Free Republic

Situated between Poland and Lithuania, both members of the European Union and NATO, Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian exclave on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, as well as the westernmost region of the Russian Federation.Tactically, in the event of conflict, Russia could form a land bridge from Belarus to the Kaliningrad exclave along the so-called Suwałki Gap, severing the Baltic states, including Lithuania, from other members of the Atlantic Alliance. In this scenario, troops stationed in Lithuania as part of a German-led NATO brigade would be surrounded and cut off from Central Europe. In addition, the deployment of...

A Chinese cutter blasted a Philippine fisheries vessel with its water cannon at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Tuesday morning, officials in Manila said on Tuesday.The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, a civilian department meant to assist and regulate Philippine fishing efforts, said two offshore vessels were harassed by two cutters from the China Coast Guard and a warship from the People’s Liberation Army Navy. According to the agency, BRP Datu Cabaylo (MMOV-3001) and BRP Datu Sanday (MMOV-3002) were at Scarborough Shoal to resupply fishermen fishing near the disputed maritime feature.A video released by Philippine state...

An incident in the South China Sea last month saw 10 Vietnamese fishermen beaten by officers from China’s Maritime Safety Administration near the Paracel Islands, reported local media.According to Vietnamese accounts, Maritime Safety Administration vessels 101 and 301 from the Sansha City United Law Enforcement Unit surrounded the civilian vessel on the morning of Sept. 29. Three rubber hulled inflated boats were deployed by the patrol ships to board the fishing vessel, which was attempting to escape. Despite attempts from the QNg 95739 TS to prevent the boarding. Their efforts were unsuccessful.Four of the Vietnamese fishermen were severely injured during...

The Philippines and its allies, including Canada, Japan and the U.S., kicked off the maritime phase of Exercise Sama Sama 2024 in the South China Sea this week.Derived from the Southeast Asian-focused Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training series of maritime security exercises, the originally bilateral exercise has grown to become Manila’s premier multilateral naval drill. This year’s Sama Sama, translating to “together” in Tagalog, includes high-end training activities for the Philippine Navy, including over-the-horizon targeting, counter-unmanned aerial system drills and hunting a simulated submarine with allied ships.While the Philippine Navy has been slowly modernizing with new warships and technologies amid...

The CSG took part in the one-day Joint Sword 2024B exercise on Monday. After sightings on Sunday and Monday, aircraft carrier CNS Liaoning (16), cruiser CNS Anshan (103) and destroyer CNS Urumqi (118) were sighted sailing in an area 304 miles south of Yonaguni Island on Tuesday afternoon. The ships subsequently sailed toward the South China Sea.The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force confirmed that Liaoning carried out 90 launches and recoveries of its embarked fighter aircraft and 50 take-offs and landings of its embarked helicopters. JMSDF destroyer JS Kirisame (DD-104) conducted surveillance and information gathering, according to the release, which noted...

During the exercise, PLA Eastern Theater Command ordered 125 sorties by aircraft, helicopters and drones near the island, the Taiwan Ministry of Defense said on Monday. Ninety of the aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. Seventeen PLA Navy ships and 17 China Coast Guard ships operated around Taiwan, with some vessels approaching the island in close proximity.Earlier on Sunday, the MND reported that PLAN ships, including carrier CNS Liaoning (16) sailed through the Bashi Channel, which lies between the Philippines’ Mavulis Island and Taiwan’s Orchid Island, to enter the Western Pacific. In Monday’s press conference, the MND issued a...

Admiral Dong has the distinction of being the first Commander of the East China Sea Joint Operations Command Center (ECS JOCC), having served from July 2013 to November 2014 while he served as one of the deputy commanders of the East Sea Fleet. Established in 2013, the ECS JOCC was the PLA’s first joint operations command headquarters responsible for the operational coordination of the PLAN, PLA Air Force (PLAAF), and other forces—including the China Coast Guard and Strategic Rocket Forces—against Taiwan.3 Admiral Dong’s various appointments should be a reminder of the importance the CCP places on the PLAN and the...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The Oregon Elections Division is resuming phone operations shortly after shutting down all calls due to an overwhelming surge of out-of-state callers complaining that Donald Trump is not in the Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet.On Thursday, the elections office told KOIN 6 News the callers had been responding to false information about why the former president did not appear in the pamphlet, including social media rumors making election interference claims.However, the Oregon Secretary of State’s office said the decision for Trump’s omission was actually made by his own campaign when it did not submit a statement or pay...

In March of this year, Bryan Malinowski, the executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, was killed by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) during a pre-dawn raid of his home. It was an unwarranted and indefensible killing of a kind that should never, ever happen in a free country like the United States. Because we have a media that no longer serves in its traditional role as a government watchdog, this incident was not widely reported. Because too many members of Congress no longer take seriously their...

