HG S2 (Intel Bot)

The Boeing has been awarded an $18,5 million contract to provide engineering and technical support services for the A/MH-6 “Little Bird” helicopters operated by U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The award was announced on November 12, 2025. According to the Department of War, the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract will fund ongoing technical assistance to the A/MH-6 Program […]View the full article

IERUS Technologies, based in Huntsville, Alabama, has been awarded a contract valued at $475 million to support test activities across multiple U.S. missile defense radar platforms. The award was announced by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and covers a performance period spanning nearly a decade. Under the contract, the company will conduct a broad range […]View the full article

Goodrich, a Raytheon company headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts, has been awarded a $197.2 million delivery order for the production and delivery of MS-110 airborne reconnaissance systems under a Foreign Military Sales contract with Poland. The award was made by the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The contract […]View the full article

L3 Technologies has been awarded a firm-fixed-price contract worth $20,5 million for the production of AN/PEQ-15 infrared illuminators, also known as Advanced Target Pointer/Illuminator/Aiming Lights (ATPIAL). The U.S. Army Contracting Command at Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, made the award on October 21, 2025. According to contract details, the procurement was conducted through a competitive process, with […]View the full article

I published this two decades ago on the OG Blog. As the subject of this has been making the rounds as of late, I’ve decided to plant this flag firmly in the ground here on Substack. Especially in the popular press, “hero” is a word thrown around way too much. Often it is applied to those who make no real sacrifice or effort, or those who parade around Our Fallen like some gibbeted prop in an obscene political street theater. It is a shame. There are real heroes out there. Most of the time they don’t wear a uniform. The vast majority of the time, they aren’t Americans. Now and then, they are Germans from the mid-1900s. Hey, whodathunk—they might even be Christian. Bravo Zulu to Doug Tsuruoka in IBD for writing an outstanding article on the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We need to read more about the likes of Pastor Bonhoeffer, and less of the intellectual cotton candy we are fed by the MSM. I believe you need to be a subscriber to read it (Editorial note: in the last 20 years, the article has vanished, even the WayBackMachine can’t find it), but below are some of the details from his article. Bonhoeffer came from a famous family of German physicians, physicists and pianists. Staunch secularists who preferred waltzes to stained glass, most of his relatives frowned when Bonhoeffer said at 14 that he wanted to be a Lutheran pastor and theologian. He had a regular habit of calling it like he saw it; even his church. As was his habit with the things he loved, either his church or his country, he would not walk away, but fight to fix it from within. He was often alone. Fear makes cowards of most, but not this man. They said the church was a silly and irrelevant choice for a young man of his talent. “If the church is really what you say it is,” Bonhoeffer replied, “then I shall have to reform it.” ... He called for a spiritually liberating “church without walls.” He also wrote extensively about ways for Christians to be disciples rather than cosmetic followers of Christ. ... He was one of a handful of Protestant leaders in Germany who openly fought Adolf Hitler. He was a founder of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, which rejected Hitler’s leadership in church affairs. That has always been a contention of mine. A lot of the reason for the rapid loss of faith in Western Europe was the loss of stature of many churches that did not stand up to Hitler. Just a theory. Few church leaders at that time saw the Nazis for what they were. Germany was recovering from the chaos and Communist agitation of the 1920s. Many in the country’s dominant Lutheran Church welcomed what they saw as Hitler’s strong, conservative leadership. Bonhoeffer, however, looked for cause behind effect, and saw darker meanings in the Nazi purpose. When Hitler’s followers talked of removing the Old Testament from the Bible because of its “Jewish taint” and discussed limiting baptism to “Aryans,” Bonhoeffer was one of the first to thunder from the pulpit about the threat to Christianity. Not easy to do pre-1945. Remember that. “I’m a Christian first and foremost, a German second. And I can only hope to God that the two will never oppose each other,” he said at the time. To sound the alarm, Bonhoeffer turned to the strongest tool he had - his sermons. He attacked Hitler in a series of articulate and well-aimed homilies. ... The Nazis banned Bonhoeffer from preaching in various parts of Germany. Undaunted, he went underground, carrying the message of his anti-Nazi Confessing Church by traveling secretly from one village to the next. ... Still, the Nazis were on his trail, so Bonhoeffer finally fled to the U.S. in June 1939. He took a lecturer’s post at Union Theological Seminary in New York, but soon had second thoughts about exile. “I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. cfI shall have no right to take part in the restoration of Christian life in Germany after the war unless I share the trials of this time with my people,” he wrote in a letter to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in July 1939 knowing it was a one-way mission. ... Though violence went against his values, Bonhoeffer was equally repelled by what he saw as the “pious pacifism” of church leaders who refused to fight Hitler. To him it was not pacifism, but cowardice in the face of a dictator who wanted to destroy basic Christian tenets. After agonizing reflection, he decided that Germany’s only hope was the removal of Hitler by any means necessary. Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer kept a low profile. He concentrated his energies on a bigger purpose, throwing himself into secret efforts to help Jews and others escape to Switzerland. He also joined a plot against Hitler organized by German military officers. It was this group that made a failed bid to blow up Hitler in July 1944. Bonhoeffer knew great risk brings great reward. When his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnany, a fellow anti-Hitler conspirator, suggested Bonhoeffer sign up as a German military intelligence agent to throw the Nazis off his scent, he agreed. As a figurative agent of grace, Bonhoeffer used his job as a cover. When he was supposed to be spying on the Allies, he actually used the clandestine conversations to spread word about Nazi death camps and the anti-Hitler resistance. The Gestapo eventually uncovered Bonhoeffer’s activities and took him away in 1943. He was imprisoned, first in Buchenwald, and later in the Flossenburg concentration camp in Germany. Even in peril, Bonhoeffer refused to stop sounding his warning. Throughout his imprisonment, Bonhoeffer continued to write passionately about his beliefs. He was hanged on personal orders from Hitler a few weeks before Germany surrendered in April 1945. His last words were a message to his friend, Anglican Bishop George Bell. “This is the end, but for me the beginning of life,” he said. Bonhoeffer was 39 years old. Next time someone talks about themselves or others as “heroes”, you may want to look to Pastor Bonhoeffer as a benchmark. Leave a comment Share Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. Share View the full article

