HG S2 (Intel Bot)

South Korea’s Hanwha Systems has opened a major new defense manufacturing complex in Gumi, unveiling a large-scale expansion aimed at strengthening its radar and combat systems production capacity as exports continue to grow. The company held a completion ceremony on Tuesday for the new site, which was built with an investment of 2.8 trillion won […]View the full article

It became known that U.S. forces shot down their own MQ-9 Reaper drone off South Korea’s west coast. The aircraft, part of a squadron permanently assigned to the peninsula amid ongoing regional tensions, was brought down on Monday after it experienced a malfunction during a routine mission. The MQ-9 was involved in an incident while […]View the full article

Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi defended the planned deployment of surface-to-air missiles on Yonaguni Island, calling the move a protective measure aimed solely at strengthening the country’s air defense posture. His remarks came after Beijing accused Tokyo of escalating regional tensions. Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry of Defense, Koizumi said the missiles […]View the full article

Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy moved one step closer to a major milestone in their joint next-generation fighter program this week, as the three defense ministers met by video conference to advance the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP). The Japanese Ministry of Defense said the meeting took place on Nov. 25 from 5:00 p.m. […]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 got here. Ignoring how we got here is a sure way to almost guarantee that we will just circle around to repeat the errors of this century of declining sea power. Regulars here don’t need a reminder about my long history with what became the Constellation Class FFG. It represented a response to the failed LCS program that I first advocated circa 2007. In essence, Plan Salamander acknowledged two decades ago that we clearly needed a lot of frigates to balance fleet capabilities and enable a robust presence that a global naval power requires. LCS was a failure from concept to construction, consumed too much time and cost of a generation of warship development. Our system was incapable of designing a warship in time, so we should license-build a few dozen EuroFrigates until we could create a new design of our own. A half-dozen proven designs were out there; we just had to pick one. If we had started three years after I put that marker down, 2010, then by 2025 we would have…something. Now we have nothing, working on two. It is not shocking that we are here. I was excited when we got to look at options back in 2019, but also cautious when they downselected to the proven Franco-Italian FREMM, as we had hints that the failed intellectual sink that was/is NAVSEA was going to poison the entire program. The Constellation Class, even prior to downselect, gave us indications and warnings that the bureaucracy which was tasked with making it happen, hated it. It hated it because, by its very existence, it stood as a testimony to their failures with LCS, DDG-1000, and CG(X). The clue that they intended to destroy the rescue that FFG-62/FREMM represented was first seen in the bizarre 57mm main gun requirement that was put there just so the builders who failed with LCS could bid. They were handed a proven design, and they ruined it. They went from 85% commonality with the existing FREMM already serving with our allies, down to 15%. Our naval nomenklatura refused to see the larger picture because they had no desire to. They killed it not so much from incompetence, but from spite. Explain it another way. You can’t. The whole system is worm-ridden with corruption and incompetence...and it is the Admiralty and SES cadre who are at fault. Should you fault SECNAV Phelan nine months into the job for this…or should you shift fire to the organization that created this monster and dumped it in his lap? Executive Summary: the fault is our Navy. For decades, we have promoted the wrong people for the wrong reasons inside a system of incentives and disincentives that rides on top of a culture that, from your first FITREP to your pre-retirement training, encourages untruth, half-truth, and self-dealing. That is what gave us the cadre of Admirals and SES that created this mess. It does not matter except on the edges if (D) or (R) is in the Executive Branch—most who find themselves appointed to positions of authority are blissfully ignorant of the length and breadth of the rot or see it as a feature and not a bug. As such, you see little difference in the ultimate outcome—a growth and reinforcement of the incompetent permanent bureaucracy. Since