yourself. It isn’t that long, and if you’ve already read the National Security Strategy we reviewed in the fall, nothing will be shocking. Let’s start with one of my fa…

Airbus Helicopters has unveiled two next-generation rotorcraft concepts developed to meet NATO’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capabilities (NGRC) study requirements, the company announced as part of its ongoing work under a NATO-backed concept program. The proposal, presented in cooperation with RTX businesses Collins Aerospace and Raytheon, as well as missile manufacturer MBDA, outlines both a high-performance […]View the full article

A United States Marine Corps Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) assigned to the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion conducted a live-fire engagement at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, in March 2026. The exercise was carried out by units from the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, as part of ongoing operational […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has issued a draft solicitation for the B-52J Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) Production Modification Kits and Interim Contractor Support, opening the door to industry competition for one of the most consequential bomber modernization efforts in recent memory. Published on April 16, 2026, through the federal contracting website, the presolicitation marks […]View the full article