Free Republic

The Heritage Foundation is proposing that the U.S. wind down military aid to Israel as part of a strategy to “re-orient its relationship” with the country over the next two decades, a notable stance for the prominent conservative think tank given the long and deep support for Israel among conservatives and Republicans. The Heritage report on moving the U.S.-Israel strategy, “From Special Relationship to Strategic Partnership,” was crafted by its defense experts and released on Wednesday. “Just as Israel once advanced from a financial assistance recipient to an economic partner of the United States, so, too, should it move from...

The Pentagon’s books are a mess, and D.O.G.E just ripped the lid off one of the biggest financial disasters in government history. The Department of Defense (DoD) lost track of $824 billion last year, and their latest audit only confirms what most already suspected—no one knows where the money went. This isn’t a small accounting error. The DoD’s $4.1 trillion in assets and $4.3 trillion in liabilities were put under scrutiny, and the results are just embarrassing. Out of all the entities inside the Pentagon, only nine managed to pass their audits. One got a “qualified” rating, meaning the books...

Lockheed-Martin's F-35 Lightning II stealth multirole fighter is one of those development boondoggles that we've become all too familiar with, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk's DOGE boys are looking at perhaps canceling it. The Spectator's Teresa Mull wrote Wednesday that while in Hegseth’s view,“'efficiency' does not equate to funding cuts (he wants DoD spending to increase), one quick and easy way to curb waste right out the gate would be to abandon the F-35 fighter jet, fire every senior person involved in its commission and put in place systems to ensure that such horrors never happen again."Seriously,...

Last month, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing intelligence and undisclosed sources, reported a grim milestone: about one million Ukrainians and Russians have been killed or wounded since the war began. According to government figures, in the first half of 2024, three times as many people died in Ukraine as were born, the WSJ reported. Population loss is one of the reasons why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused to mobilise men aged 18-25, as most of them have not had children yet... The eligible age range for Ukraine’s military is 25 to 60. Joachim Giaminardi, NRC’s advocacy manager in...

The Pentagon is facing a difficult decision regarding the F-35’s chronic, crippling problems with overheating brought on by its insufficient cooling capacity.Should the U.S. taxpayers pay for a costly upgrade to the stealth fighter’s cooling that will handle its immediate needs, or should U.S. taxpayers pay for a far more expensive upgrade that theoretically could handle increased future cooling needs?Before we briefly address the two options facing the Pentagon, let’s look at why cooling capacity is so important for the F-35 and why the most expensive weapons system program in world history produced a plane that was destined to have...

With a growing number of American voters expressing skepticism over U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Republican North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum doesn’t appear to be reading the room so well. Burgum who is on Donald Trump’s short list of potential running mates, appears to be doubling down on the neoconservative impulse to engage the rest of the world via military force. Burgum has long been on record as stating that the U.S. is engaged in a cold war with Russia and China. Now he’s being even more reckless, telling a reporter that “We’re at war with Russia, we just haven’t sent...

June 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a multi-year contract worth $4.5 billion for its air defense Patriot Missiles system, the Pentagon said on Friday. The Patriot system is one of an array of sophisticated air defense units supplied by the West to help Ukraine, as it continues its defense against Russia's invasion. The contract covers 870 PAC-3 MSE missiles and associated hardware.

Republican lawmakers are facing an internal battle over defense spending as prominent Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, are pushing for big increases while conservatives are raising alarms over the debt. The battle within the GOP over how much to increase defense spending to deter threats from Russia, China and Iran will burst into public next month when the Senate is set to debate the annual National Defense Authorization Act. McConnell and Wicker are laying the groundwork for that debate by calling for major...

