Free Republic

Pete Hegseth’s Saturday begins with personal training. The Secretary of War, @SecWar on your socials, is very fond of working out with the troops – something most defense secretaries have done without someone dutifully filming the experience for Instagram. Then he heads off to the Reagan National Defense Forum, the annual gathering of war hawks, policy nerds and defense contractors in Simi Valley, California. Hegseth, the veteran of the Global War on Terror, is there to fulfill his mission of denouncing the neocons. “Out with idealistic utopianism, in with hard-nosed realism,” he declares, insisting the United States will no longer...

No matter how much I try to ignore the Democrats' latest "The Walls Are Closing In" spectacle, it has come to my attention that liberals are hopping mad about our military killing two Venezuelan drug traffickers. Cocaine has killed 100,000 Americans in the last 20 years. Venezuela is a major player in the supply chain that brings it here. But Democrats are concerned with the safety and well-being of the narco-terrorists. Of course, Democrats also root for cop-killers, serial rapists, wife-beaters, drug kingpins, cold-blooded killers and Ana Navarro. Liberals are OK with killing people unless it's good for America. They...

A homeowner in the Italian province of Rovigo used a firearm to defend himself from armed intruders in 2025. The precise date has not been published. The Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni defended the reform of Italian defense law, which has protected the homeowner from having his name made public. The law protected the homeowner from an intense investigation as someone suspected of using lethal force in an illegitimate manner.During the Fascist regime of Mussolini, the Italian laws about self defense were made very restrictive. Controls on the ownership of firearms were tightened. Italy reformed its law on self defense...

The New York Times sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday over the Pentagon's new policy that requires media outlets to pledge not to gather information unless defense officials formally authorize its release. That policy, unveiled in September, includes a ban on credentialed journalists reporting even unclassified material that isn't expressly approved for public consumption by Defense Department brass. The Times said the Pentagon policy represents an attempt to force reporters to rely solely upon officials for news involving the military and would unlawfully permit their punishment for failing to do so. The Times — and NPR — are among...

For nearly a century, America’s military strength has come largely through self-reliance. We not only made the ships, airplanes and tanks, our country supplied the parts and materials for these complex systems. But a lot has changed in recent times.Unfortunately, our military has increasingly relied on sourcing parts globally -- including from possibly unreliable places like China. It’s a disastrous side effect of globalization.For example, while modern jet engines may typically include between 30,000 and 50,000 parts, ensuring they are “China-free” has proven to be incredibly difficult. We’ve already seen deliveries of F-35s delayed over this issue, revealing that supply...

Administration allies say they are fed up with the Defense Department’s third-most senior leader and his foreign policy surprises. More than a half dozen diplomats interviewed in Washington and Europe also complain that the Pentagon’s once steady consultations have slowed as Colby’s office crafts that strategy, along with a review of troop locations worldwide.That uncertainty deepened after the Pentagon quietly decided not to replace a rotational Army brigade in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia — a move the Romanian government learned of only two days before it was announced, according to a U.S. defense official and a Romanian official.One NATO diplomat...

The U.S. Army is not in “terminal decline” but at a “classical crisis”—a decisive turning point. Critics see an “obsolete” force, but the author points to historical parallels (post-WWI, post-WWII, and the post-Vietnam “Hollow Army”) where the Army successfully renewed itself. Signs of this “metamorphosis,” like the SkyFoundry drone initiative (aiming for 10,000/month by 2026), show the Army is adapting, not collapsing, and will emerge smaller but more lethal.

The department, which has met its 8-percent overall reduction goal, is now going after “low performers.” The Defense Department is making another push to slim its civilian workforce, this time by directing managers to fire employees for “unacceptable performance” while continuing to encourage civilians to leave voluntarily. A 20-page memo signed by the Pentagon’s personnel boss late last month lays out several mechanisms for civilian employees to resign or be removed for cause, beyond the 60,000-plus employees who have already voluntarily bowed out this year through either the Deferred Resignation Program or Voluntary Early Retirement Authority. It also gives employees,...

One of the significant advantages of using handguns to defend against bear attacks is that defense with a handgun is far more likely to result in a dead bear. This is a highly desirable result. Bears that attack humans should be killed. Killing aggressive bears is a way to condition the bear population to avoid humans.The false premise implicit in the argument for non-lethal defenses against bears is that there are such small numbers of bears that killing a bear removes a valuable resource from the bear genetic pool. This view had some legitimacy about 1975-1980, when the population of...