Bush-43-1, no civilian leadership of either party in either the Executive or Legislative Branch has seen it in their interest or ability to go to war with the instruments of failure. And so, here we are. It is amazing how our Navy can have such a long record of complete dysfunction, for decades, and not change the people, processes, incentives/disincentives…anything. As such, the Constellation affair underlines this simply BLUF: while other, smaller and poorer nations have, the U.S.A. has not successfully designed a warship since the Cold War. We simply move from failure to fiasco and then tell each other what a great job we are doing. Have another Legion of Merit and carry out the Plan of the Day. It all needs to be broken down to parade rest. Clear all the decks of almost everyone who has had a RDML (Sel.) or higher, or SES, position of responsibility in NAVSEA or other organizations associated with shipbuilding and maintenance. Defenestrate them all. Baseline reset. Speak to me no longer of your concerns about expertise or institutional knowledge. Both are fetid and bankrupt if you judge them by their fruits: travesty, outrage, and unspeakable incompetence. Without that, the same Janissaries will go back to their clean-sheet, Tiffany, and exquisite designs that will soak up billions of dollars, waste any institutional capital that is left, and worst of all—consume time—just as they did before. To kill the Constellation Class FFG and replace it with yet-to-be named magic beans—without ripping up the people, processes, and institutions root-and-branch—will be about as effective as trying to kill poison ivy by taking fingernail clippers to the leaves on the vine, while leaving the vine itself intact. Short term vanity that shall beget nothing but a larger problem tomorrow. So, what is there to do besides the above—as Shipmate, this is the reality we find ourselves in? The punchline will become the reality: we will be building Arleigh Burke Destroyers—a design started four decades ago— until the crack of doom. Flight III DDG are really light cruisers, so in addition to having no destroyers under production, we will have no frigates. Unbalanced is our natural state: We will have very few options with a very narrowly constructed fleet. Unmanned systems cannot fill all these requirements. I don’t care what the industry briefs have to say. Unready for reality: a narrow fleet is a fleet ill-prepared for future shock. You will have a lack of flexibility merged with a brittleness of fleet that cannot continue the fight through attrition. People’s Republic of China (PRC) serial production: while we falter at even the lowest tier ship of a blue-water Navy, the PRC has all the major classes of warships under serial production in shipyards designed for surge production. Meanwhile, we appreciate our problems. Industry adrift: it is hard to invest capital or develop a robust workforce when you cannot rely on steady work. Weak horse: as great as the American Navy’s story is, it cannot paper over the serial failures of the last quarter century. The failures are bad enough, but our enemies also see our inability to self-correct. That invites aggression. Pray for peace: the Long Game is now, and the Davidson Window is opening. The out years will be too late. As for me and my headspace? Where does this leave me? We are far overdue for some energy we should have had at the tail end of the Bush Administration. It was clear this was needed during the Obama Administration, but inertia and distraction were the coin of the realm during that time of the Great Green Fleet and Lean-in Circles. As the dysfunction was obvious to even the most optimistic or blinkered institutionalist, many thought we would see this during the first Trump Administration, but the wrong players were in place and most of those four years were concerned with survival and COVID. The Biden Administration? A time of the lotus eaters. And so, here we are, ten months into the second Trump Administration. Not enough time to fix things yet, but plenty of time to dig a deeper hole with little time on the clock. If the magic beans don’t sprout, that is exactly what this does. I’ve been in this mood, as you all know, for a long time. In 1Q2025, it is this kind of energy I am looking for. It is too late for anything else. Where will it come from? I don’t know. At some pier soon there will be a quint of monuments of generational failure by those who led the Navy in the first quarter of the 21st Century. A full house of fail: three Zumwalts and two Constellations The frigate announcement comes at an interesting time. This isn’t an isolated problem with just a gray hull mindset. Our white-hulled friends have the same issue. Up to speed with the goings-on at the Eastern