Wars are fought with tanks and guns, but those weapons need ammunition. Without a large stockpile of bullets and other munitions, troops on the frontline will have nothing to fight with. In response to the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, 2023, the Israeli Air Force began a campaign of airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. With the goal of rooting out the terrorist organization, the IDF launched a large-scale ground incursion of Gaza on October 27, 2023.

The Defense Digital Service is launching a longer-lasting bug bounty for white-hat hackers that will also include a “rapid response” capability.
The organization, which is part of the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO), is partnering with Bugcrowd, a crowdsourced security platform, on the vulnerability disclosure effort.
The so-called Continuous Bounty, which kicked off this week, is scheduled to last at least a full year with an option for extension.
“We are beginning with public-facing DDS assets (dds.mil and all associated subdomains, hackthepentagon.mil, and code.

The Department of Defense is gearing up to deliver a minimum viable capability for its warfighting construct known as Combined Joint-All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), with the aim of having it ready by the end of 2023.
An overarching goal for CJADC2 is to connect the various sensors, shooters and data streams of the U.S. armed forces and their international partners, under a more unified network to enable better and faster decision-making.

It was a special moment during the second quarter of the Army-Navy game presented by USAA in Foxborough, Mass, when high school best friends Renee Vozza and Mary Claire Schleck were reunited. Renee went Navy; Claire went Army, but both young women elected to serve their country.
Mary Claire and Renee attended Mount St. Mary Academy in Watchung, New Jersey, where they were fast friends. “The last time I saw Renee was June 25,” Mary Claire said. “It was the day before my R-Day.

The German Armed Forces have contracted Airbus in another order for the versatile, multi-purpose H145M helicopters.

Adam Klein moderated a panel with Jared Abrams, a research associate at Applied Research Laboratories; Ivan Lee, the founder & CEO of Datasaur.ai; Alex Joel, a senior project director and adjunct professor at Washington College of Law, American University; and Ezra Cohen, the former chair of Public Interest Declassification Board and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. The conversation touched on the role of technology in helping to manage classified material and the declassification process, along with how technology has increased the amount of classified material.

The new movie ‘Civil War’ portrays a future United States that has balkanized. (YouTube screenshot).
A new trailer for A24’s film Civil War gives a glimpse of the movie’s bleak prediction of the future, in which the United States has become balkanized by the worst internal conflict since 1865.
Civil War is scheduled to be released in spring, during the middle of what will likely be a contentious presidential election. And as the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot has shown, violence is a real possibility in our hyper-partisan political atmosphere.

Queen Elizabeth
pictured in the South China Sea during its inaugural deployment to the Indo-Pacific region in 2021.
(Royal Navy)
The UK’s planned carrier strike group (CSG) deployment to the Indo-Pacific region in 2025 will include a port call to Japan, UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has announced.

A Japan Air Self-Defense Force aircraft photographed a Chinese Shaanxi Aircraft Industry Group Corporation Y-8G (GX-3) electronic warfare aircraft as it operated with Russian and Chinese strategic bombers over the East China Sea on 14 December 2023. (Japan Ministry of Defense)
Chinese and Russian military forces have conducted their second joint strategic air patrol of 2023 in an effort to improve their air and naval force co-operation.

The army’s new DPET electronic surveillance system consists of four stations, which are transported by Tatra T-815 8×8 vehicles. (Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic/Warrant Officer Jan Králíček)
The Army of the Czech Republic (ACR) has received the first of two new deployable passive electronic surveillance systems following an official handover ceremony to the 532nd Electronic Warfare Battalion on 13 December.

Head’s up, Letter senders! With the Christmas and New Year holidays around the corner, we wanted to inform you of the Holiday base mailroom closures and the shipping deadlines for Sandboxx letters. Below you’ll find the recommended deadlines for each base to ensure that your letter gets to base in time for the holidays.
It’s common for unexpected delays to occur due to staff shortages, higher than normal mailroom volume and other unforeseen complications or errors. It’s important to send your letters sooner rather than later.

Loren Thompson, Forbes
When it comes to innovation, the U.S. economy is a tale of two cities. The biggest U.S.

Carl M. Cannon, RealClearHistory
This is an excerpt from Carl Cannon’s foreword to River City One: A Novel (Simon and Schuster, 2023) by John J. Waters.