The Army designed the Future Soldier Preparatory Course (FSPC) to close two gaps. The first is between the number of soldiers the Army wants and the number it has been able to recruit in recent years. The second gap was between the aspirations of men and women who wanted to join the Army and the basic physical, intellectual, and legal standards the Army requires of new recruits. Based in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the FSPC puts would-be recruits through what amounts to preparatory basic training, designed to generate physical fitness (usually measured in terms of weight, waistline, and basic exercise...

Unidentified drones, equipped with lights, were observed over several Danish airports on the night of September 24, 2025. Flights were disrupted at Aalborg, Billund, and Copenhagen airports for various periods of time. From the BBC, 25 September 2025: Denmark says drones flown over its airports appear to be the work of a “professional actor” but there was no evidence of Russian involvement, after such activity disrupted its airspace for the second time in a week.Aalborg airport was forced to shut down for several hours on Wednesday evening after green lights were spotted overhead, while Billund airport also briefly closed. Three...

The writing has been on the wall for a long time: South Korea’s birth rate has dropped throughout much of the past decade, spelling trouble for the military as regional threats and global conflicts simmer. Now, a new report has found that the number of South Korean troops declined by 20% in the past six years, in large part because of the dwindling pool of young men – reflecting the shrinking workforce and swelling elderly population in one of the world’s most rapidly aging countries. The Defense Ministry report attributed the drop to “complex factors” including population decline and fewer...

On Tuesday evening, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV spoke out against anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bellicose rhetoric. At an unusual gathering of military leaders earlier that day, Hegseth had told the top brass to be “prepared for war, not for defense,” while espousing the use of “overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy” and promising to “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.” Speaking to reporters in Italian, Leo called Hegseth’s rhetoric “worrying,” per the Catholic News Agency, “because it shows...

Boeing’s X-32B, the Joint Strike Fighter contender that lost to Lockheed Martin’s X-35 (now the F-35), survives in just two museum airframes: one indoors at the USAF Museum and one outdoors at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, where weather is taking a toll.

The Austin Police Department (APD) continues to investigate the officer-involved shooting that occurred on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, at approximately 4:11 a.m., in the 700 block of Azie Morton Road. APD understands the importance of building trust within our community and will continue working diligently to develop a strong and trusting relationship. As per our policy, we share information about a critical incident in a timely manner. APD is working with the Office of Police Oversight (OPO) and the City of Austin to release this information today. The news release includes links to the relevant audio and video from the...

COPENHAGEN, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Denmark plans to buy European-made air defence systems for 58 billion Danish crowns ($9.11 billion), its largest arms purchase ever, the country's defence minister said on Friday, citing a challenging security situation. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in February ordered the military to "buy buy buy" equipment in preparation for potential future Russian aggression in Europe. Denmark plans to procure eight systems, including the long-range SAMP/T platform produced by Eurosam, a consortium of MBDA France, MBDA Italy and Thales, as well as medium-range systems manufactured by Norway, Germany or France. "There is no doubt that...

SSN(X) is the Navy’s planned successor to Virginia: a larger, stealthier, longer-legged attack submarine that teams with UUVs, carries more weapons, and is designed for higher availability. Costs will dwarf current boats, and industrial bottlenecks—from single-source suppliers to overloaded yards—are real. Budget trade-offs and shipyard realities have pushed the first procurement to around FY-2040, delaying entry to the fleet.

“Worst” can mean many things: a jet that killed too many of its own pilots, missed its moment technologically, or never matched the mission it was bought to fly. Context matters—some of these aircraft taught valuable lessons or worked better in one air force than another. But taken on the whole—design intent vs. delivered performance, safety, combat effectiveness, and sustainment—these five stand out for the wrong reasons.

CARMICHAEL, Calif. — The third man killed during an apparent attempted robbery Sunday in Carmichael has been identified. Jonathan Derek Bush, 21, of Antelope, was found shot to death around 7 a.m. inside the Lance Apartments complex on El Camino Avenue, per the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office. The other two also found dead were identified earlier this week as Zavion Larue Dorsey, 22, of Rancho Cordova, and 24-year-old Wayne Douglas Doerr. A fourth man and complex resident, 18-year-old Jaylen Davis, was detained at the scene, per the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. One man was allegedly being robbed by two men...

The U.S. Space Force’s secretive X-37B is a reusable, unmanned spaceplane whose true mission remains a mystery. Its eighth mission, launched August 21, 2025, has reignited speculation, with Russia and China claiming it is a space bomber. While not a “Death Star,” the X-37B is an invaluable and record-breaking testbed for advanced satellite technologies, enabling the U.S. to conduct experiments in space and bring the results back home for analysis.