The United States must recalibrate its nuclear deterrence posture and align the stockpile to address the realities of the current threat environment.The current landscape, however, is characterized by rapidly evolving threats, which have reinstated the salience of nuclear weapons and deterrence, albeit in a more complex and multidimensional framework. In addition, the age of the U.S. stockpile has reached an all-time high; the average age of U.S. warheads is between 25 and 30 years old, and no new warhead designs have been introduced since the early 1990s.3 Further, all legs of the triad’s delivery systems are serving well past their...

Suppose, during a battle at sea— with missiles flying—an adversary is trying to disrupt a ship’s sensor- fusion system, so that it mischaracterizes what the sensors are seeing. With current cybersecurity methods, it could take minutes or even hours for analysts to determine that the system is being attacked. And by then it might be too late.However, a new approach that uses AI could, for example, send an alert to the combat systems officer—in real time—that there is a high probability that an attack on the sensor-fusion system is underway. Armed with that information, the CSO could limit any possible...

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the South China Sea (SCS) has emerged as an arena of strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China). China’s actions in the SCS—including extensive island-building and base-construction activities at sites that it occupies in the Spratly Islands, as well as actions by its maritime forces to assert China’s claims against competing claims by regional neighbors such as the Philippines and Vietnam—have heightened concerns among U.S. observers that China is gaining effective control of the SCS, an area of strategic, political, and economic importance to the...

NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Approximately 25 percent of sailors in the surface fleet have bought into the “Get Real Get Better” principles two years after the Navy issued its push to improve culture in the service, according to surface fleet leaders.The rest know little about it, according to a survey of about 1,000 sailors that a San Diego-based command conducted among ship crews on the waterfront to gauge what they knew about the Navy’s initiative.“We’ve got a lot of work to do to really drive this down to the deck plate and have it be truly a part...

A resupply mission to the Philippine Coast Guard’s flagship stationed at a contested South China Sea feature was blocked by 40 Chinese vessels in the latest incident around Escoda Shoal, according to Manila.Two Philippine Coast Guard 44-meter-long patrol boats, BRP Cabra (MRRV-4409) and BRP Cape Engaño (MRRV-4411), approached Escoda to resupply agency flagship BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) on Monday morning. The vessels carried food, supplies, a contingent of journalists and a “special ice cream treat” from Commandant Adm. Ronnie Gil Gavan for Teresa Magbanua’s crew to celebrate National Heroes’ Day. Stationed at Escoda since April, the Japanese-made multi-mission response vessel...

Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy, USNI News learned.The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.Based on the crew requirements on the platforms, sideling all the ships...

China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, is the top focus of U.S. defense planning and budgeting. China’s naval modernization effort has been underway for about 30 years, since the early to mid-1990s, and has transformed China’s navy into a much more modern and capable force. China’s navy is a formidable military force within China’s near-seas region, and it is conducting a growing number of operations in the broader waters of the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and waters around Europe.China’s navy is, by far, the largest of any country in East Asia, and sometime between 2015 and...

CHICAGO, IL — As top Democratic political leaders and influencers gathered in the Windy City for the week, the Democratic National Convention dyed the Chicago River red to celebrate abortion.The decision was made to make the river blood-colored for the party's convention as a striking visual to emphasize the Democrats' unending commitment to slaughtering defenseless babies in as large of quantities as possible."Turning the Chicago River blood-red is the perfect way to celebrate our party's national convention and remind everyone just how excited we get about killing babies," said DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. "We're just bummed we couldn't use actual...

The key difference between NatCons and FreeCons has to do with the character of the current political struggle against progressives on the Left. FreeCons believe we are mainly involved in policy arguments. FreeCon signatory Yuval Levin, for instance, writes that our divisions are a family argument between two forms of liberalism: progressive liberalism and conservative liberalism—we are not, he assures us, in a “political fight to the death.” National conservatives, on the other hand, generally believe we are involved in what the late Angelo Codevilla called a “Cold Civil War”—or as third waver Victor Davis Hanson has put it, we...

U.S. — Democrats continued their long-standing tradition of holding whites-only gatherings this week with the new "White Dudes for Harris" campaign.The Zoom call, featuring prominent politicians and celebrities, upheld the Democratic Party's proud heritage of gathering a large group of white men together to talk about black people just like the party did for decades with the Ku Klux Klan and other whites-only meetings."We're Democrats. It's what we do," said angry white man David Hogg. "We'd be remiss if we didn't seek to carry on the age-old Democratic Party tradition of having meetings that were only for white males. It's...

On a sweltering July afternoon in 1924, Eric Liddell walked onto the track in a Paris stadium carrying a trowel. Pinned to the front of his short-sleeved shirt was a piece of cloth bearing the number 451. When Liddell reached the track, he bent down and dug two small holes in the center of lane 6.Then he walked up to each of the other five competitors in the 400-meter dash final and shook their hands.Moments earlier, one of the British team’s masseurs had handed a note to the 22-year-old Scottish runner: “In the old book, it says, ‘He that honors...