Tom Meyer

NEW | The CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative released an update on China Coast Guard patrols and found that Chinese presence near Taiwan's Pratas Island has significantly increased since 2021. Read: amti.csis.org/patrolling-pra…

An Ecuadorian Dassault Mirage F1 sporting a fabulous offensive counter-air loadout. A mix of AAMs and Durandal anti-runway bombs means this jet is going in ready for a fight and coming out the same way - ready for every eventuality.

La Guardia airport collision from past week - Reuters reported today that controller staffing might have violated procedures According to this source, "Local air and ground roles at LaGuardia are not supposed to be combined before midnight". This was dictated by a rule set in place after a 1997 collision (now to see what is the worst - that they never revised a rule nearly 30 years old, or the fact that they weren´t enforcing something established for such a long time) Reuters also wrote the NTSB is "investigating which of the controllers in the tower was handling ground role" More info on the link below

Italy built two smaller carriers than the UK (and so had the funds to buy the destroyers, frigates, logistic support ships, F-35Bs, etc for two carrier strike groups)... and now Italy announced that it will build a third carrier. It is now: Rule, Italia! Italia rule the waves.

BREAKING : All the anti-aircraft cannons located at the top of government buildings in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, were targeted and destroyed by the Israeli Air Force using Delilah cruise missiles today. #OperationEpicFury #OperationLionsRoar

BREAKING: Israeli and U.S. airstrikes targeted the Mobarakeh Steel Complex in Isfahan late tonight, with a massive wave of explosions reported between 23:08 and 23:20 local time (March 31). According to incoming reports, at least 20–30 explosions were heard in rapid succession, with some describing over 28 impacts, many of them assessed as bunker-buster type detonations due to their deep shockwaves. Residents reported continuous blasts for several minutes, with buildings shaking across Mobarakeh and surrounding areas, and flashes of explosions visible from rooftops. In some cases, the intensity was such that shockwaves were reportedly felt as far as Shahreza. The scale and concentration of the strikes suggest a deliberate effort to destroy the Mobarakeh Steel Complex, one of Iran’s largest industrial facilities, with multiple repeated strike passes over the same target area. #OperationEpicFury #OperationLionsRoar

The U.S. is falling way behind in uncrewed aerial logistics. I can't count how many of these China has in development now.

Absolutely stunning shot! facebook.com/share/p/14dszG…

Cela reviendrait à souligner que l’augmentation de la salve (16 silos portés à 32) ne serait par l’argument-maître devant justifier les F-116 et F-117, soit les sixième et septième unités de la classe Bonifaz. 👇

Stainless Steel Starship

Reported footage of an Iranian ballistic missile just missing a bunker housing American troops in the Gulf region.

“If you had a time machine,” I ask the senior Israeli minister, “and you knew a month ago that this is what would happen, would you still vote in favor of war?” “First of all, yes,” he replies. “You have to understand, this was a cold and calculated gamble. The Iranians were planning to move their entire nuclear and missile industry underground, in a way that would have made it nearly impenetrable. In any case, we would have attacked this year—but with the Americans by our side, there was no dilemma.” “The main achievements of the war are the severe damage to ballistic missiles and their production. This time, after hitting the entire production chain, it will be much harder for them to recover.” “It’s also worth remembering,” the official added, “that for years, the nightmare scenario in Israel was a multi-front war with hundreds of casualties on the home front. Last year, in ‘Rising Lion,’ in 12 days of war against Iran alone, there were 30 fatalities. Now, in a war with three times as many fronts and three times as many enemies, there are 20. What is that if not proof that ‘Rising Lion’ was not in vain—and neither was ‘Roaring Lion’?” The mission to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles was a game changer, but not in the way Israel expected. Last Friday afternoon, Israel struck a critical part of Iran’s ballistic missile industry—its two largest steel production plants—but to their surprise, found the strike affected far more than their military. Steel facilities sit in a gray area, somewhere between military targets—like missile factories or nuclear sites—and civilian targets, such as water desalination facilities. The Iranian industry is even grayer; there is no part of the economy that the regime has not penetrated. One of the factories was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, described as a critical source of funding for the Basij militia. Yet its targeting by Israel was to stop it from producing the metals used in ballistic missiles, not its cashflow. Iran is the largest steel producer in the Middle East and ranks among the top 10 globally. Those two factories alone account for billions of dollars in revenue and about three percent of Iranian GDP. The impact on the economy was a side effect Israel accepted. It now seems that the side effect may have been more powerful than the primary one. According to IDF intelligence, the regime’s political leadership now believes there is no way to repair the war damage; Iran simply lacks sufficient funds. It reportedly has broken the spirit of many in the regime. The assessment is that, given a prolonged economic recovery after the war that will inevitably consume the vast majority of state budgets, massive protests will erupt. It appears that Trump is reading the same intelligence, which may explain why the threats in his ultimatums have shifted from military targets to the gray area of civilian/military infrastructure, specifically Iran’s energy and oil facilities. Still, as the minister told me regarding regime change at the outset of the war, “there were more optimistic and less optimistic assessments, but no one could guarantee that while bombs were falling on Tehran, the masses would take to the streets. There is no doubt that the war has brought the regime closer to its end—but I cannot tell you whether that will happen before Trump finishes his term, or before Netanyahu finishes his.” To read the rest of today's newsletter click the link below. open.substack.com/pub/amitsegal/…

