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In any war over Taiwan, American commanders will face a problem that barely existed a decade ago: China can hide lethal military systems inside standard commercial shipping containers. These “containerized” missile launchers are modern renditions of an old U.S. Navy concept first marketed in the Russian Club-K and are now reportedly fielded in Chinese variants. They ride on the decks of merchant ships, blend into global commerce, and give Beijing the ability to forward-deploy precision weapons without visibly deploying a single warship.For U.S. planners, the threat is not hypothetical.

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro by U.S. Army Delta Force operators on January 3 fuelled considerable concerns in Taipei, the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of China government, that it could set a precedent for similar operations by the Chinese mainland to reunify Taiwan Island and end the long frozen Chinese civil war. The issue of the need to condemn U.S.

Former Tier One special operators L Todd Wood and Pete Blaber delve into the Maduro raid with insight you won’t get anywhere else.
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The Japanese Ministry of Defence reported that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy deployed the Type 052C destroyer Changchun to sail between Okinawa Island and Miyako Island, as part of operations under the Justice Mission 2025 exercises which have simulated complex joint combat operations around the Taiwan Strait. The Changchun was accompanied by two Type 054A class frigates and a Vishnya class intelligence gathering ship, while in the air H-6K bombers, two J-16 fighters, two Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft, and two fighters of an unconfirmed second type flew between the two islands.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces units operating under the Eastern Theater Command troops used the ZRY222 tracked unmanned fire support vehicle to provide during exercises. The robots are each controlled remotely from a modified Mengshi off-road vehicle fitted with a control console, and each deploy four guided rockets, a 7.62mm gun, and reconnaissance equipment. First unveiled in September 2025, the semi-autonomous robots weigh approximately 1.

great nations can just do things

If you didn’t get a chance to listen to Sunday’s Midrats Podcast with Mark and me, give it a listen to hear a broader discussion with some additional detail thrown in. Today is going to be a bit different.
We are still just ~72-hours from the events, so there is an order of magnitude more of what we don’t know than we do, but some items are breaking out from the fog.
On yesterday’s podcast, I briefly mentioned a framework for discussion that I think is helpful to flesh out here—an addendum to my comments on the podcast, so to speak.

Commentary from a bystander relates that EW aircraft diverted the seeker head on the ManPad missile. In reality, EW aircraft don’t defend against ManPad seeker heads. The missile was likely diverted by EW infrared devices on the aircraft itself.
A surface-to-air missile is launched from a 9K338 Igla-S man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) against a helicopter of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Night Stalkers) during the attacks on the Fuerte Tiuna military complex, south of Caracas, Venezuela, during the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

Few would argue that the special operations raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was a major tactical success, but in the aftermath of the “Forever Wars” of the 21st Century, veterans are left wondering if the operation marks a clean end to the Maduro regime, or if it is the start of another prolonged conflict.
Task & Purpose reached out to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to gauge their reactions to the operation President Donald Trump announced on Jan. 3.
They included former U.S.

As a member of the Pentagon Press Corps, we have raised this issue with USAF management and look forward to their response on measures taken to address this serious threat.
If I was a domestic airbase commander, or overseas theater commander, this would give me nightmares — an 18-wheeler pulls up a click from an airbase, the top opens, and scores of armed drones fly out, targeting your aircraft lined up on the ramp. Think billions in American force projection capability destroyed in a few minutes…at home, or abroad…irreplaceable.

On Oct. 3, 1993, Army Rangers, crew members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Delta Force operators, and Navy SEALs, along with Air Force pararescuemen and combat controllers, collectively known as “Task Force Ranger,” engaged Somali militia fighters in the Battle of Mogadishu. It was part of Operation Gothic Serpent, the effort to capture warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in response to his attacks on U.N. peacekeepers during the Somali Civil War.