Shipbuilding Group? Via our friends at gCaptain; A new Government Accountability Office report has exposed severe problems plaguing the U.S. Coast Guard’s Offshore Patrol Cutter program, with both shipbuilders failing to deliver any vessels despite years of construction and program costs ballooning to $17.6 billion. The GAO investigation found that the Coast Guard’s strategy of building ships before completing their designs has proven disastrous. Eastern Shipbuilding Group, the stage 1 contractor, has made minimal progress since GAO’s last assessment, leading the Coast Guard to terminate half of its original four-ship contract in July 2025. The situation deteriorated further when Eastern announced this month that it had suspended work on the remaining two vessels due to “severe financial strain”. The report states that “construction of OPCs 1-4 began without a stable design, contrary to shipbuilding leading practices,” which “led to rework, which delayed ship deliveries”. OPC 1’s delivery has been pushed back more than five years, from June 2023 to at least late 2026. Again and again and again. This has serious implications. No one owes us our position in the world. Everyone needs to turn off the TV/pause the podcast/put down the phone and sit down at the table and have a serious discussion with each other. The point of order is simply this: the United States has lost the ability to build warships. We are no longer the largest navy, and with the PRC—the world’s largest navy—having workable frigates, destroyers, cruisers and amphibious assault ships in serial production, we will soon no longer be the most capable. It is a near-run wargame to see if we can sustain any measurable fight inside the first island chain. The second island chain is a coin flip. We are inside a decade from having concerns for the approaches to the third island chain—a problem no one has had to seriously concern themselves with in a century. The future of American sea power…and America as a seapower, is bleak. It has been at crisis for over a decade, and now is at a greater crisis. Our Navy is much weaker than it looks on paper. Here’s the top-5 reasons why: Out battleforce number include LCS. These are marginal ships in even secondary theaters like the Red Sea. They cannot help in the fight west of the International Date Line. Due to the large number of relatively ineffective LCS in our battleforce, we are substantially weaker than it appears on the spreadsheet. Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, RUS N, would recognize our problem immediately. We don’t have the capability to perform regular maintenance on our surface ships and submarines as it is at peace, much less have the capacity to sustain the fight at war on the other side of the Pacific. We can’t meet the modest warship production goals right now, and lack the capacity to surge production even if we had good, workable designs, which we don’t. Our closest traditional maritime allies are getting weaker with each passing year. Two exceptions are Japan and Australia, with the former the only one that has the industrial capacity and political will to grow to a operationally significant level. The fight in the Pacific is not possible without a robust and attritable logistics force to support the fight forward. We don’t have that for fuel, weapons, or supplies. The U.S. Navy did this to ourselves, and we have held no one, nor any institution, accountable. CNO’s Clark, Mullen, Roughead, Greenert, Richardson, Gilday, and Franchetti—they midwived this mass onto the lap of Caudle. None of them—five surface and two submariners—did anything to address the clearly budding problems in full bloom. Caudle just got in the job. The uber-political Mullen—who is going to have a DDG named after him for his troubles—holds most of the responsibility as he was very deft in shaping the Admiralty of the second decade of this century that let the decay set deep. Richardson’s greatest contribution to this drift was his coup going out the door against his appointed successor with some ideas, Moran, who wound up backing out. Gilday expended all his personal and institutional capital on regressive socio-political diversity initiatives. Franchetti, to be fair, just seemed to be overwhelmed with the nightmare she inherited. The institutions you think will rise to the occasion and help fix this problem? As I warned you almost three and a half years ago, they will not meet the challenge. They exist, promote, and think they prosper in the status quo. Who will step in? I have no idea. Will the magic beans give us hope? We don’t even know what they are. Pray for peace. Your Navy will not be ready for a major war for quite a while. 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

