HG S2 (Intel Bot)

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

As a guy who used to give two-week operational planning seminars at war colleges around Europe, I can literally talk for two weeks about how you take an idea from a POLMIL Good Idea Fairy and turn it into a 143-slide PPT-deck and about an inch-thick decision brief printed on A4, with a few handy charts on A3. If you’re nice, I’ll put the cool chart on A2. Over the last couple of weeks, the memo went out, apparently, that “there is no plan!” Sure, some of the people saying that are just ignorant and over-caffeinated. Some well-meaning, some raging with Orange Man Bad. Those people deserve something between a polite sigh and eye-roll. Little more. Others saying such things who know better? They are the ones that I’ve about had enough of. Right out of the Harry Reid, “It is an election year. Nothing is more important…” playbook. We all see you—not just the ones you are signaling to. Well meaning people can argue if what they see looks like a good plan or not, but “no plan?” Anyway, it is all rather silly. Three generations of U.S. military officers have built and revised various OPLANs against Iran. We, if anything, have over-planned. Reagan, Bush41, Clinton, Bush43, Obama, Trump45, Biden, Trump47…everyone and their Pentagon has built off each other’s plans. We’ve got this. We’re executing decades of hard work. That is why it is going so well…from a military point of view. No, we don’t know all the details of the plans; the decision points, measures of effectiveness, critical capabilities/vulnerabilities, etc. Heck, when my shop at CENTCOM was across the hall from the Iran shop in 2007, they wouldn’t let me see them. Do you really think we’re going to just post the whole thing up on 4chan or something? Planning, we have done. What we have not done, rightfully, is put our OPLAN out there for everyone to look at in an unclassified environment. Would Alabama publish their playbook on the web while the game against Auburn was going on? No. What we have seen are selective mentions of part of the critical aspects of the plan. As reported by Lucas Tomlinson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Caine, USAF, made it quite clear on March 10 what the goals of the operation were. 1. Destroy missiles/drones 2. Destroy navy 3. Destroy military and industrial base This weekend with the eternally ridiculous George Stephanopoulos, the Secretary of State leaned in with that bad-faith actor to remind everyone of the basics. The full video is below, but here’s the meaty part from the end. … this operation (is) about very specific objectives. The president laid them out on the first night of the operation. I’ll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don’t know what the clear objectives are. Here they are. You should write them down. Number one, the destruction of their air force. Number two, the destruction of their navy. Number three, the the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factory so they can’t make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future. all of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon. That was our objective from the beginning. That remains our objective now. We are on pace and in fact ahead of schedule on some of those things and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months. Consistent. Defined. Accountable. Roughly what we knew at the start of the operation. There is comfort in that, however; Final note, as I have mentioned on recent episodes of the Midrats Podcast and elsewhere, I am standing by the marker I put down on March 2, If this degenerates into another long, drawn-out conflict where we put boots on the ground, my opinion will change. If it drags on for weeks of diminishing returns, my opinion will change. The sooner we state, “We’ve made our point. Don’t make us come back.” the better. If the Iranian people want to take this opportunity to change their government, then fine. That’s for them to make their move. We opened the door, but they have to walk through it. We need to be steadfast on this one point: we won’t wait for them. We are still, just barely—in the first month—about to go into the second. Let’s pull back in the last part of Secretary Rubio’s statement above. We are on pace and in fact ahead of schedule on some of those things and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months. OK. That is the word from March 29 from my fellow Floridian and the man fourth in line to be President. I take him at his word…but I also know that each day this goes on, the more people will ask for one more month, six more weeks, until Christmas, etc. I hope wise counsel is keeping us out of the trap that is so clearly in front of us. The Iranian government, however decimated its leadership may be, has more than demonstrated the ability to kill the Iranian people on an industrial scale. In a nation of 90 million people led by religious zealots who have all the guns, there will always be new people who are more than willing to step up to take the levers of power—secure in the first point above. Most of the people who have the personality, resources, and network to lead a rebellion have immigrated. Like Cuba, the Iranians have used emigration as a safety valve. Of those remaining who were willing to rise up, they were murdered in the tens of thousands as per the first point above. There likely is not a critical mass. I hope planning assumption #1 was that the Iranian government would not fall. Unless we have wonderful luck, the Islamic Republic of Iran will probably endure in the short to medium term. As I was doing my final edits this AM, I noticed the “If you want it open, open it yourself.” note from the President. The off ramp is right there should we desire to take it. As outlined by General Caine at the start and Secretary Rubio over the weekend, we have achieved our goals for this punitive expedition. Though nice to have, but regime change was never a goal. Though nice to have, but an open Strait of Hormuz was never a goal. Don’t make us come back. Again. Put the blinker on and get in the right lane. Let’s exit. 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

