I post at The Dignified Rant: Evolved on Substack. Help me out by subscribing and by liking and sharing posts. I also post here on TDR seven days a week, including Weekend Data Dump and Winter War of
2022. I occasionally post short data dump-type items on my Substack "Notes" section.
In case you missed it on Substack: Crouching Dragon, Hidden Siberian Tiger
In case you missed it on Substack: The Navy Needs Sloops-of-War
In case you missed it on Substack: Has Erdogan Decided To Go Fully Rogue?
In case you missed it on Substack: Building a Marine Expeditionary Battle Force
July 12th was the 23rd anniversary of The Dignified Rant. Here's my 20-year post. And a year of writing on Substack. I don't feel like more anniversary posts after blogging for almost 10% of the time America has been a country. Subscribe on Substack--it's free--to help me celebrate my long tradition of existence!
European officials expressed concern "that Iran may be able to build a weapon in secret unless a nuclear agreement enables the IAEA to resume inspections." I'm concerned there already is a secret location. So the IAEA is irrelevant. And maybe our B-2 strikes, too, for at least the initial Iranian nukes.
Collateral damage: "The military is full of young men who are drawn to risky behaviors, a demographic that experts say has the greatest probability for developing gambling addictions." They will be targets for foreign intelligence agents.
The military is setting up an inter-service task force for developing equipment and tactics to counter drones. No rush. Take your time.
While it may seem unseemly for Trump administration officials and foreign leaders to praise Trump so much, consider that in his first administration officials and foreign leaders actively undermined the president. So the pendulum is naturally swinging past the seemly center in the opposite direction.
Huh: "The U.S. Coast Guard will receive a nearly $25 billion investment, marking the largest single commitment of funding in Service history."
Opposing China's subliminal offensives: "A Newsweek map shows the United States conducting Coast Guard missions with allies—the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Australia and India—in waters near China since May."
Will Germany have the troops to man them? German is thinking about buying "up to 2,500 GTK Boxer infantry fighting vehicles and as many as 1,000 Leopard 2 main battle tanks." Of course, "up to" and "as many as" do a lot of work.
Honey! I shrunk the aircraft carrier! "Ukraine is now using bomber drones launched from unmanned surface vessels (USVs aka drone boats) to attack targets in Crimea."
Poland will increase 155mm ammunition production.
France has stopped pretending to believe Russia isn't behind clandestine cyber and real world attacks. That's the necessary first step.
India will equip its home-grown fighter with Israeli electronics.
Russia's war on NATO: "[Russia's] GRU recruits a large number of operatives while not revealing that Russian intelligence services are paying for it. Anyone who needs some quick cash, including drug addicts and the mentally unstable, are hired. Russia wants to cause chaos[.]" We pretend it isn't a war.
Mass deportations amidst security concerns. But don't worry, it isn't evil.
Huh: "We are getting our first full look at China’s wing-in-ground effect (WIG) craft." Add another means to move grains of sand across the Taiwan Strait.
South Korea cancelled an order for Apache attack helicopters as it wonders if they can survive over a modern battlefield. Excellent question. Can they survive near enough to the battlefield to provide fire support? But even if they can, could other weapon systems provide the capability more inexpensively?
As I've long noted, Russia remains NATO's best recruiter. Nothing can soothe Russian paranoia.
Chinese and Taiwanese corruption. And a nice summary of Chinese military forces.
Despite politically convenient panic, the most recent NATO summit "injected new energy into transatlantic relations. It reinvigorated the alliance, evincing the complete failure of Russia’s plans to dismantle NATO from within." Ditto on NATO support for Ukraine.
This comparison of Germany's "far right" strategy for "seizing power" (i.e., getting elected) to American domestic politics ignores the original sin of the left falsely accusing the right of being literally Nazis. Both here and--I suspect--in Europe, too. I'm offended as a political science and history major.
A border dispute between a long-time U.S. ally and one of China's few friends: "In February, a brief altercation broke out between Thai [and Cambodian] forces after Cambodian personnel and their family members entered an ancient temple along the border and sang the Cambodian national anthem."
Aggressive protests against legal immigrants because they change the character of the country and harm local people. But don't worry, it's surely the opposite of racist. Tip to Instapundit.
If Palestinians are rewarded with a state after their murder and rape invasion of Israel, we will encourage more terrorism. Stop trying to make Hamas the Queen of the Victim Prom. Even Arabs are over them. Any future must be innovately limited or highly supervised.
Is Britain headed for economic catastrophe?
I think last week I mentioned a new military containerized rocket launcher. It's the "Palletized Field Artillery Launcher (PFAL) project that is said to currently belong to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM)."
Seeking small, cheap American drone dominance.
The pattern is China is asshole: "German Surveillance Plane Targeted By Chinese Warship’s Laser In Red Sea Points To Disturbing Pattern[.]"
The EU says the Russians are a threat to European states, wrongly saying it's a threat to the EU when actually it's a threat to NATO. The EU is shameless in exploiting a crisis to increase its power.
The world's pro-Hamas leftists/anti-Semites continue to insist Israeli women were dressed slutty and asking for it. Why feminists aren't the most stalwart anti-Islamists is beyond me. But no, keep cosplaying oppression in your Hand Maiden costumes. Tip to Instapundit.
Russia adapts it tactics to its losses as Ukraine uses small suicide drones to keep killing Russians with neither the training nor equipment to survive long on the front. Unless it is just a case that the Russians suck more than the FPV drones suck.