A Ukrainian Mirage 2000 Pilot described the aircraft’s performance and the growing need for additional Western support during a rare on-camera interview from an operational airfield. With only a small number of Mirage 2000 fighters now serving in the Air Force, the appearance of the French-built jet during an active combat sortie provided a direct […]View the full article

Sweden is moving ahead with another major investment in its ground-based air defense network, announcing new spending totaling 3.5 billion SEK ($365 million) as part of a renewed push to strengthen protection against drones, helicopters, missiles, and fast-moving aircraft. The announcement was made on November 25 at the Air Defence Regiment in Halmstad (Lv 6), […]View the full article

The United States Army confirmed in an official release that it deployed “wooden tanks” during the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) Rotation 26-01 at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, on Nov. 6, 2025. The service referred to these systems as an “opposing force tank simulation set,” describing them as an effective and economical tool to support […]View the full article

Chile has revealed new progress on its T-40 Newén trainer aircraft, a project the country describes as a major step in reviving national aerospace manufacturing after several decades. During an event held on Tuesday at El Bosque Air Base, Minister of Defense Adriana Delpiano and senior leaders of the Chilean Air Force presented updated details […]View the full article

The Argentine Army has taken delivery of its first batch of U.S.-made Stryker 8×8 infantry carrier vehicles. The vehicles arrived this week at the Port of Zárate in Buenos Aires Province, where they were unloaded and transferred to Army personnel for inspection and processing. According to information released on Tuesday, the arrival of the Stryker […]View the full article

Japan’s Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has released new details on an advanced uncrewed aircraft research program designed to enable future drones to operate alongside manned combat aircraft. The update comes after ATLA published footage on Nov. 21 showing flight tests involving an experimental uncrewed aircraft and a manned helicopter. According to ATLA’s Aeronautical […]View the full article

The 11th Airborne Division has completed a first-of-its-kind electromagnetic warfare and counter-unmanned aerial system training event in Alaska, bringing together EW Soldiers, UAS operators and industry vendors to test new technology in one of the most demanding environments in the United States. The two-week exercise took place at the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex (JPARC) […]View the full article

Sam LaGrone, editor of USNI News, wrote on Nov. 25 that the United States Navy is canceling most of the Constellation-class frigate program as the service moves toward new classes of small surface combatants that can be delivered more quickly. According to LaGrone’s report, Navy Secretary John Phelan announced the decision Tuesday on social media, […]View the full article

The United States Air Force has awarded Boeing a Lot 12 contract for 15 additional KC-46A Pegasus aerial refueling aircraft, the company confirmed on Tuesday. The agreement, valued at $2.47 billion, continues the service’s long-term effort to expand and modernize its tanker fleet. In a statement, Jake Kwasnik, vice president and KC-46 program manager, said, […]View the full article

The United States Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a new contract worth up to $100 million to provide long-term support for the Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW) Subsystem, a key component in the service’s effort to field new strike capabilities against defended targets. According to the contract announcement, the award is a ceiling $100,000,000 cost-reimbursement, […]View the full article

United States Army Pacific Soldiers assigned to the 8th Military Police Brigade conducted field patrols using the Multi-Utility Tactical Transport robotic vehicle during the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) 26-01 exercise at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The event highlighted the Army’s ongoing experimentation with unmanned ground systems as part of broader modernization efforts across the […]View the full article