Honeywell International has received a $45 million contract modification to advance modernization of the powerplant used in the M1 Abrams family of main battle tanks, according to a March 30 contract announcement. Honeywell was awarded a $45,033,279 modification for Program Seven Year Engineering Work Directives, including the development and qualification of the J8 digital electronic […]View the full article

RTX has been awarded a $3.81 billion contract modification to produce F135 propulsion systems for Lot 18 and Lot 19 F-35 Lightning II aircraft, according to a March 30 contract announcement. The award supports continued production of engines for the Joint Strike Fighter program at a time when demand remains high across U.S. services, international […]View the full article

Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) on Tuesday confirmed the first operational deployment of domestically developed stand-off missiles, formally fielding the newly designated Type-25 surface-to-ship missile and Type-25 hyper velocity gliding projectile (HVGP) as part of the country’s evolving counterstrike capability. According to the JGSDF statement, the systems previously known as the upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship guided […]View the full article

Varjo has been selected as the extended reality technology provider for an immersive armored vehicle training program now being deployed for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as part of a Nordic defense technology collaboration with Norway’s Fynd Reality. The system is already being fielded in Ukraine and is designed to support familiarization, procedural training, and maintenance […]View the full article

Rheinmetall and Boeing Australia have entered into a strategic partnership to offer the MQ-28 Ghost Bat as a collaborative combat aircraft solution for the Bundeswehr. The agreement centers on Germany’s emerging requirement for collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), a class of autonomous unmanned systems designed to operate alongside manned fighter aircraft as force multipliers in contested […]View the full article

France has deployed Tiger attack helicopters to counter drone threats in the Middle East, French Army Chief of Staff General Pierre Schill said in an interview published Monday. The deployment comes as armed forces across the region continue to face persistent threats from unmanned aerial systems, including one-way attack drones and other low-cost aerial platforms. […]View the full article

Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) said Monday that it has delivered a new batch of X95 Micro-TAVOR rifles to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in coordination with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The delivery is intended to support immediate force readiness and sustain infantry equipment requirements under ongoing operational conditions. According to IWI, “IWI supports IDF […]View the full article

The European Defence Agency (EDA) will coordinate a new Joint Ammunition Qualification (JAQ) program backed by €50 million ($57.5 million) in European Commission funding under the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), with an initial focus on 155 mm artillery ammunition. The initiative is aimed at streamlining how artillery ammunition is tested and approved across participating […]View the full article

Airbus said Monday that its Bird of Prey counter-drone interceptor completed its first demonstration flight at a military training area in northern Germany. The test used a Mark I air-to-air missile developed by defense startup Frankenburg Technologies, marking the first public demonstration of the system in a realistic military scenario. Airbus said the demonstration was […]View the full article

A United States Air Force F-15EX Eagle II assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, flew a training mission over the southeastern U.S. on March 23, 2026, as the service continues developmental and operational testing of its newest fighter platform. The flight is part of an ongoing test campaign led by the 96th Test Wing […]View the full article