Romania will purchase nearly 300 Lynx infantry fighting vehicles from German defense company Rheinmetall, with part of the production planned to take place on Romanian territory. The deal was finalized following meetings between Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger and senior Romanian officials, including Minister of Economy Radu Miruță and Minister of Defense Ionuț Moșteanu, Euronews has […]View the full article

Carson Industries Inc. has been awarded a five-year, $31.5 million contract to perform single battery compartment installations for the AN/PVS-14 Monocular Night Vision Device (MNVD). The award was announced by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Weapons Support office at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland. The contract is structured as an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) agreement, with an ordering […]View the full article

Russia’s state defense conglomerate Rostec says the Uralvagonzavod plant has delivered another batch of TOS‑1A “Solntsepyok” heavy flamethrower systems to the Ministry of Defense. The delivery was announced ahead of the country’s Day of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops, a date often used by Moscow to highlight equipment tied to these units. According to […]View the full article

2004 was 21 years ago. That is the difference from the end of WWI to 1939, the start of WWII; from the end of WWII to 1966; and from the attacks of 9/11 to 2022. What is an example of a great documentary about one of the above? Let’s take Victory at Sea. It came out in 1952, seven years after the end of WWII. The documentary was a long series about a very broad topic with about 13 hours’ run time. What if you were going to focus on just a battle instead of the broad sweep like VaS took and wanted to keep it inside 90 minutes? Would it take half as long, 3 or 4 years? Imagine a documentary of WWI, WWII, or 9/11, full of primary sources from the major players, and footage not seen anywhere else, but refusing to air it because you didn’t want Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, or George W. Bush to be seen in a good light…no, belay that. You did not want the Doughboys, the US Navy, and FDNY to look good. That was your reason. I’m talking about the documentary by Michael Peck, The Last 600 Meters: The Battles of Najaf and Fallujah that was played on the USMC’s Birthday Monday on PBS, and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. The two deadliest battles of the Iraq War occurred in 2004. The Battle of Najaf was fought in the South against the Shiite Mahdi militia. The Battle of Fallujah was fought in the West against Sunni insurgents. This film tells the story of these battles, not through narration, but through the words and deeds of those who fought there. Peck’s documentary was ready for publication and presented to PBS in 2008, four years after the battle in question…and it was spiked…only to finally see the light of day now, 17 years later. Why? The American people were not given the opportunity to see and understand—and honor—their Marines for the worst reasons by the worst people. Via David Kindy at Military Times, “We conducted the interviews three years after the battles when memories were fresh,” Pack said in an interview. “But it was hard time to get it on the air then. Everyone had their opinions about the war and it was clouded in politics. We strove to tell these stories without politics from the point of view of the people who were there. Maybe now is a good time to look back and remember what happened.” Further detail from David Zimmerman in The Washington Examiner, PBS initially rejected the documentary in 2008 because of its perceived pro-military bias and lack of political commentary, even though the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was the project’s principal funder at the start. The network then began to dictate the direction of the final cut, but Pack wasn’t willing to compromise on his vision. It was only recently that PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger decided to broadcast it upon reexamination. Pack credited her courage in reversing the company’s past decisions. “We owe her a great debt. It’s not easy to do that, and I really appreciate her doing it,” he said. “She simply saw the film, looked at it with fresh eyes, and said, ‘We should have this on the air,’ and that was a great decision.” 17 years. What an absolute disgrace. What a perfect example of the bias and warped nature of PBS/CPB that those of us right-of-center have complained about for years. Add this to the wall of shame. That being said, BZ to Kerger for finally giving the green light…but so much time has passed. A few years after the battle, I served with a guy who was a company commander during the Battle of Fallujah. Perhaps now more people will know a sliver of what he did not talk about. I missed it Monday, but will throw some change at Bezos and stream it before the end of the month. As a side-note on the dangers of using AI: when I asked ChatGPT, it focused almost completely on what is in hindsight is a clearly misleading article in Current from 2017. It completely ignored the more recent articles from The Washington Examiner and Military Times linked to above. X’s Grok, on the other hand, focused on the most recent articles. AI, like all media: a forest of bias if you rely on just one source. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. h/t J.View the full article