The persecution of Christians just does not stop, and if you know your theology, it won't stop. The latest example is this: Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday that he had instructed the US Department of War to prepare for “possible action”. And on Sunday, Trump reiterated that his country could deploy troops to Nigeria or carry out airstrikes to stop the alleged killings. “They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria. They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen,” the US president said. In Saturday’s post he warned that he might send the military into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” unless the Nigerian government intervened, and said that all aid to what he called “the now disgraced country” would be cut. Trump had said: “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth then replied to the post by writing: “Yes sir. “The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.” The horror of what is going on in Nigeria right now is not something that President Trump pulled out of the ether. It has come up on a regular basis at my OG Blog for a couple of decades, but came into most people’s scan during President Obama’s term 11 years ago. The “international community” has been appreciating this problem, while doing nothing—watching yet another chapter unfold that has repeated in Africa over and over on the bleeding edge of Islam in Africa the last 1,300 years. As a not insignificant portion of the official commentary gets unhinged and reactively biased once President Trump enters any arena, let’s go back to the Biden Administration to see what was being discussed. From Heritage in 2023; “If we keep quiet, we are going to go extinct,” says Catholic Bishop Chipa Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi in Benue state, Nigeria. In June, the Congressional Values Action Team caucus met with Anagbe and the Rev. Remigius Ihyula who shared their testimonies of atrocities committed against Christians in Nigeria by Islamic extremists and about the complacency of the Nigerian government. The meeting rallied support behind House Resolution 82, introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., expressing the sense of Congress that the Biden administration officially redesignate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern for grossly violating religious freedoms and appoint a special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.” An estimated 5,621 Christians worldwide were killed for their faith last year. Of those, 90% were Nigerian, according to a January report by Open Doors International, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of persecuted Christians. The report says, “Militant groups such as Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province, and other Fulani militants inflict murder, physical injury, abduction and sexual violence on their victims.” Western media commonly frames the violence in Nigeria as a “herder-farmer” conflict “propelled by climate change and resource scarcity,” despite U.S. government reports that “one of ISIS’s largest and most powerful regional branches … controls broad swaths of territory and has killed or displaced thousands of people in Nigeria and neighboring countries.” Records show Fulani militants attacking Christian communities, burning churches, summarily killing schoolchildren, kidnapping priests for ransom, and often executing them. Twelve Nigerian state governments officially adhere to Islamic Sharia law, “contributing to discrimination and violence against Christians,” according to International Christian Concern. From Vatican News in 2023; Over 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since the outbreak of the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in 2009, a newly-released report published by a Nigerian non-governmental organization has revealed. The report, titled “Martyred Christians in Nigeria”, has been published by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a Nigerian-based research and investigative rights group, which has been monitoring and investigating religious persecution and other forms of religious violence by State and non-State actors across Nigeria since 2010. 52,250 Nigerian Christians murdered since 2009 According to its findings, over the past 14 years at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants, more than 30,000 of whom during the eight-year presidency of former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, often criticized during his tenure for not doing enough to combat growing insecurity in the country. 18,000 churches set on fire In the same period 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze. Approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims also died in Islamist attacks. From a February, 2024 UK House of Commons debate; ORFA also notes that there was a “significant 54% decrease” in the number of attacks targeting communities (villages, neighbourhoods for example) with fatalities in Q2 2023 compared to Q2 2022. However, there was a 4% increase in other attacks (during worship, on the road or farms). According to ORFA, between April and June 2023 there were: 1,637 recorded deaths of Christians 642 Christians abducted 119 attacks on communities with fatalities 511 other attacks In its 2022 submission to the Human Rights Council, ORFA states “violence is escalating, spreading, and the actors are diversifying.” It also says that Christians are “disproportionately affected to the extent that we can suggest there may be deliberate targeting”. … There are more than 100 million Christians in Nigeria, out of a population of 216 million, according to a detailed country profile of Nigeria [PDF] compiled by Open Doors. Although Nigeria is often thought to be divided into a predominantly Christian south and a predominantly Muslim north, Open Doors cautions many Christians live in the north, particularly the north-central region. Open Doors says persecution and discrimination are strongest in the three northern geo-political zones. … In December 2023, the news agency Reuters said that violence in the central region is the “worst since 2018.” It notes that violence is often characterised as ethno-religious – chiefly Muslim Fulani herdsmen clashing with mainly Christian