It has long been a dirty little secret that we made a decision to “accept risk” in defending our bases from attack. That momentary bet became a habit…and then part of the environment. The Army, especially during GWOT, didn’t just underfund air defense in general and treat it as a secondary career field—it never even considered what was needed to defend bases. The USAF? No better…and they relied on the Army for air defense. It was only 18 months or so ago they started to experiment with base defense. In the halls of the Pentagon, the military historians and Red Teams lost the argument to the accountants and the pet theories of The Smartest People in the Room™. When things got too sporty to ignore, a few bases received modified CIWS from the Navy, but that is about it. At the start of this decade, Patriot air defense was already a “high-demand/low-density” asset simply because we didn’t properly resource them in either missiles or units for decades. Yes, GWOT…but by 2010, that pressure on personnel was lessening significantly, and following President Obama’s “Pacific Pivot” speech, funds and thinking should have quickly shifted to the high-end fight. We dithered. Then after a few years, the Military Gods of the Copybook Headings were kind enough over six years ago to send us a firm reminder that we needed to get serious. Iran responded to the killing of General Qassem Soleimani by launching "Operation Martyr Soleimani," launching a dozen ballistic missiles at Al Asad Airbase and Erbil on January 8, 2020. We were lucky no one was killed. Have we learned our lesson? It appears not. We are in, what, the fifth spring of the Russo-Ukrainian War? What is one of the big takeaways from this conflict, something obvious? That’s right, the vulnerability of bases, especially air bases, to attack drones of all kinds. Small FPV drones, Shahed-sized drones, or even your standard land attack cruise missiles. You better be ready for them, as they are ready for you. Do we even need to review the experience of Israel, not just in the last few years, but for decades? I hope not. So, what is clear as day? Static bases within range of your enemies long-range fires—ballistic or drone—will be attacked. Conventionally armed ballistic missiles in the Short, Medium, Intermediate, and soon Intercontinental range are part of the threat you need to defend against. Drones can attack your base at any time, from any direction, in a variety of sizes. All this is known. What happened this week? An Iranian strike that wounded US troops at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia also damaged multiple aircraft and likely completely destroyed an E-3 Sentry aircraft. The attack some 60 miles south of the capital of Riyadh in the early hours of March 27 is said to have involved a coordinated precision barrage of at least one Iranian ballistic missile and several attack drones. According to reports, some 10 to 12 American service members were injured in the attack, with at least two in serious condition. The base, a major operating location for US Air Force platforms during the war, has been attacked several times since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury/Operation Roaring Lion. Earlier in the week, 14 others were wounded in an attack, and another missile strike on the base on March 1 killed one service member. The strike on Friday hit an installation housing troops and also caused significant damage to US KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft that are essential for sustaining long-range US and Israeli air operations, along with the E-3 Sentry AWACS, one of the most important command-and-control platforms in the US inventory. OK, that is a conflict zone. Roger. Understand. You will take hits at war…but PSAB? You would think that something as critical as PSAB would be well defended. Were the incoming missiles and drones even engaged? We’ll find out at some point, but a place like PSAB not having the best base defense possible is hard to imagine. It is almost as hard to imagines as if the bases that our nuclear capable bombers use were undefended. Oh. Over the course of a week, multiple waves of sophisticated drones penetrated the airspace over Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport — a critical hub of America’s nuclear bomber fleet and the headquarters of Air Force Global Strike Command. These drones were likely custom built, requiring advanced signals expertise far beyond any hobbyist. The disruptions apparently succeeded in delaying bombers taking off to strike targets in Iran, according to ABC News. … While it’s unclear who is behind the Louisiana incursion, it’s impossible to ignore that a new era of drone warfare has begun — and that the U.S. is not ready. During a NATO exercise in Estonia last year, 10 Ukrainian drone operators role-playing as the enemy mock-destroyed 17 armored vehicles and disabled two allied battalions in a day. NATO forces couldn’t even locate the operators. These vulnerabilities are no longer theoretical. Iran originally supplied Russia with its Shahed drone designs for use against Ukraine. Now Russia is sending upgraded versions back — with improved engines, better navigation and enhanced resistance to electronic jamming. Moscow is also sharing satellite imagery and targeting data to help Iran strike American bases and personnel. Were this an emerging threat or something novel, it would be understandable, but this threat is not. Years ago, I developed a new measure of time that I find helpful in military matters. It is called a “WorldWar.” It is the length of time from Pearl Harbor to the defeat of Imperial Japan, or 1,365 days. The attack on Al Asad and Erbil on January 8, 2020, it has been 2,273 days, or 1.67 WorldWars. The Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 has been going on 1,465 days, or 1.07 WorldWars. It would be as if we never recognized the threat posed by carrier aviation in the entire length of WWII in the Pacific. Perhaps former DepSecDef Kath Hicks’s “Replicator” initiative (announced .68 of a WorldWar ago) could have put some focus on base defense? I know it is unsexy, but it is important. Yes, I know, it can seem to be an easy thing to point out failures like this. But these are not Rumsfeldian Unknown-Unknowns, or even Known-Unknowns. These are long standing Known-Knowns. And yet, we find ourselves with our pants around our ankles. For a successful equipping of a military, experienced reality in the field must take precedence over pet theories, process, and bureaucracy. That is why we have senior leaders, isn’t it? We have to to break through these adhesions and develop a better mindset toward clear and present dangers to—because they are no longer in production—irreplaceable assets. The Military Gods of the Copybook Headings will not be trifled with. They will not be fooled. 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