EDGE and Anduril have announced plans to form a major joint venture aimed at accelerating the design and production of autonomous systems for civil and defense use across the Middle East. The companies describe the initiative as a step that deepens the long-standing U.S.–UAE defense partnership by placing advanced, software-defined capabilities into regional production and […]View the full article

KNL has received a new order from the Finnish Defence Forces for CNHF radios, software features, and software maintenance services, a contract valued at EUR 2 million ($2.3 million). The company said the order follows a larger EUR 15 million ($17.4 million) joint procurement placed in August by the Finnish Defence Forces and Sweden’s FMV […]View the full article

Peru has taken a major step toward building a modern defense industrial base, inaugurating a new assembly plant that will produce advanced armored vehicles under a long-term partnership with South Korea. Peruvian President Jose Enrique Jeri Ore officially opened the Special and Military Vehicle Assembly Plant of FAME S.A.C. in Lurigancho, Chosica, an event the […]View the full article

Saudi soldiers are training alongside U.S. Army units in California in a milestone event for the two countries’ long-standing military partnership. According to the Army, troops from the Royal Saudi Land Forces are conducting operations at the National Training Center (NTC) during Rotation 26-02 at Fort Irwin on November 7, marking the first time a […]View the full article

United States Marine Corps aviation units are preparing for combat sorties in the Caribbean as part of ongoing missions directed by U.S. Southern Command and the Department of War. New footage released by the Marine Corps shows F-35B Lightning II aircraft being armed in Puerto Rico as U.S. forces continue efforts to disrupt illicit trafficking […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy’s last Independence-variant littoral combat ship has reached Florida ahead of its commissioning ceremony next week. According to the Navy, USS Pierre (LCS 38) arrived in Panama City, Florida, as preparations continue for its formal entry into the fleet on November 15. Pierre is the nineteenth and final Independence-variant LCS constructed for the […]View the full article

A new United States authorization could further strengthen air-defense cooperation with a key NATO ally. On November 12, the State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to Denmark involving AIM-9X Block II tactical missiles and related equipment, with an estimated value of $318.4 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has delivered the required certification […]View the full article