farmers. However, Reuters also cautions that conflict may be more about the availability of resources rather than ethnic or religious differences, with climate change among a range of factors creating competition for land, pushing farmers and herders into conflict: Of course the usual suspects would tend to downplay the religious aspects, as that might cause uncomfortable follow-on questions, but we know what is going on. Now lets go back to the post-President Trump statement and bring us back to today. This is a priority for this administration, and should be for everyone. From our Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz on 18 November, AMBASSADOR MIKE WALTZ: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for everyone who has joined us today. And for a number of our ambassadors and delegates who have joined us, thank you for coming. To our faith leaders, survivors of some of these atrocities, and what I would call everyone here a friend of freedom, welcome to the United States Mission to the United Nations. And today we speak of blood. We speak of the blood that still cries from Nigerian soil. This is deeply personal for me, as I know it is for Ms. Minaj and her pastor here, Peters Adonu, and others. I had the opportunity to serve in Nigeria in 2015, if you remember when then 300 little girls were kidnapped from their schools, ripped out of their homes and schools in the middle of the day, and in the middle of the night. We sent a small team over there, and we trained – Nigeria’s equivalent of their Navy SEALs – to go get those girls back. It was righteous work. We didn’t get them all back, unfortunately, but we got some. Some will be lost forever. And if you remember the infamous save the girls campaign, that was 10 years ago. Folks, it’s still happening. It just happened yesterday. 25 little girls were ripped out of their school. I pray that we get them back. But what often happens is they’re sold into sex slavery. They’re forced to renounce their religion. They never see their homes or families again, and they literally disappear to the dark underbelly of extremism and sex slavery. Look, 10 years later, the horror continues in the middle belt and in the north. Churches burn, mothers bury their children for the crime of singing Amazing Grace. Pastors have been beheaded. Pastors have been beheaded for preaching the Sermon on the Mountain, entire villages wake up to gunfire, because they dare to commit the crime, the crime of calling Jesus their Lord. People go to jail under blasphemy laws for simply wearing a cross. This is not random violence. This is genocide, wearing the mask of chaos. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and a vibrant mosaic of cultures and faiths, but it is under siege. And in the northern region, you have 12 Muslim majority states that are enforcing Sharia law and have enforced it since 1999. Jihadi groups like Boko Haram and the Fulani militias continue to unleash targeted violence. It is targeted. It is specific, on these Christian communities. Now that you have a serious administration taking the problem seriously, the snakes are coming out of the woodwork who want to downplay what is happening. Some for nationalistic reasons, some because they are scared of action on anything, some because Orange Man Bad, and others because, well, we can’t make Muslims look bad, even if they are slaughtering Christians. Oh, and don’t forget the kidnapping. On Friday, the latest horror took place that we are reliably told is not taking place. More than 300 children and staff are now thought to have been kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, making it one of the worst mass abductions the country has seen. The Christian Association of Nigeria said 303 students and 12 teachers were taken from St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state - substantially more than previously estimated. It said the figures have been revised upwards “after a verification exercise”. The kidnapping comes amid a surge of attacks by armed groups. The revised number of people taken surpasses the 276 abducted during the infamous Chibok mass abduction of 2014. Local police said armed men stormed the school at around 02:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday morning, abducting students who were staying there. Dominic Adamu, whose daughters attend the school but were not taken, told the BBC: “Everybody is weak... it took everybody by surprise.” One distressed woman tearfully told the BBC that her nieces, aged six and 13, had been kidnapped, adding: “I just want them to come home.” Police said that security agencies were “combing the forests with a view to rescue the abducted students”. All schools in Niger state were ordered on Saturday to close in response to the kidnapping. You also have the inability of the Nigerian government to be honest about what is happening in their own nation, their failure to provide security to their own people, and as you see in much of the world—their disarming of the people so they cannot protect themselves when the government isn’t there. As we have seen elsewhere, people will deny the religious aspects of this until the Christian population disappears through migration, conversion, or death. You know, the 1,300-year pattern. A classic example of this is via Gimba Kakanda, Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Research and Analytics in the Office of the Vice President, in, of course, Al Jazeera; Christians have suffered tragic losses, but so have Muslims, and often on an even greater scale. This is the story President Tinubu is rewriting. Nowhere is there an official policy or plan to eradicate Christians. Nigeria’s conflicts are grim and complex, but they centre on terrorism, crime and communal disputes, not religion. Terror groups kill opportunistically, striking churches, mosques, markets and villages alike. As the Tinubu-led government has stressed, no Nigerian is targeted by the state because of their faith. Note the last part, “…by the state…”. He is not as clever as he thinks. The world knows what is happening. In recent days, coordinated attacks on Nigeria’s nationhood have swept across social media, blogs and television outlets, alleging a so-called “Christian genocide”. These attacks, driven by foreign actors, mischaracterise Nigeria’s