John J. Waters, Real Clear Defense
When we met in 2012 on Camp Lejeune, Damon was in his late twenties.

National Defense
The Space Force this fall adopted a new mission statement and released a comprehensive strategy outlining its objectives and how it plans to achieve them as its domain of…

Spending: Congress passes record budget with provisions for 13 Virginia-class Submarines, instruct Navy to investigate 10th Aircraft Carrier.

With the war at a stalemate on the battlefield, 2024 could be a critical year for the Ukraine-Russia war amid Western political uncertainty.

The Hungarian Government and the German land systems manufacturer, Rheinmetall, have agreed to produce the future Panther KF51.

In the technological maelstrom of the early millennium, the Boeing X-32 and the Lockheed Martin X-35 engaged in a fierce air battle for supremacy in the Joint Strike Fighter program.
A duel of titans, where history crowned the Lockheed Martin F-35, relegating the X-32 to the shadows of the “almost happened.” This confrontation, more than just a competition, was a catalyst that pushed the frontiers of F-35 Lightning II design and performance.

AOEW (the pod forward of the door) under test at the NAS Patuxent River anechoic facility. (Terri Thomas)
The US Navy (USN), supported by Lockheed Martin, has completed initial government testing of a new helicopter-borne electronic attack (EA) capability developed under the Advanced Off-board Electronic Warfare (AOEW) programme.

Rosalynn Carter’s passing witnessed an outpouring of tributes to an activist first lady who broke boundaries in the realm of foreign policy. Traditionally, the key role of the president’s wife was to act as White House hostess, though there was nothing wrong with her pursuing her own agenda as long as those initiatives did not cross into the realm of policymaking.  Mrs. Carter crossed that line.

The Bluebottle USV will be operated by the RNZN for seven months. (Tim Fish)
The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) will experiment with a new variant of the Bluebottle unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that will help inform future capabilities of uncrewed systems in the service.
The USV was delivered to RNZN’s Devonport Naval Base on 8 December on HMNZS Aotearoa, which had completed a five-month international deployment with the frigate HMNZS Te Mana.

Since 2008, Congress has annually declared one Saturday in December as National Wreaths Across America Day. On that Saturday, people participate in wreath-laying ceremonies at over 4,000 locations around the world. These live, balsam veterans’ wreaths are placed on the headstones of deceased service members whose names are said aloud to thank them for their service and keep them in the nation’s collective memory. This Saturday, December 16, 2023, you can participate in this honorable effort, too.
Wreaths Across America is open to anyone interested in participating (U.S.

Trigger press can mean the difference between a hit and a miss. In combat, this can mean the difference between life and death. To that end, a good trigger can help to ensure a smooth trigger press with minimal disturbance before a round is fired. However, a military trigger must be strong and heavy enough to ignite the hard primers of MIL-SPEC ammunition in adverse conditions. Striking a balance between these two characteristics is difficult, but one company built a trigger so good that it received approval by Special Operations.

GE Aerospace
GE Aerospace says it successfully demonstrated an advanced jet propulsion concept that involves a dual-mode ramjet design utilizing rotating detonation combustion. This could offer a pathway to the development of new aircraft and missiles capable of flying efficiently at high supersonic and even hypersonic speeds across long distances.
A press release that GE Aerospace put out today offers new details about what it says “is believed to be a world-first hypersonic dual-mode ramjet (DMRJ) rig test with rotating detonation combustion (RDC) in a supersonic flow stream.

The Croatian government is procuring 89 Bradley combat vehicles donated by the US. (Croatian MoD/F Klen)
The first batch of 22 M2A2 Bradley ODS (Operation Desert Storm) infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) for the Croatian Army arrived in the port of Rijeka on 6 December, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced later the same day.
The vehicles will be overhauled by Đuro Đaković Special Vehicles in Slavonski Brod so that they are ready for operational service by 2026.

Insitu
The Boeing Insitu Integrator drone, also known as the RQ-21 Blackjack within the U.S. military, recently demonstrated its ability to drop a pair of small, precision-guided Shryke munitions. The demonstration comes as part of a larger effort to give the relatively small Integrator drone kinetic capabilities, which has taken important strides in recent months.
Insitu announced the successful demonstration, and released video footage of an Intergrator with the registratopm N76NT performing said tests, on December 12. Where and when it took place exactly remains unclear.

