Samuel Beal

Cold War Bundeswehr is BACK

Germany is getting serious about military procurement: 1000 Leopard tanks and 2500 Boxers are on the shopping list. (The Bundeswehr has currently about 300 Leopards)

augengeradeaus.net/2025/07/auf-...

INDOPACOM must be overjoyed knowing the AIM-7s are safe. Not like we burned through a bunch of TLAMs and JASSMs in the Middle East recently..

Sir Keir Starmer is rapidly losing his authority As well as his hope of achieving much in office

“The government has blown its stock of political capital on measures that are often sensible, frequently unpopular, but invariably too small, shallow and slow to make a difference.”

This week’s cover leader on Labour’s unhappy first birthday

economist.com/leaders/2025...

The Economist’s business internship We invite applications for the 2025 Marjorie Deane internship

Would you like to spend six months writing for The Economist’s business desk in London? Apply for the 2025 Marjorie Deane internship by July 31st

Our cover this week

Replacing Watchkeeper: Staying Behind the Curve The British Army needs the ability to find targets in the corps deep, but an exquisite medium altitude long endurance drone is not the answer.

www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

Huge Reaper loses in Yemen: "at least 15 US MQ-9 Reaper drones have been shot down over Yemen since late 2023, a toll that spiked after the Trump administration’s renewed air campaign on 15 March 2025. Losses, according to the Houthis, could be as high as 22 airframes"

An F/A-18E fighter jet and tow tractor fell overboard the USS Harry Truman today and has sunk in the Red Sea...per the Navy:

My two takeaways:
- The Trump administration has a pretty permissive view of using force against non-state adversaries
- Jihadists still pose a threat in havens old and new

Trump’s red-hot war on terror The number of strikes against jihadists is rising. Is it 2001 all over again?

For as long as I've been alive, America has been fighting the war on terror. Trump promised he'd end the "forever wars". Yet since taking office, he's ramped-up air strikes across the Middle East and Somalia. In this week's Economist I look into why

www.economist.com/internationa...

By the numbers: US deployment of B-2 bombers as tensions ramp up with Houthis and Iran Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press show the deployment of at least six nuclear-capable B-2 Spirit bombers to Camp Thunder Bay on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

INDOPACOM in shambles right now

ttps://apnews.com/article/b2-bombers-us-yemen-houthis-iran-israel-hamas-war-487247ed0d6c8743b21d18740b649d1c

GEORGE LUCAS IN 1999: it's going to start with military action to force open a blockade, and then end up with a complete collapse and rewriting of the entire galactic order

ME IN 2025: okay I see it now

The Triumph of the Operator GWOT, Signalgate, and the Cult of the Operator making National Security Policy

An extensive air campaign in Yemen, air strikes in Iraq and Somalia, and U.S. troops still deployed to Syria despite an end to the civil war. Why has an administration that is made up of so many figures critical of “forever war” continuing “forever war” unabated? I have a theory.

I'm still not clear who is going to take up this €150bn in EU SAFE money announced today. It seems like a lot of work for a scheme that I don't see getting a lot of take-up. I would NOT assume it will result in much higher defence spending in Europe. My sceptical thread - do point out if I'm wrong 🧵

I think this book could probably be reduced to one sentence.

How Labour learned to love rearmament Come, friendly bombs

Will rearmament create a legion of manufacturing jobs in left-behind towns? The economics is uncertain; the politics essential.

How Labour learned to love rearmament
economist.com/britain/2025...

US cuts off intel to Kyiv, hindering its long-range strikes, to build "confidence" (see Walz below).

Meanwhile: "Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 181 strike drones and three missiles ... in the latest attack." abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

US pressure on Moscow? Zilch.

DoD terminating CIVCAS mitigation.

Terrible decision by SecDef.

Our cover story this week: reforming the Pentagon. www.economist.com/briefing/202...

Learned a good bit from this interesting note by my colleague Corbin Duncan on translation issues in diplomacy between America and China: www.economist.com/china/2025/0....

Allows some in mil to minimize their shortcomings in the GWOT via a stabbed in the back narrative of, “we would have won if we didn’t have this restrictive ROE….if the politicians would have turned us loose.” It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of mil force to achieve pol objectives.

We wrote about this in the summer. There's a view among some in the US military that it currently suffers from a COIN "hangover" with restrictive ROEs.

Could America fight its enemies without breaking the law?
www.economist.com/internationa...
From The Economist

One of my Economist articles being roasted on r/neoliberal was truly my highlight of 2024

Syria’s acting finance minister pushes plan to revive war-torn economy Riad Abd El Raouf, who served in former regime, says rebels to reopen border crossing and review Russia and Iran deals

www.ft.com/content/f4cb...

Ready for jihadist neoliberalism

Exploring the new world in Santo Domingo

Some exciting news from @economist.com. All American service members—all 1.3m active duty, and those retired—now have free access to The Economist's website, thanks to a deal with DoD. If I'm not mistaken, you can access it through DoD's library pages: www.dodmwrlibraries.org. Happy reading.

This is a pretty big development if true. For those interested, I wrote about the deepening military cooperation among autocracies a couple of months ago.

A new “quartet of chaos” threatens America
www.economist.com/internationa...
From The Economist