Free Republic

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.

The United Kingdom’s new Challenger 3 is a technologically impressive and formidable main battle tank, but the decision to procure only 148 units renders the fleet “patently inadequate” for its strategic needs. This small, “brittle” force lacks the numbers and depth required to sustain heavy combat operations, honor NATO commitments in Eastern Europe, or project power effectively.

Defense Secretary Hegseth slammed Microsoft for using Chinese engineers on Pentagon data, ending the program and warning that Big Tech’s ties to Beijing put U.S. security at risk.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the military would cease using a Microsoft program that relied on Chinese engineers. This obviously presented a major security issue, which Hegseth noted.“If you’re thinking ‘America first’ and common sense, this doesn’t pass either of those tests,” Hegseth said of the program. “The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments? It’s over.”He also declared that the DOD had delivered a formal...

The Department of Homeland Security Headquarters Office of Policy has announced plans to award a potential $100 million contract to procure counter-unmanned aircraft systems capabilities. According to the forecast notice published Wednesday on the Acquisition Planning Forecast System, the DHS is seeking potential contractors to deliver c-UAS capabilities that will be utilized against evolving threats from unauthorized or malicious UAS. The capabilities will be used to detect, track, identify and mitigate UAS threats over a wide range of operational environments. The planned acquisition is intended to reinforce defense capabilities against threats to critical infrastructure, public safety and national security. The...

The fact is, said a retired Dassault executive, that “those questioning the Rafale’s combat capability forget just how long the aircraft has been around, how Dassault was one of the first aircraft design companies to seriously mitigate the aircraft’s signature by treating the inlets with radar absorbing materials, how it was one of the first aircraft to have an electronically-scanning array radar, and so on.” “These and other features of Rafale make it more than a match for these US aircraft within the visual range part of the engagement envelope,” he continued.

Aesthetica @Anc_Aesthetics · 11h Haven't been able to get this story out of my head. I think this moment is the turning point. You're either the type of country that allows little innocent girls to be fed to the wolves and forced to defend herself against migrant rapists or you're the type of country where the men say enough is enough and take their country back. It's now or never.

Ever since the Europeans signed on to the F-35 program, it has been clouded by one persistent fear: that in some future geopolitical crisis, Washington might seek to exercise leverage by denying software updates or spare parts, thereby rendering the European fleet inoperable. But where does this geopolitical anxiety come from? Is it grounded in historical fact (i.e., have there been precedents in which the United States weaponized its control over advanced weapon systems against its allies)?

President Donald Trump proposed on Aug. 25 that his administration rename the Department of Defense to its previous name, the Department of War. “Pete, you started off by saying ’the Department of Defense.' And somehow it didn’t sound good to me,” Trump said in the Oval Office, speaking to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, after signing executive orders on fighting crime, including in Washington. “Defense. What are we, defense? Why are we defense? It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound. And, as you know, we won World War I, we won World War...

In a future conflict with China, technological superiority alone will not be enough; “mass matters.” The vast distances of the Indo-Pacific and the limitations of sea-launched airpower create a critical need for a large, land-based fleet of long-range, 6th-generation F-47 fighters. A substantial number of F-47s would be essential to overwhelm enemy defenses, deliver the necessary volume of ordnance, and create a resilient, networked force capable of shortening the sensor-to-shooter timeline. Without a large F-47 fleet, the U.S. risks being unable to effectively project power and prevail in a great-power conflict.

A single DF-21D warhead striking a carrier’s flight deck would be a mission-kill. It wouldn’t sink the ship, but it would crack the deck, making it impossible to launch or recover aircraft. The carrier, for all intents and purposes, would be out of the fight. Several successful hits could very well sink the vessel, resulting in the tragic loss of over 5,000 American sailors and a $13 billion national asset. It would be a Pearl Harbor-level catastrophe, a blow from which American prestige might never recover.

Information released by the US Fish and Wildlife Service shows the number of grizzly bears killed in defense of human life is 5-10 times greater than previously thought.On January 15, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published a proposal to revise the listing of the grizzly bears in the contiguous 48 states. The proposal includes the most complete information on grizzly bear mortality to date.Studies to determine how effective various tools are in defending against grizzly bear attacks suffer from serious selection bias. If the defense is successful and no humans are harmed, the chance of the attack...

A man was shot to death and another man was wounded when the two attempted to foil the attempt of men trying to steal their parked vehicle in an alley in the South Los Angeles area, authorities said Sunday. The shooting was reported at 9:20 p.m. Saturday in the 8000 block of South Hooper Avenue, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The victims were alerted to an alarm sound from their vehicle, which was parked in an alley, and saw three suspects attempting to steal it. “When they confronted the suspects, a fourth suspect, standing near the south...