Dassault Aviation/G. Gosset
Saudi Arabia is in talks to buy 54 Dassault Rafale multirole fighters, the French company has confirmed. If these negotiations lead to a firm order, that will see Saudi Arabia field a highly impressive multinational fleet of advanced fourth-generation fighters: Rafale, Boeing F-15SA, and Eurofighter Typhoon. It would also represent a serious break for the United Kingdom — represented in the Eurofighter consortium via BAE Systems — from one of its traditional customers.

Soldiers practice the Army Combat Fitness Test, Aug. 21, 2021, at the Milwaukee Army Reserve Center. US Army photo.
Congress has tasked the Army with implementing “increased” fitness standards for soldiers most likely to see combat, but it’s unclear whether different fitness standards will soon apply to men and women.
A measure in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which sets policy and directs funding for the Pentagon, calls for the Army Secretary to implement “increased minimum fitness standards” as part of the Army Combat Fitness Test.

Image by Wikideas1

Reprinted with permission Mises Institute Mihai Macovei
So far, the White House has justified its unwavering support for Ukraine on lofty grounds such as defending democracy and freedom—both in Ukraine and in the West. However, with the American public—who bears the cost of the war in Ukraine—turning against it, several Republican lawmakers questioning its purpose and affordability, and elections approaching, the Biden administration has changed the messaging on the war.

Royal Marines conduct jungle training in Ghana in 2013 (Picture courtesy of the British Ministry of Defense).
An American Marine officer graduated as the stop student from a rigorous 13-week All-Arms Commando Course run by the Royal Marines, according to a news story from Forces, which falls under the British Ministry of Defence.
U.S. Marine Capt. Joseph Z. Brown, an infantry officer, not only earned the right to wear the Royal Marines’ green beret, but his fellow students voted to award him the Commando Medal, the news story says.

Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa (Photo by Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images
Russian drones targeting Ukraine entered NATO airspace over Romania during the night, leading to the scramble of NATO fighters deployed in that country. The Romanian Ministry of Defense has confirmed that at least one of those drones exploded in its territory, although it was not shot down. Meanwhile, Romania has summoned Russia’s envoy over what is the latest in a series of drone violations of its airspace.

The Su-57 Blue emerges as another piece in the pompous parade of Russian military power. Although it claims to be a leviathan of the air, this Sukhoi Su-57 fighter is rather a bold attempt by Moscow to show off its war technology, even though its true effectiveness remains an enigma.

Su-57 Blue: Russia’s new publicity stunt
This aircraft, touted as a triumph of fifth-generation combat engineering, attempts to dazzle with features that, on paper, seem impressive: supercruise capability, state-of-the-art avionics, and a reduced radar signature for stealth operations.

In 2017, Raphael Cohen wrote “Five Lessons from Israel’s Wars in Gaza” for War on the Rocks, in which he looked at how the Israel Defense Forces’ “operations in Gaza provide an example of the challenges that advanced militaries face when confronting determined, adaptive, hybrid adversaries in dense urban terrain,” especially after Operation Protective Edge, in 2014. In light of the current war in Gaza, we asked him to look back on his piece and reflect on those five lessons. Read more below.

Northrop Grumman Corp. is set to rapidly refine and advance the Defense Intelligence Agency’s data collection, processing and analytics assets, and prototype new sensing capabilities via a nine-year contract worth up to $700 million. 
A press release published by the company on Wednesday briefly highlighted this new effort and recent award — dubbed Neptune Phoenix — but beyond that, little has been shared publicly about the work to date.

Marine Sgt. Matthew K. Bylski was killed on Tuesday when an Amphibious Combat Vehicle rolled over at Camp Pendleton, California.
Marine Corps officials have identified the Marine killed on Tuesday’s tactical vehicle rollover as Sgt. Matthew K. Bylski.
Bylski was one of 15 Marines in an Amphibious Combat Vehicle, or ACV, when it rolled over at Camp Pendleton, California, a Marine Corps news release says. One Marine remains hospitalized and is listed in good condition. The other Marines in the vehicle have been treated and released.

