The Air Base Defense Kit Will Be Centrally Located at ... An Air Base

Optimist that I am, at least we are aware that the Continental United States (CONUS) is no sanctuary.

The Air Force is vulnerable at home now. I'm glad the military is reacting to that reality, but an enemy can inflict a lot of damage in under 24 hours: 

The U.S. military will soon have teams that can respond within 24 hours to drone incursions at homeland installations. The head of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), Gen. Gregory Guillot, announced the new effort Thursday during the Falcon Peak 25.2 counter-drone evaluation taking place at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. That’s where the equipment, called a “fly-away kit,” was demonstrated. You can read more about what’s in these kits later in our story.

Let me state the obvious--that the military admits--that those fly-away kits won't be flying into air bases under attack. Leaving the choice of either being too late, being ambushed while landing at the air base being rescued, or counting on having at least 25 hours of advanced intelligence warning for the first attack.

Well, 25 hours plus the time to set up the systems:

The kit “includes a suite of sensors, effectors, and software optimized for expeditionary employment and the homeland defense mission. Key products in the kit include the Mobile Sentry for autonomous threat detection, tracking, and identification, Wisp SkyFence for wide-area IR passive detection and tracking, Pulsar for radio-frequency detection and electromagnetic effects, and Anvil for kinetic defeat. The kit also includes integrated power, networking, and edge compute. Designed for ease of deployment and operation by soldiers and airmen, the Fly-Away Kit delivers end-to-end kill-chain capability backed by the Lattice operating system.” 

And let's hope that the first target of an enemy isn't Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado where the first fly-away drone defense kit will be kept. 

Still, I suppose this could be a step to protecting all of the bases without relying on a mobile reaction force. And maybe start with sufficient alert guards and aircraft shelters before moving on to the more trendy exotic defenses.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do! 

NOTE: Photo from the article.

Can Marines Project Power Ashore?

Not going to lie. The Department of Defense War is just humiliating the Marine Corps these days. 

Huh:

Amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) concluded joint aviation training with the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, boosting interoperability and readiness in the Indo-Pacific region. On Sept. 7 and 11, 2025, off the coast of Pearl Harbor, America served as a floating airfield for rotary-wing aircraft from the Army’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) and Marine Corps’ Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 268.  

The Marines complain that there are not enough amphibious warfare ships. But the Army is training to use them? This is different than the 1990s thinking that included an intervention in Haiti using Army ground troops on a carrier. Although I only think such dual-purpose super carriers are necessary if the Navy downgrades super carriers in sea control distributed maritime operations.

But I digress. 

Radical Marine Force Design changes have rejected a Marine Corps capable of defeating lethal enemy ground forces.

Apparently the Marines are stuck in that awkward gap between being assault infantry and effective anti-ship forces. 

Maybe the new light Army Mobile Brigades could be assault troops from the sea given I have no confidence they can succeed in high-intensity conventional combat operations. While no heavier than Marines, at least the Army has tanks and tube artillery if the Mobile Brigades need them. 

This training was just for the 25th Infantry Division's helicopters. How long before the division's ground troops are included? 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do! 

NOTE: U.S. Navy photo by MCSN Nicholas Douglass in the linked article. 

War on Terror 2.0?

There have been calls for some time to revoke authorizations to use force against Iraq. Something must allow America to "mow the grass" to keep the jihadi threat down--and far away.

Interesting:

Once again, lawmakers are trying to claw back their responsibility under the Constitution to declare war. On Wednesday, the House passed legislation that would repeal two authorizations for use of military force from 1991 and 2002 passed prior to the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars.

I'm fine with that. As long as we retain the ability to fight the threat to Iraq from Iran. 

Further, the broader low-level war against jihadis still has authorization because (back to the first article):

shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress gave the president sweeping authority to prevent future acts of terrorism. President Obama later used that authorization as the legal justification for airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. 

And I wouldn't mind updating that to clearly put the evolved eco-system of jihadi terrorists within the law. And perhaps narco-gangs, too, given the death toll they inflict without epic-scale attacks.

The low-level domestic terrorism (that does not match the 1970s violence) America is enduring now is of course a law enforcement problem. Tip to Instapundit.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do! 

NOTE: Photo from USA Today.