Tag: military industrial complex

Saber Rattling Toward Tragedy: The High Stakes of US-China Tensions

The confirmation of US Army Special Forces’ deployment to strategic locations in Taiwan is a harbinger of the United States inching closer to a precipice, one that overlooks a potential conflict with China—a scenario fraught with peril not just for the involved states but for global peace.

This development, while emblematic of the US’s commitment to Taiwan’s defense, inadvertently amplifies the saber rattling that has come to define US-China relations. The stakes of this brinkmanship are alarmingly high, risking a catastrophic conflict that serves no nation’s true interest, save for the military-industrial complex that stands to profit at the cost of countless innocent lives.

A Dangerous Game

The decision to station US Green Berets in Kinmen and Penghu, areas perilously close to mainland China, is not merely a strategic military maneuver but a bold political statement. It represents a significant escalation in the US’s show of support for Taiwan, a move that, while intended to deter Chinese aggression, equally serves to provoke it. This saber rattling—a display of military might under the guise of deterrence—edges us closer to a conflict that, once ignited, could spiral out of control, drawing in multiple global powers into a confrontation nobody wants.

The True Beneficiaries of Conflict

Amid these tensions, it’s crucial to ask: Who truly benefits from such brinkmanship? The sad answer lies in the military-industrial complex, a conglomerate of defense contractors and associated industries whose fortunes swell with the drums of war. For them, the escalation of tensions is not a harbinger of tragedy but an opportunity for profit, achieved at the expense of human lives and global stability. This stark reality underscores the need to scrutinize the motives behind our foreign policy decisions and question the narrative that military escalation equates to deterrence.

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2025 Department of Defense Budget Request Disarms America

The press release for the Department of Defense 2025 Budget Request told one story, a story replete with lofty, aspirational goals expressed in the usual abstract text of DOD budget requests.

Reading the text, one would think the Arsenal of Democracy 2.0 was in high gear.  On the other hand, the accompanying Comptroller submissions of the different Services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Space Force) that are the official numbers from DOD told a very different story.  The Service submissions do have a similar, flowery textual chapeau laid over the numbers that perhaps this time were serving as a second layer of distraction from the numbers.

The Comptroller numbers don’t lie, the topline number of the entire Department of Defense was flat, $849.8 Billion, only $7.8B more than 2024.  $7.8B is a lot, but it is budget dust in DOD world.

This is less than 1% growth in the DOD budget and taking inflation into account, the number is a significant shrinkage of the DOD topline.  The Comptroller numbers revealed that almost every important warfighting line item, the numbers of ships, airplanes, and missiles, went down.

The disconnect of the descriptive text from the numbers took a few days to sink in with most of the experts.  Professor James Holmes said simply, the “New Defense Budget Makes No Sense”.

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If SpaceX’s Secret Constellation Is What We Think It Is, It’s Game Changing

The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is reportedly acquiring a constellation of hundreds of intelligence-gathering satellites from SpaceX, with a specific focus on tracking targets down below in support of ground operations. Though details about this project are still very limited, there are clear parallels to what the U.S. Space Force has previously said about a highly classified space-based radar surveillance program, which it first publicly disclosed around the same time SpaceX is said to have gotten its NRO contract. If this program is the one we think it is, it could bring about a revolution in both tactical and strategic space-based sensing.

Starshield, SpaceX’s government-sales-focused business unit, has been working on the new low Earth orbit (LEO) spy satellites under a $1.8 billion contract it received in 2021 from NRO, according to a report from Reuters this past weekend, citing five anonymous sources familiar with the deal. The Wall Street Journal had previously published a story about the existence of the contract in February, but did not name NRO as being involved or provide specific details about the deal’s scope of work.

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DARPA picks Northrop Grumman to develop ‘lunar raiload’ concept

Railroads could open the moon to serious and sustained economic development, as they did in the American West in the late 19th century.

That’s apparently the hope of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is supporting the development of a “lunar railroad” concept proposed by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman.

“The envisioned lunar railroad network could transport humans, supplies and resources for commercial ventures across the lunar surface, contributing to a space economy for the United States and international partners,” Northrop Grumman representatives wrote in a press statement on Tuesday (March 19).

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Niger Ends Military Relationship With US, Says US Presence No Longer Justified

Niger announced on Saturday that it was suspending military cooperation with the US and that the US presence in the country was no longer justified, signaling Washington will have to withdraw its troops.

Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, spokesman for the military-led government that’s been in power since last year’s coup, made the announcement after a US delegation visited Niger. He said the US officials did not show respect for Niger’s sovereignty.

“Niger regrets the intention of the American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships capable of truly helping them fight against terrorism,” Abdramane said.

The US has a major drone base in Niger, known as Air Base 201, which it uses as a hub for operations in West Africa. Before former President Mahamoud Bazoum was taken out of power last July, the US had about 1,100 troops in Niger. As of December, the US has 648 troops stationed in the country.

The US formally declared the ouster of Bazoum a coup, which requires the suspension of aid, but was looking for ways to cooperate with the junta to maintain its military presence. However, there are signs the US was preparing for the possibility of getting kicked out. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that the US was in talks with other West African states to base drones on their territory, including Benin, the Ivory Coast, and Ghana.

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70% Or More Of F-35s May Not Be Combat-Capable

A September 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the F-35 revealed some shocking statistics on just how unready hundreds of billions of dollars worth of F-35s are to provide actual combat power. In fact, the report indicated that only 15 to 30 percent of F-35s may be capable of combat.

But if you were to read a typical article in the media, you might believe that, on average, some 55 percent of F-35s are combat-capable. However,  you would be wrong. You see, when the average person sees a report declaring that 55 percent of F-35 combat aircraft are “mission capable,” they assume mission capable equals combat capable. But in doing so, they are being deceived.