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YouTube screencap
For the third time this week, a commercial vessel came under Iranian-backed Houthi missile attack near the Bab al-Mandab Strait Thursday, a U.S. military official told The War Zone. Now that ship’s owner is calling for “political action” to stop these incidents.
“A ballistic missile was fired from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen at the Maersk Gibraltar,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. The missile missed and there was no damage to the ship or crew and no U.S. vessels in the area, said the official.

The maritime capability coalition will support Ukraine’s two newly acquired ex-Royal Navy Sandown-class mine countermeasure vessels,
Chernihiv
 (ex-HMS
Grimsby)
 and
Cherkasy
(ex-HMS
Shoreham
), which were commissioned into service in July 2023.
Cherkasy
is pictured during the flag-raising ceremony, which was held in Glasgow, Scotland.

The H145M LKH will bridge the Tiger in the light attack role, as Germany considers its longer-term replacement options. (Airbus)
Germany has placed the largest ever order for Airbus H145M battlefield support helicopters, with the Bundeswehr contracting the rotorcraft and accompanying weapons systems to partially replace its Airbus Tigers and to support its special forces.

WZ551 armoured vehicles lined up behind a WMA301 self-propelled gun at a range in Inkomo. (Office of the President and Cabinet (Zimbabwe))
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa attended an event on 13 December to receive a consignment of Chinese military equipment that included new armoured vehicles.
“This is a result of the unapparelled strategic partnership that exists between Zimbabwe and China,” Mnangagwa posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account. “I express gratitude to China for their generosity and our ongoing relationship.

Ukrainian officers believe that Russia has a huge advantage when it owns 7 times more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) than its opponent.

“In key areas on the front line, we have to accept the following ratio: for every Ukrainian UAV, there are 5-7 Russian ones,” said Yury Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles company of the 92nd assault brigade. Ukraine, December 12 said.
According to Fedorenko, Russia’s and Ukraine’s tactics are different because of the difference in the number of UAVs. Because they possess fewer UAVs, Ukrainian units must use them more cautiously.

NATO announced an increase in its military budget by 12% in 2024, to 2.03 billion euros, to respond to common security challenges more effectively.

NATO announced on December 13 that members after a meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the bloc’s political decision-making body, agreed on the 2024 civil budget at 431.8 million. euro, the military budget is 2.03 billion euros, an increase of 18.

Public Domain

Faced with the reality that drones are reshaping the modern battlefields in Ukraine and Gaza, the Pentagon has been tasked with finding a budget-friendly solution to eliminate these ‘flying IEDs.’ While missiles are too expensive, and laser beams are a distant dream, the next best cost-effective weapon US military officials are eyeing up could be electromagnetic pulse weapons to counter drone swarms.
According to the System for Award Management (SAM.

US intelligence said nearly half of the 29,000 bombs Israel dropped on Gaza were “unintelligent” and could cause major casualties among civilians.

CNN‘s source on December 14 cited an assessment by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as saying that about 40-45% of the 29,000 bombs that the Israeli army dropped on the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the conflict were of this type. Without guidance equipment, also known as “non-smart bombs.

A new intergovernmental agency, named GIGO, has been set up by Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy to manage the sixth-generation Global Combat Air Programme. (Leonardo)
Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy have signed a treaty to establish a new intergovernmental organisation to advance the joint development of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) sixth-generation combat aircraft.
Japan’s Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara and his Italian and UK counterparts, Guido Crosetto and Grant Shapps, signed the treaty in Tokyo on 14 December.

Robert Ham worked closely with Saifullah and Ismail Haqmal, two Afghan interpreters that helped him and many other Americans during their deployments in Afghanistan. Photos courtesy of Robert Ham.
The fall of Afghanistan back into Taliban control in 2021 left veterans feeling betrayed and helpless as their Afghan allies were hunted down. U.S. Army veteran Robert Ham was one of them. Fortunately, he was able to get the interpreters he worked with on his deployment out of Afghanistan — but not without heartache.
“There’s a lot of people that are fucked up.

Bill Gertz, WashTimes
The 2024 defense authorization bill now in its final stages on Capitol Hill contains a provision that would restrict the Pentagon from spending money on an advertising…

Dylan Malyasov, Defence Blog
Survivability and mission success hinge on how well the F-35 operates in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Politico
The policy bill faces a tougher vote in the House, which could take place as soon as Thursday.

R.