Raw Intel

For the last Monday of 2020, we are bringing in one of our favorite regulars guests, Bryan McGrath. Bryan offers one of the better situation reports of where our Navy finds itself in the first year of what will be an incredibly challenging decade. Get a fresh cup of coffee and dig in. He doesn't just provide the solid analysis of where we are, he offers a way forward. Bryan, over to you. Coming as it has on the heels of scandal, tragedy, leadership failure, and pandemic, recent news of plans for a dramatically larger Navy seemed to be a lifeline to an organization that has had a few difficult years. That this planned Navy comes after a year of intense scrutiny fro…

Americas The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded three contracts this week to design a nuclear thermal propulsion system that will operate above low Earth orbit in 2025. General Atomics, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin are the prime contractors for the deal, according to a DARPA new release. The Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program has the potential to achieve rapid maneuver in space, which has been challenging because current electric and chemical space propulsion systems have drawbacks in thrust-to-weight and propellent efficiency, respectively, according to the agency. MBDA will equip the Royal Canadian Navy’s new Canadian S…

As described on Amazon, "Eight CIA officers are dropped into the mountains of northern Afghanistan on October 17, 2001. They are Team Alpha, an eclectic band of linguists, tribal experts, and elite warriors: the first Americans to operate inside Taliban territory. Their covert mission is to track down Al- Qaeda and stop the terrorists from infiltrating the United States again."Most may be familiar with one member of that team, Mike Spann. This Sunday we will spend the hour talking about that Team, the first few months of the Afghanistan conflict, and what the war and its future looked like early on as described in the recent book, First Casualty: The Untold Story of the C…

The People's Republic of China isn't hiding anything. Their plan is right there for all to see. If you can't quite understand what I mean at the end of May of 2022, the North American treasure who is Cleo Pascal will show you and tell you the story; Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every island can get up to 200 nautical miles off its coast as an EEZ in which it controls resources, say, fisheries. That means, for example, Pacific Island Country (PIC) Kiribati may have a population of around 120,000, but, with its EEZ, it covers as much of the planet as India. Now let’s colour in the EEZs of the countries being visited at the moment by China’s Foreign Minist…

Before diving into today’s post, as we have reached a lot of new readers in the last year, I would beg the indulgence of long-term members of The Front Porch to allow me to review some long-standing positions of mine. On the foreign policy front, especially for the last decade, I have liked to consider myself a realist. I do not expect perfection in my personal friends, nor expect perfection in my nation’s friends. I am not an isolationist by any stretch, but I do find myself much closer to John Quincy Adams’s; …admonition that “Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of democracy.” …than I am to that mindset that brought us to t…

War is funny sometimes ... many times (the present war does not count) - the person who you are trying to kill, or is trying to kill you can, in the blink of an eye - can become a good friend. You will put your life in his hands. Among civilized armed forces - that is the rule not the exception and has been for a long time. To prove that often forgotten fact - I give you Constantin Cantacuzino and James Gunn III. As reported by John L. Frisbee in Air Force Magazine; On Aug. 23, 1944, King Michael of Romania, whose country had joined Germany in 1940, surrendered to Soviet forces that had advanced into the country. In the next few days, one of the most unusual adventures o…

Americas Raytheon won a $23.2 million deal for the procurement of five APY-10 radar system weapon repairable assemblies (WRAs), for a total quantity of 43 WRAs in support of the P-8A aircraft. The delivery order does not include an option period. All work will be performed in McKinney, Texas. Delivery orders are expected to be […]View the full article

Americas According to the Defense Post, the US Air Force is seeking a vendor to integrate the upcoming Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) nuclear missile on the B-52H Stratofortress bomber. The service expects the vendor to build and integrate the Bomber Weapon Interface Equipment (BWIE) on the aircraft in support of the LRSO. The US military remains […]View the full article

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 and performance limits, they’ve been predictably busy on the front lines, used for everything from escorting strike aircraft against heavily defended targets, to disrupting enemy IED land mine attacks by jamming all radio signals in an area. EA-6B Prowler (click to view full) All airframes have life…

A Lithuanian defense startup has unveiled a new smart targeting module for air-dropped munitions, offering a domestically developed solution for precision strike operations even in environments where GPS signals are denied or degraded. According to Darius Antanaitis, a defense expert, the system is produced by Lithuanian deep-tech company PDKinematics and is designed to be integrated […] The post Lithuanian startup develops smart munition for drones first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

At this year’s International Defence Industry Exhibition (MSPO) in Kielce, Polish defense company P.H.U. Lechmar and French firm H2X-Defense introduced a next-generation unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) known as Hermione. The platform, powered by a hydrogen propulsion system, was presented as a technology demonstrator aimed at meeting the evolving logistical and operational needs of modern armed […] The post Polish-French team unveils hydrogen-powered robot first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

U.S. Soldiers from the Multi-Purpose Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) are field-testing an improvised, 3D-printed munition dropper dubbed the Widowmaker during Combined Resolve 26-1, the unit said. Mounted on a PDW C100 drone platform, the device is being evaluated for its ability to deliver […] The post U.S. troops test 3D-printed munition dropper for drones first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

The Texas National Guard is using airboats to conduct riverine patrols on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, operating in shallow and marshy areas to detect and deter illegal crossings along the Mexico border. Photographs released recently show Guard personnel traveling on a Panther Lightning airboat, a flat-bottomed craft propelled by an aircraft-type propeller, during […]View the full article

Poland has delivered the first batch of domestically produced Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to its military, with 15 units handed over to the 15th Mechanized Brigade. According to Defence24, the delivery is part of a contract signed in March 2025 for the production of 111 Borsuk IFVs. The agreement also includes training and logistics […]View the full article

Confirmed imagery released on Saturday shows a Venezuelan-operated Buk-M2E medium-range air defense system destroyed by U.S. airstrikes at Higuerote Air Base, approximately 75 kilometers east of Caracas, marking the second verified loss of the Russian-made system during the U.S. military operation. The newly emerged visual evidence documents the destruction of a Buk-M2E belonging to Venezuela’s […]View the full article

United States Central Command confirmed that three U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down over Kuwait late March 1 during what officials described as an apparent friendly fire incident while supporting Operation Epic Fury, according to an official command statement. In a statement released from Tampa, Florida, U.S. Central Command said: […]View the full article

As the United States moves to rebuild parts of its nuclear fuel supply chain amid competition with Russia and China, privately backed technology firms are increasingly entering a field long dominated by government programs. The shift is drawing attention from defense and security observers because U.S. uranium enrichment capacity underpins naval propulsion, advanced reactor fuel, […]View the full article

A small Brooklyn knitwear company just landed one of the biggest apparel contracts the Pentagon has put on the table this year. Karlas and Emmas Knits LLC, based in Brooklyn, New York, has been awarded a maximum $763 million contract to supply physical fitness gear to every branch of the U.S. military. The contract runs […]View the full article

Ukraine launched one of its largest drone strikes on Moscow in the war’s history overnight into May 17, sending more than 130 unmanned aerial vehicles into the Russian capital and surrounding region, triggering fires at an electronics manufacturing facility and a major oil refinery, forcing all four of Moscow’s major airports to suspend flight operations, […]View the full article

Russia has publicly released footage of its Zubr automated counter-drone system operating for the first time, showing the weapon detecting, tracking, and engaging aerial targets with minimal human involvement. The release came alongside confirmation from Rostec, Russia’s state-owned defense conglomerate, that the first batch of Zubr systems has already entered active duty protecting critical infrastructure […]View the full article