In a recent letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Sen. Josh Hawley argued that the Biden administration’s military aid to Ukraine has compromised more important efforts to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses. As evidence, he pointed to Taiwan’s nearly $19 billion weapons backlog. Hawley is not the first to link military support to Ukraine and Taiwan’s […]
The post The Real Reasons for Taiwan’s Arms Backlog — and How to Help Fill It appeared first on War on the Rocks.
Author: Michael
ODNI.
The highly anticipated report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) released Thursday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is short on new details and doesn’t raise the possibility that any of the sightings examined are otherworldly in nature.
Bundeswehr
Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has publicly come out in favor of approving requests from other countries, such as Poland, to send German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. The terms of the original sales of those tanks give officials in Berlin the authority to block foreign transfers, but they have been under very active political pressure from allies in recent weeks to allow them to proceed.
Habeck’s comments come a day after Polish President Andrzej Duda publicly declared his government’s intention to transfer Leopard 2s to Ukraine.
The Navy’s three-week Digital Horizon event to experiment with and integrate new unmanned and artificial intelligence platforms last month provided the military with “a visible demonstration of the promise and the power of very rapid tech innovation and discovery in fleet operations,” according to Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of 5th Fleet.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Dawson Roth
The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s Task Force 59 began as an idea in a two-page white paper published 17 months ago, The War Zone learned in an interview with Commander Timothy Hawkins, force public affairs officer for U.S. 5th Fleet located in Bahrain. The command recognized the vast and dynamic nature of the Middle East’s maritime environment, and with that, the ways unmanned systems and artificial intelligence-enabled tech could be leveraged to more persistently monitor the tumultuous region.
Some good ol’ American weapons technology designed to be used against Russia may finally live for its intended purpose. With Ukrainian troops expending weapons to take out Russian soldiers at mind-boggling rate, the United States is delving into its old Cold War stockpiles to keep Ukraine’s armed forces fighting with new old Cold War-era weapons.
The idea behind a human wave attack is to overwhelm defenders with sheer volume of numbers, hopefully overrunning their position before they can be wiped out with superior firepower.
On New Year’s Eve, Russia launched its own kind of Blitz over the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Swarms of Iranian-built suicide drones, upgraded by Russian engineers for increased accuracy and lethality, slammed into targets across the city and across the country itself. Civilians sought shelter and information from Telegram channels. Ukrainian troops manned their guns.
But which guns could be capable of downing an unmanned vehicle, just 11 feet long, coming at them from high altitudes at more than 115 miles per hour? Germany had the answer, and donated them to Ukraine’s armed forces.
Call of Duty and other first-person shooters like it have dominated the video game market for the better part of the 21st century. Despite common critiques of recycled gameplay, mindless action and 2-dimensional storytelling, Call of Duty remains one of the most popular video game franchises in the world. However, it can trace its roots back to more humble and well-meaning intentions. In fact, Call of Duty can be traced back to the modern cinematic classic Saving Private Ryan.
Even when it comes to presidents, most people think dogs and cats when they consider pets. Sure, there are birds, rabbits, or even something more exotic, like a lizard. But rarely do we think about raccoons. No matter how rare its existence may have been, that’s the exact pet that Calvin Coolidge had while serving as president.
He and his wife, first lady, Grace Coolidge, kept Rebecca, a raccoon from Mississippi from 1926 through his term, ending in 1929.
However, Rebecca wasn’t intended to be a pet. She was intended to be a meal. Or so political lore would have us believe.
V-J Day in Times Square is perhaps one of the most well-known photos from all of World War II. You’ve likely seen it, even if you haven’t realized you’ve seen it – a portrait where a sailor gives a passionate kiss to a nurse in a white uniform. There are sailors, pedestrians, and tall buildings behind them, as the pair celebrates victory over Japan.
The epic picture was taken on August 14, 1945.
The picture was captured by Alfred Eisenstaedt, who became a famous photographer. (He landed the cover of Life with his pictures an incredible 90 times.