Number of US car­ri­ers going down, down, down
Saddam’s miss­ing Air Force found in Serbia (and here I thought we had shot it all down)
Hey so everyone’s upgrad­ing their nuclear arse­nals but us…
On my radar: FPRI’s Webcast on Afghan Police Reform
”…the enemy is not hid­ing, but they are in trenches, bunkers and fight­ing posi­tions that extend into depth. The enemy owns the ter­rain.“
Cool: Carrier arrest­ing gear gets a workover

Video: Beats Wikipedia. Found this video while doing a search on the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, the largest fight in Africa next to El Alamein. Much of it is stock footage (and some embarass­ing Top Gun T-​​38/​MiG shots) and it’s openly biased in favor of the SADF, but points for inno­va­tion and fig­ur­ing out a way to work Manowar into an online his­tory les­son. Exit ques­tion: who do you root for? Commies or apartheid South Africa?
–John Noonan

The needs of one (back­story)
For Christian: “Roll-​​over proof” mil­i­tary vehi­cle trag­i­cally not jour­nal­ist proof
My new favorite mil­i­tary char­ity
Tactics or strat­egy?
5 GI-​​Joe vehi­cles that are pretty stu­pid (I’m embarassed to say I both owned the weapons trans­port and thought it was cool)

Awesome: Tac air­lift fail(s)
–John Noonan

Awesome: Angelina Jolie and Brad Cooper jolt morale at WRAMC (but mostly Angelina Jolie)
Mike Yon gets dirty with 2Rifles, British Light Infantry (absolute must read)
How we’ll win in Afghanistan
“Six launch fail­ures is not career enhanc­ing.…“
Stick a fork in the ASDS, it’s done

One of the tow­er­ing (and oddly chill­ing) scenes in movie his­tory: Col Kilgore’s Ride of the Valkeries

Who knew? Powerpoint some­what lack­ing as a mil­i­tary deci­sion tool
Nifty slideshow of the “Wolfpack” in Nineveh
Flexibility is the key to chaos
Inside the USMC’s mulepack­ing course
Good ques­tion: Where’s the Afghan National Army?

Badass: Automatic, fully sta­bi­lized 25mm can­non in test­ing. H/​T: Neptunus Lex (which you should be read­ing every day)

Good ques­tion, great answer: Why cant the reg­u­lar U.S. mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tions do any­thing?
US arms obso­lete, forces stretched thin, strate­gies out­dated
Marines learn to think like Airmen, who learn to think like Marines
Army “Jedi Knight” crit­i­cally wounded in our “safest infantry vehi­cle,” dri­ver falls.
Kiss intel­li­gence good­bye

Band of the leg­endary Coldstream Guards plays Soldiers of the Queen, Men of Harlech, Corps of Drums, Thriller?(edit, too big)… Star Wars’ Imperial March
–John Noonan

Frankly, to be blunt about it, the notion that not buy­ing 60 more F-​​22s imper­ils the national secu­rity of the United States, I find com­pletely non­sense“
China’s being a bit gen­er­ous with the term “ter­ri­to­r­ial waters“
Every time North Korea shoots a mis­sile, Japan turns a lit­tle more samu­rai
…and maybe the Norks actu­ally want to be bombed any­way.
The folks who make Purell Hand Sanitizer likely sur­prised to find prod­uct makes for great rocket fuel.

Video: PLA Navy start­ing to make blog­ger a lit­tle ner­vous (with obvi­ous ChiCom pro­pa­ganda tag)
–John Noonan

COIN: Is Air Control the answer? (says me: no.)
Amazing photo of the day: Peacekeepers and Warfighters
5 ways to defend a super­car­rier (with all five being awe­some)
Call me Senator, dammit.
Raytheon C-​​RAM fail
Malaysia has Q-​​ships?

Video: DUCK!!!
–John Noonan

A war by any other name is still a war
COIN or CT in the ‘stan?
Surprise! China’s defense expen­di­tures soar­ing
Whodunit? America or Israel?

White resigns (sigh)

The freaky-​​deaky yet sur­pris­ingly awe­some Japanese trailer for Cat Shit One
–John Noonan

Iran still deter­mined to catch an ass whup­ping
SECDEF harshes my mell
“Guess what? Dragonskin doesn’t work.“

Phrogs Phinal Phlight
Badassery of the day includes the line “using only his bay­o­net…“

Vid: Goosebumpy USAF ad
–John Noonan

NATO fleet deploys to either fight pirates or sack Troy
Sometimes I wish they’d they’d let Marines name ships instead of just task forces
Iranian RC clubs make for great tar­get prac­tice
Article on “shadow fight­ers” just as awe­some as it sounds
“Lafayette, we are here back“

Urban leg­end — but still damn funny
–John Noonan