The deception comes out of how the F-35 program office and the whole of the Department of Defense define “mission capable.” It turns out that the DoD definition of “mission capable” does not mean combat capable. What it means is that an aircraft can fly and perform at least one mission. So, a plane designated as mission capable might be capable of doing some type of combat, but it might not. Instead, the mission it might be capable of executing could be testing or training, or some other mission that does not involve combat. And even if it is considered capable of testing or training, it might not be capable of doing the full gamut of testing or training you would expect from a fully functional aircraft. Likewise, it could still be classified as mission capable even if it is only capable of executing a portion of the combat-type missions it is supposed to be able to perform.

Hence, within the environs of the military–industrial–congressional complex, “mission capable” is a highly ambiguous term that allows for a whole lot of gaming of accountability metrics. And it tells us very little. Still, it is worth noting that at a 55 percent mission capable rate, the F-35 fleet is well below program targets of 90 percent for the F-35A (Air Force) and 85 percent for the fighter’s F-35B (Marine Corps) and F-35C (Navy) variants. In other words, the F-35 fleet as a whole is nowhere near meeting its mission capability goal of being able to do anything at all.

However, there is another metric that is more useful: “full mission capable.” It turns out that “full mission capable” F-35s are supposed to be able to perform all the missions for which they were contracted, including combat-oriented missions, surveillance, training, testing, show of force, etcetera. This metric is not often publicized, but in the case of the F-35, the watchdog side of the GAO actually did a detailed report of the problems and issues with the F-35 that included how the F-35 fleet looked from the “full mission capable” perspective.

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Newly declassified footage reveals Britain’s deadly DragonFire LASER weapon that can blow up drones and hypersonic nuclear missiles at the speed of light – and for just £10 a shot

A deadly laser weapon which can blow up drones and hypersonic nuclear missiles at the speed of light has been revealed to the public in newly declassified footage. 

The video shows Britain achieving its first high-power firing of the Dragonfire laser weapon, as it successfully destroyed a drone in the sky using the system’s death ray.

In these secret trials at the Military of Defence’s Hebrides Range, the weapon proved so accurate it could hit a £1 coin half a mile away, with each ‘shot’ said to cost around £10.

Its full range remains classified, but the invisible 50kW beam can cut through targets using it ‘pin-point accuracy’ and does not require any ammunition. 

The weapons platform, which military chiefs say will revolutionise the battlefield of the future, could one day be used to annihilate fighter jets, warships and hypersonic missiles. 

The MOD said: ‘DragonFire is an advanced military laser, being developed by Dstl and GB industry.

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Ukraine war is changing the global arms trade

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war has driven new arms purchasing in Europe in dramatic fashion, with US manufacturers being the main beneficiaries, according to a new study from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

From 2019 to 2023, the worldwide trade in weapons declined by 3.3% overall from the 2014-18 figures, but the amount of arms imported by European countries in that period doubled compared with the previous five years.

At 55%, the lion’s share of arms sales to European countries came from the United States. This was up 20 percentage points from the previous period.

US’s global dominance

Mainly thanks to sales to European countries, the United States increased its overall weapons exports by 17%. Stateside producers delivered arms to 107 countries, more than in any other period studied by SIPRI or any other exporting nation.

“The USA has increased its global role as an arms supplier — an important aspect of its foreign policy — exporting more arms to more countries than it has ever done in the past,” said Mathew George, director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme. “This comes at a time when the USA’s economic and geopolitical dominance is being challenged by emerging powers.”

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine is the European country where weapons imports have most dramatically increased. From 2019 to 2023, Ukraine went from being a minimal importer and a site of domestic production to being the No. 4 weapons buyer in the world, after India, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Imports increased 6,600% compared with the previous period.

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F-35A Is Officially Certified For Nuclear Strike

The F-35A has been fully certified to carry the B61-12 thermonuclear bomb. Confirmation comes after we reported late last year that Dutch-operated F-35As had received “initial certification for the deterrence mission” — a reference to their ability to carry the same weapons.

F-35As being able to deliver nuclear strikes will add major credibility to NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture in Europe. The aircraft’s unique ability to pierce enemy air defense networks and defend itself on the way to its target will be a standing capability Russia has never had to deal with. The F-117 was capable of delivering nuclear strikes and could have been called upon to do so, but that was not part of its normal mission purview and the aircraft remained deeply classified during the tail end of the Cold War, complicating its use in such a role and its deterrence value. You can read more about this in our special feature here.

The F-35’s added survivability will complicate Moscow’s ability to defend against these strikes and change whatever predictive modeling they have on the probability of those strikes succeeding will have to be adjusted accordingly. This capability can also be used in other theaters, including the Korean Peninsula and the larger Pacific region, but there isn’t a similar standing tactical nuclear weapons delivery mission there like there is in Europe.

A spokesman from the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), Russ Goemaere, said today that the certification was achieved on October 12, according to a report from Breaking Defense. The milestone was achieved earlier than planned — the U.S. Air Force had previously announced that it aimed to have the F-35A certified to carry the B61-12 by January 2024.

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Biden Admin Quietly Approves 100+ Arms Sales to Israel While Claiming Concern for Civilians in Gaza

While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid. Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the launch of Israel’s assault on October 7, which the Biden administration approved using emergency authority to bypass Congress. “It is actually illegal to provide military assistance to a country that is restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance, and we know that this is the case with Israel,” says Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. Paul describes the “production line”-style sale of weapons to Israel and says increasing internal dissent is putting pressure on Biden to change his “dead-end” policy of unconditional support for Israel. “We have a president and a set of policies … that remain set on this course regardless of the harm it is doing to Israeli security, to American global interests and, of course, to so many Palestinians.”

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