Though there are aspects of this that are more Mel Brooks than Tom Clancy, this should cause people in positions of responsibility for our strategic defense to pause and ponder. We don’t hire enough imaginative thinkers, and the clock watchers and pension counters who seem to do most of the domestic risk mitigation work have never met with a functional Red Team. You can only go so far with physical security outside the base fence because we live, thankfully, in a very free country relative to other places in the world, and there are few open spaces left around. Risk will always be there, or if you squint hard enough, it seems to be there. The below is just amazing when you consider we only have 19 B-2 Spirit bombers, and they are all at this one base. You don’t have to be a fiction writer to script this out, and it raises the question, “How many more vulnerabilities are there like this?” Via Philip Lenczycki at The Daily Caller, …Whiteman Air Force base, … shares a fence with a foreign-owned trailer park linked to a convicted fraudster with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence ties. The Knob Noster Trailer Park in rural Missouri is located less than a mile from the runway of “the world’s only nuclear-capable stealth bomber.” Business filings and social media posts reveal the RV park is one of several properties near U.S. military interests acquired by a web of shell companies, which are ultimately owned by a couple who live in Canada and belong to organizations controlled by disgraced Chinese tycoon and self-described former CCP intelligence “affiliate,” Miles Guo… …The companies’ purchases raise serious national security concerns and must be investigated by federal authorities, says State Armor, a nonprofit focused on countering the CCP. State Armor provided information to the Daily Caller News Foundation for use in its investigation. “China is pre-positioning assets across the U.S. in both the cyber and physical realm,” Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, told the DCNF. “They seek to be able to incapacitate us. Federal and state leaders should be rapidly assessing how China’s assets within the U.S. — including industrial, residential and commercial properties on top of agricultural land — will double for military use. China’s agents should be expelled accordingly.” How critical of a location is this? Well, let’s go to the chart room. 0.85 nautical miles from the end of runway 01 (aquamarine line), and 0.13 nautical miles perpendicular from that centerline (yellow line)…that critical. The Ukrainian Special Forces planners who worked on Operation Spider Web must be laughing themselves into cramps over this. OK. If you wish, go ahead and google Miles Gau. There is…a lot there. Is he a CCP asset? I don’t know. Could he be? Seems like he could…or he could just be another fast and loose guy from Shandong. Perhaps he’s just a misunderstood businessman who makes rap videos badmouthing the CCP. No, I’m not kidding. My bet? This country is awash with people nesting LLCs inside LLCs inside LLCs for all sorts of reasons. Most are valid, some are used to try to obscure ownership. There are other reasons as well, reasons that FinCEN can outline for you if you want to be read in. There are a lot of coincidences overlapping here, so it is worth digging into as TDC did…but military bases surrounded by mobile home parks with questionable ownership are not that unusual. Before we leave this “interesting even if it is nothing” story, let’s go back to the chart room. As I am a Sailor, of course something called “Nasty Glass” got my attention…but it wasn’t either of the first two things that came to mind. It’s a head shop. A head shop across the street from a trailer park right off base, next door to AmVets Post 143. One-stop shopping Americana. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Share Leave a comment View the full article

Switzerland’s Federal Office for Defence Procurement (armasuisse) has awarded new contracts for multispectral camouflage systems to three European defense suppliers — SSZ Camouflage Technology AG (Switzerland), Saro GmbH (Germany), and Saab (Sweden). The decision followed an extensive testing and evaluation process based on performance capability, integration potential, and logistical and economic factors. The selected systems […]View the full article

MBDA and the German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) have signed a contract for the development and procurement of the new DefendAir anti-drone missile system, aimed at countering the growing threat of unmanned aerial vehicles. According to MBDA, the agreement, signed on November 10, 2025, covers the development and […]View the full article

Embraer announced a new operational concept for its A-29 Super Tucano aircraft, expanding its mission portfolio to include counter-drone operations designed to address evolving battlefield threats. According to a press release from Embraer, the A-29’s new configuration integrates sensors, data links, and precision weapons to detect, track, and destroy unmanned aerial systems (UAS) effectively and […]View the full article

India has successfully conducted a static test of the Project K-5 Stage-2 rocket motor, a major step toward the country’s next-generation submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability. The test took place on September 12, 2025, at the Advanced Centre for Energetic Materials (ACEM) in Nasik, confirming the performance of key propulsion systems designed for deep-sea deterrence […]View the full article

Airbus Defence and Space has successfully carried out the first flight of Spain’s new C295 Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft, marking a major step in the country’s fleet modernization effort. According to Airbus Defence, the aircraft took off from Seville, Spain, where the company assembles its C295 family. This inaugural flight focused on verifying flight […]View the full article

Japan’s Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has revealed details of a new long-range anti-ship missile program designed to strengthen the country’s island defense capabilities. The project, showcased through official development posters, highlights a modular missile system integrating advanced propulsion, guidance, and data-link technology. According to ATLA, the research and development effort focuses on creating […]View the full article

Japan’s Joint Staff confirmed that three Chinese Navy vessels transited eastward through the Osumi Strait into the Pacific Ocean on November 11, continuing Beijing’s regular naval movements near Japanese waters. According to an official release from the Joint Staff of Japan’s Ministry of Defense, the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) identified a Renhai-class missile destroyer (hull […]View the full article

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) hosted Indian Air Force (IAF) Su-30MKI pilots at Komatsu Air Base. According to a post by the JASDF’s Public Affairs Office, the visiting Indian pilots participated in professional exchanges with Japan’s Air Tactics Development Squadron pilots and took part in an orientation flight aboard a JASDF F-15 fighter. The […]View the full article