domestic conflicts, ignore its complexities and manipulate longstanding ethnic and resource-based tensions to advance sectarian agendas. One of the figures driving this propaganda is American comedian and television host Bill Maher, who used his show to deliver a sensationalised account alleging the systematic slaughter of Christians in Nigeria. “I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches. These are the Islamists, Boko Haram,” he said. “This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.” His sources are largely fabricated claims and manipulated images from unverified outlets. These distorted narratives drew applause from his audience, while Fox News, true to form, amplified them. Amazing. Also, get a look at this hard pivot; This misinformation – aimed at maligning Nigeria as much as undermining the gravity of the situation in Gaza – is linked to Nigeria’s position at the 2025 United Nations General Assembly. By reaffirming support for a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, Nigeria challenged powerful interests invested in one-sided narratives. Oh, it must be the Jews then. And yes, there is the issue with the President of Nigeria being Muslim himself. And no, the fact his wife is a Christian does not remove this as an issue. Mohammed had Christian “wives” too…no, wait, they converted after their enslavement. Enough of that. Let’s check in with CNN’s Nimi Princewill; Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a crisis-monitoring group, reported that more than 20,400 civilians were killed in attacks in Nigeria between January 2020 and September of this year. Among those casualties, 317 deaths were attributed to attacks targeting Christians, while 417 deaths were reported among Muslims, though the organization did not include the religious affiliation of the vast majority of the civilians killed. Security analyst Nnamdi Obasi, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group think tank, explained that while extremist groups have wreaked havoc against both Christians and Muslims in the northeast of Nigeria, bandit groups have terrorized predominantly Muslim communities in the northwest. Additionally, predominantly Christian farming communities in parts of the North Central zone have suffered persistent violence from armed groups. However, “in most parts of the country, Christians and Muslims live peacefully with each other,” he said. “Reports of widespread persecution and mass slaughter of Christians are seriously misread and exaggerate the challenges of interfaith relations in the country.” Ken Eluma Asogwa, a spokesperson for the opposition Labour Party, told CNN that “even though the government of Nigeria has been lackluster and shambolic in its approach to the protection of its citizens from murderous non-state actors operating under different aliases, there is no evidence to support Trump’s claims that Christians are particularly targeted for extermination.” On Friday, Trump designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” under the US International Religious Freedom Act. The label is a suggestion that his administration has found that Nigeria has engaged in or tolerated “systematic, ongoing, (and) egregious violations of religious freedom.” Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has so far remained silent about Trump’s mention of potential military intervention but pushed back against the designation, stating in a social media post that “the characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians.” Ummm, what about the other 19,666? If you believe those numbers, there are a few people in Nigeria who would like to talk to you about letting them store some money in your bank account for a great interest payment to you for the bother. Yes, Christians and Muslims get along fine…in majority Christian parts of the country. Yes, the most radical Muslims attack the less radical Muslims as well…but that isn’t where the real concfict is taking place. From the same BBC article quoted above, you have this: Trump did not say which killings he was referring to, but claims of a genocide against Nigeria’s Christians have been circulating in recent weeks and months in some right-wing US circles. Groups monitoring violence say there is no evidence to suggest that Christians are being killed more than Muslims in Nigeria, which is roughly evenly divided between followers of the two religions. No evidence…do they not read the pre-2024 BBC…or any of the other sources going back over a decade? So, before President Trump came into office and brought up the issue, the targeted killing and kidnapping of Christians in Nigeria was a big problem, but now that he has raised the issue, it isn’t one? Amazing thing to see once you’re looking for it. As for war involving the USA, no. we are not going to war in Nigeria. Too big and too messy. We might do some strikes, but not war. I think Pastor Bwala has it about right; Trump’s threat triggered alarm across Nigeria. Many on social media urged the government to step up its fight against Islamist groups to avert a situation where foreign troops are sent into the country. But Mr Bwala, who said he was a Christian pastor, told the BBC’s Newshour programme that Trump had a “unique way of communicating” and that Nigeria was not taking his words literally. “We know the heart and intent of Trump is to help us fight insecurity,” he said, adding that he hoped Trump would meet Tinubu in the coming days to discuss the issue. Nigeria is not going to be fixed by the US military. The US military can help Nigeria fix itself, if it wants to. What the rest of the world needs to do is to state clearly, without hedging, exactly what is going on in Nigeria. Starting with the truth is always a strong state. Starting to act at root causes? That is a bit harder. The key to this is to get the Nigerian government to take the issue seriously and for competent nations to help them do a better job. If present trends continue, the problem will only continue to spread south, and with it the death, kidnapping, rape, torture, poverty, misery, and migration that comes with it. You may not be interested in the conquest of Dar al-Harb, but the conquest of Dar al-Harb is interested in you. Always has, always will. 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