Ukrainian drone manufacturer General Chereshnya and U.S.-based Wilcox Industries have announced the creation of a joint venture to produce FPV drones and interceptor drones in the United States, according to Militarnyi. The partnership centers on establishing localized drone production on U.S. soil, with an initial focus on the American defense market and Pentagon orders, while […]View the full article

Japan’s Ministry of Defense said on March 28 that the Air Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter aircraft after a Chinese military patrol aircraft flew over the East China Sea. The ministry said one aircraft was detected flying southwest of Okinawa and that Air Self-Defense Force fighters were urgently scrambled in response. The flight path, released in […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Army is preparing to establish dedicated JUMP 20 unmanned aerial vehicle units within its aviation brigades as part of a force restructuring plan that would gradually replace the long-serving OH-58D Kiowa Warrior fleet, according to a report by United Daily News. The report states that the 601st, 602nd, and 603rd Aviation Brigades are each […]View the full article

Japan’s Ministry of Defense said early Friday that the Maritime Self-Defense Force Kongo-class guided-missile destroyer JS Chokai has formally acquired the ability to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles. The announcement was released by the Ministry of Defense and the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency on March 27, and provides the most detailed official account to date […]View the full article

The Ecuadorian Army launched a military operation near the Colombian border targeting an illegal mining complex tied to organized criminal groups, deploying AMX-13 light tanks, mortars, and armed helicopters in a coordinated ground-and-air assault. The operation took place in the El Chical area of Carchi province in northern Ecuador, a region close to the Colombian […]View the full article

Having trouble keeping up with the world around you? Head swirling with too much? You’re not alone. Good news…we’ll get you all caught up and set right. Returning to the Midrats Podcast this Sunday LIVE from 5-6 PM Eastern will be Blake Herzinger. You can listen live at this link. If you’re reading this after the show, refresh the Substack page later Sunday evening and the podcast will be uploaded and linked. 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

Ukrainian forces destroyed a unit of Russian heavy multiple launch rocket systems in occupied Crimea using a long-range one-way strike drone, according to Militarnyi. The strike targeted Russian rocket artillery systems before they could be employed against Ukrainian positions. According to Militarnyi, the attack took place near the settlement of Karakul in Russian-occupied Crimea and […]View the full article

The United States Navy commissioned the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Massachusetts (SSN 798) during a ceremony held on March 28 in Boston Harbor. According to the Navy, USS Massachusetts is the seventh Block IV Virginia-class submarine and was built under a teaming agreement between General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII-Newport News Shipbuilding. The submarine was […]View the full article

The United States Navy has issued a request for proposals for its Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS), seeking a new jet trainer aircraft and associated training systems for Navy and Marine Corps aviators, according to a March 26 solicitation from the U.S. Department of War. Proposals are due by June 29, 2026. The program is […]View the full article

The United States Army has launched a new effort to improve how it produces and manages ammunition, issuing a contract notice on March 27 for engineering support services worth up to $44.6 million. The work will focus on upgrading and supporting the country’s Ammunition Industrial Base, with proposals due by April 20, 2026. Demand for […]View the full article

The United States Navy has safely undocked the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Albany (SSN 753) on March 26 at Naval Submarine Base New London. According to the Navy, USS Albany arrived at Submarine Base New London in the summer of 2025 and has since undergone a range of repairs, structural inspections, and upgrades to […]View the full article

F-35A Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 13th Fighter Squadron arrived at Misawa Air Base, Japan, on March 28. According to the U.S. Air Force, the arrival of the F-35A supports efforts to upgrade Misawa Air Base into a fighter integration wing and expand operational capabilities in the region. The aircraft will replace legacy platforms […]View the full article