Russia is the Sick Man of Eurasia that China may pounce on if Russia doesn't pull its head out of its Putin. Preaching to the TDR choir, he is. How Russians sleep at night is beyond me. How Putin avoids falling out a Kremlin window is also beyond me.
Small drone defenses continue to be developed.
Still doesn't seem like a lot: "The U.S. Army’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request includes the acquisition of 233 PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptors, scaling up PAC-3 MSE procurement by a factor of four[.]" Crawl, walk, run, I guess.
In fact, Ukraine is helping America focus on China: "With China dropping any pretense of neutrality in the Russia/Ukraine conflict (note they want it to continue as it keeps us from focusing on them), and Russia not able to close the deal on their own (so to speak), things could get interesting indeed."
The notion that contingency plans for occupying Greenland would be triggered by anything other than China making good its farcical "near-Arctic state" claim either overtly or insidiously is ridiculous. And tossing in American military threats to Canadian islands is just deranged.
America has an opportunity to reduce Russian influence by inserting itself into the Armenia-Azerbaijan territorial dispute? What, the Israel-Palestinian and Russia-Ukraine disputes aren't enough fun?
Via Instapundit, AI gets pretty twisted when the large language model is corrupted with hideous language. I imagine any military AI will be targets of similar corruption with bad data.
Is there a new plan to finally destroy Hamas and end the war?
Preaching to the TDR choir: "Offensive drones have had a brief window of domination. But it was only a matter of time before effective counter-drone capabilities emerged." Seriously.
Forget the crisis of the day, consider the grave and gathering global demographic crisis.
The 25th Infantry Division is practicing territorial defense in the Philippines. Holding that territory would be needed to project Army and Marine units to Taiwan.
Corrupt builders in Kursk installing "dragons teeth" "caused the concrete barriers to crumble and fail if an armored vehicle rammed them. Russian authorities apprehended and prosecuted the contractors." I had hoped the 2023 Surovikin Line would suffer from this.
Hezbollah ordered hundreds of leaders to escape Lebanon and they headed for South America. Not Qatar?America said stop that. Or Iran? That's no sanctuary now. But why South America, you may ask.
The Houthi are back in the Red Sea interdiction mission.
Urging somebody to herd the cats in the Pacific.
This comparison of the situation in Syria to the Iraq War and aftermath is the dumbest thing I've read so far this year. And really, we can only wish history repeats itself in Syria!
Huzzah? "'While our adversaries have produced millions of cheap drones, before us we were mired in bureaucratic red tape,' he said in the video, which he posted from his official X account. 'Not anymore.'" Well, we'll need them even when past their "best before" date.
Sure, the MOPs might not have reached planned depth before detonating. And sure some enriched uranium could be buried. But hopefully everything that survived is buried beyond the ability to reach and restore or salvage. I've always said striking can only buy time.
Air defense: "The U.S. Air Force has transferred upgraded F-16 Fighting Falcons from Japan to South Korea, reinforcing its fighter capabilities on the Korean Peninsula amid ongoing efforts to deter airborne threats." That enables power projection.
Europeans are still working on a "stabilization force" for post-war Ukraine. I think such a token force can only work if Russia pulls its head out of its Putin.
The original FPV suicide drones.
Yes, don't cheapen campaign decorations by recognizing an individual strike as a campaign. If individuals or units deserve citations, there are means to recognize extraordinary effort.
The Navy is working on layered defenses against Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles with missiles, electronic warfare, and anti-satellite weapons. If you follow the kill chain, there are places to break it. One bright side is that China's missiles are expensive and not swarm systems.
Gulp: "The U.S. Navy is no longer able to maintain or repair its ships." I suppose we could make China share that problem.
Europeans are going to be better able to defend Europe within a revitalized NATO now. The EU royalty-in-waiting hardest hit--not Russia, if it tries rubbing a couple of brain cells together.
Huh: "The Islamic Republic of Iran holds significant animosity toward its northern neighbor, Azerbaijan. ... Khamenei is responsible for the intense animosity directed at Azerbaijan[.]" I had wondered if Azerbaijan would help Israel strike Iran.
Georgia goes authoritarian, making resistance to Russia seem kind of pointless: "The government calls it combating hate speech. The reality is that it is criminalizing dissent, one fine at a time." Hey, we tried.
They're back: "Houthi militia from Yemen have sunk the merchant ship Eternity C in the Red Sea, the EU military operation in the region said on Wednesday, the second such incident in four days."
Ukraine's strategic warfare continues and Russia's ground forces get shaky.
Trouble in Mozambique, and jihadis to make it all much worse.
It's a tad early to be unfurling the Mission Unaccomplished banner. Also, 1.5 points of the 5% of GDP NATO defense spending commitment is for related security spending. And Europe needs to spend more than America to catch up a bit to consistent superior American effort.
Will China risk chaos? "Xi has failed to achieve the 'national rejuvenation' and 'common prosperity' goals he set, and his approach to the U.S. has neither intimidated it into submission nor charmed it into cooperation. Economic problems are widespread ... The rise of an opposing faction is a direct response[.]"
While rumors of peace for our time in Gaza swirl around, the necessary work of killing jihadis continues.
Israel's armored robotic bulldozer. It is usefulness despite being unarmed. I think so far robots--or remotely controlled vehicles seem very useful for urban warfare (or point security) but are not ready for the big stage.
North Korea can only dream of being Upper Volta with missiles. If Russia supplies North Korea with nukes, that pretty much signals Russia-North Korea resistance to China's dominance.
I do not understand why I have gotten so many hits from Vietnam over the last four weeks. It's really odd.