A very sobering @olliecarroll interview with Ukraine’s deputy mil intel chief. He says Chasiv Yar will fall eventually, that Ukraine is far from stabilising the front and that Russia is “generating a division of reserves” & wants to strike at Sumy/Kharkiv. ‘Right now, both sides are jockeying for the “the most favourable position” ahead of potential talks. But meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, he guesses

Congress is facing the most significant and transformational opportunity to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) since the end of World War II. The heritage equipment that the United States has provided to Ukraine for its self-defense in the face of the brazen and illegal invasion by Russian forces in 2022 needs to be replenished to ensure the United States is postured to continue to deter its adversaries. The new hardware will be produced at factories across the nation. Of the $113 billion appropriated by Congress to date related to the conflict in Ukraine, as much as $68 billion...

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “personally” grateful to “Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track” after Johnson shepherded a $61 billion Ukraine aid package through the House Saturday. The image of scores of Democrats waving Ukraine flags and cheering on the House floor as the bill passed will forever sting the conservatives from whose ranks Johnson rose, only to serve them with the ultimate betrayal.

House conservatives have stymied proposed supplemental funding packages for Ukraine since the fall. But their justifications for further delays in delivering military aid to Kyiv got little oxygen during an April 17 defense budget hearing before a key appropriations panel. “With Mr. Putin saying very openly and repeatedly that he wants to restore the old Soviet Union, all of the nation states, in Eastern Europe especially, are looking to us,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said, referring to the Russian leader’s demands seeking no further NATO expansion, no missiles on Russia’s borders, and a return of...

The inside story of how House Speaker Mike Johnson was flip-flopped on Ukraine aid starts with his top policy adviser, a former lobbyist whose clients include a number of major companies who have issued corporate statements indicating some kind of interest in the war. The Speaker intends to set up a Saturday evening vote in the House of Representatives on the plan that completely abandons border security and instead pushes to funnel tens of billions of more U.S. tax dollars to foreign countries like Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. In a string of recent betrayals by the Speaker–the recent government funding...

Part 1: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/high-price-losing-ukraine Part 2: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/high-price-losing-ukraine-part-2-%E2%80%94-military-threat-and-beyond

The US Navy is lowering requirements to ridiculous levels, now accepting literal retards who flunked out of high school. The rush to get white males (as well as anyone else they can find) into the military as quickly as possible has led many to suggest we are headed for some kind of major and serious war. However, if they want to fight a serious war with China and/or Russia, they would need a draft. And it would be a much more serious draft than Vietnam. It would be a World War II style draft.

Final polling data ahead of the official caucus shows Nikki Hayley losing to Trump, which the presidential candidate has emphatically said is "unacceptable." According to sources, polling data motivated her to launch retaliatory attacks against a voter base that despises her. Support by defense contractors for Hayley's presidential campaign has since quadrupled. "We're all in for Team Hayley," said Lockheed Martin CEO David Rumsfeld. "It's so inspiring the way she wants to give us money to bomb people. Boy, do I love bombing people." Iowans have responded unfavorably to the bombings, but Fox News reporters confirm that the diminished Iowan...

It seemed like a good idea at the time… On Jan. 4, 2024, the U.S. assassinated Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, a commander in an Iran-linked Iraqi militia. The Pentagon press release called the militia a “terrorist group” and claimed the strike was in “self-defense.” But it neglected to mention the militia was also part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi government body that falls under the Ministry of Defense. Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, criticized the killing and announced that Iraqi and U.S. representatives would soon meet to discuss the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying...

I don't care what FR neocons say UK/US are officially bombing one of the poorest countries on Earth. It's unconscionable. I want peace. Enough.

Update from Ukraine | The Worst day for the Ruzzian Army | Avdiivka will finish them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4ElW-1jAM0 The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the recent developments on the battlefield, as of 18th October 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). [NOTE: two summaries per week, released on Wednesday and Sunday] https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-602-summary/ *** Great interactive maps with viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use for each Front! https://militaryland.net/maps/

President Biden is weighing a wide-ranging supplemental funding request for roughly $100 billion that would include funding for Israel and Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter. The sweeping measure would also include funding for border security and assistance to countries in the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan, the people said. Biden administration officials said the package, which would include funding for the full fiscal year, hasn’t yet been finalized. The administration is expected to send the package to Congress in the coming days. Bloomberg earlier reported the $100 billion funding figure.