ICYMI, part one of my two-part chapter on Operation Rising Lion's air offensive. The first part includes a non-exhaustive chronology of the offensive, a look at strikes on Iranian nuclear-related sites, and a select overview of IAF fighters and weapons. fpri.org/article/2026/0…

"War is a contest of will. Striking a center of gravity is not about destruction alone. It is about compelling the enemy to do your will through the use, or threat of use, of force, including military action, sanctions, and the removal of critical capabilities the regime sees as vital to its survival."

China supplies the magnets inside the Arrow interceptor that defends Tel Aviv. China supplies the BeiDou satellite navigation inside the Fattah-2 missile that attacks Tel Aviv. The same country made the sword and the shield. And today, that country is hosting the diplomat who wants to broker peace between the people swinging the sword and the people holding the shield. This is not an abstraction. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute confirmed two weeks ago that US interceptor missiles, including Patriot, THAAD, Arrow, and David’s Sling, depend on Chinese-processed rare earth elements for the neodymium and samarium-cobalt magnets that steer their guidance systems, power their actuators, and control their seekers. China controls 90 percent of the global rare earth supply chain. The United States is 100 percent net-import reliant for finished rare earth magnets. West Point’s Modern War Institute called this “a shot across the bow of the US defense industrial base.” There is no substitute. There is no stockpile. There is no domestic capacity that can scale in less than a decade. Now hold that dependency in one hand. In the other, hold the verified fact that Iranian missiles, including the Fattah-2 hypersonic, the Kheibar Shekan, the Emad, and every Shahed drone in the current barrage, navigate using China’s BeiDou-3 encrypted military satellite signals, are fuelled by Chinese ammonium perchlorate propellant, contain Chinese sensors, semiconductors, and voltage converters, and are aimed using imagery from Russia’s Khayyam satellite and China’s Jilin-1 constellation. The Arrow interceptor that Israel fires to protect Haifa contains Chinese magnets. The Fattah-2 that Iran fires to destroy Haifa contains Chinese navigation. Both weapons are manufactured using Chinese supply chains. Both are being depleted simultaneously. And the faster they are depleted, the more leverage China accumulates, because China is the only country that can resupply both sides and the only country that can cut off both sides. RUSI reports that Israel has expended 122 of 150 Arrow 2/3 interceptors and 135 of 250 David’s Sling missiles. Each interceptor that is fired and cannot be replaced because China controls the magnet supply chain represents a permanent reduction in Israeli defensive capability. Each Iranian missile that is fired and cannot be replaced because Israeli strikes have hit the factories represents a permanent reduction in Iranian offensive capability. Both arsenals are shrinking toward zero. The country that manufactured the components inside both arsenals is the country hosting peace talks in Beijing right now. This is not irony. This is architecture. China positioned itself as the indispensable supplier to every party in this conflict before the first missile was fired. It sells rare earths to the US defence industrial base. It sells navigation data and propellant precursors to the IRGC. It buys 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports. It holds the rare earth leverage that Bessent needs released to build more interceptors. And today, it is sitting across the table from Pakistan’s foreign minister discussing whether to become the guarantor of a peace deal that would resolve the war its supply chains are sustaining on both sides. The war will end when the weapons run out or when the supplier decides it should. Both paths lead to Beijing. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

An open source website on the Chinese Communist Party elite, with data visualizations. Every Central Committee (4,324), Politburo (168), and PBSC member from 1945–Present. All data available for download, as promised. Link and some standout charts below🧵

This morning, Secretary Hegseth disclosed that he visited troops in the Middle East on Saturday. Appears that no media was present to capture the story of rank-and-file service members. Also appears that the Pentagon did not disclose that trip in any way for a couple of days after it was complete.

US Air Force EA-37B Compass Call seen in the UK today on its way to the type's first ever combat deployment. Two EA-37Bs arrived and will support Operation EPIC FURY. The EA-37B is an electronic warfare platform whose full capabilities are classified.

Things you don't see everyday. U.S. Ohio class SSGN with a special forces Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) on the surface performing a crew transfer off Gibralter in daylight. The DDS allows SEAL teams to launch and recover while underwater. Talk about a flex

中国现役最强和日本未来大驱对比