Japan scrambled fighter jets on Monday after a Chinese high-altitude surveillance drone passed between Yonaguni Island and Taiwan, prompting a response from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s (JASDF) Southwest Air Defense sector. According to the official statement from the Joint Staff Office of Japan’s Ministry of Defense, “On Monday, November 24, a presumed Chinese unmanned […]View the full article

The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) and the British Army completed Exercise Vigilant Isles 25 in Hokkaido, conducting expanded training that included the first-ever joint Japan–UK airborne drop on Japanese territory. The exercise ran from November 5 to November 20 and brought together Japanese airborne and amphibious forces with British paratroopers from the 2nd Battalion, […]View the full article

United States Navy carrier-based aircraft conducted patrol flights along the coast of Venezuela on Monday, marking the first visible sign that the USS Gerald R. Ford has entered active operations in the Caribbean Sea. The patrol included an E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft and several F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter-bombers. Yesterday, the patrol of the […]View the full article

Flowcopter announced Tuesday that it has completed a full week of flight testing under Project MORRIGHAN, a jHubMed initiative focused on uncrewed logistics support and casualty evacuation capabilities for the United Kingdom’s defense community. According to the company, the tests marked an important milestone in demonstrating the FC100 heavy-lift drone’s operational potential. In a statement […]View the full article

French forces deployed to the United Arab Emirates completed three days of high-intensity military training in desert conditions, operating Leclerc tanks, CAESAR artillery systems, and VBCI infantry fighting vehicles as part of a broader joint exercise with Emirati partners, according to material released by the French military. The training included maneuver drills, live-fire sequences, and […]View the full article

In a rare diplomatic turn, Chinese leader Xi Jinping initiated a call with President Trump on Monday, raising Taiwan and Ukraine as Washington, Kyiv and Moscow explore options for ending the war in Europe. The outreach comes as Beijing sharpens its position on Taiwan and new friction with Japan adds pressure to the regional landscape. […]View the full article

Romania’s government has denied reports that it reached an agreement with Rheinmetall to purchase Lynx infantry fighting vehicles, following media claims suggesting the country had already chosen the platform for its future armored vehicle program. The clarification comes after comments from Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, who told Bloomberg that Romania had signed a contract for […]View the full article

The United States Department of the Air Force has issued a new special notice seeking industry participation in a multi-year effort to develop next-generation aircraft protection technologies, according to a contracting announcement published on November 24. The opportunity is structured as a Two-Step Closed Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) and will remain active through December 2030. […]View the full article