Having a cat named 'Devil' in 1930, probably not comfortable for many people.

Drone-killing costs must come down, says Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer
By Colin Demarest
 Thursday, Apr 25
 
The price tag for weapons and munitions used to destroy drones must come down, as the costs are “getting too expensive” and uncrewed systems are expected to saturate battlefields, according to the Pentagon’s acquisition boss.

U.S. troops have for years batted down attack and reconnaissance drones, often by using pricey ordnance. Ongoing intercepts of drones launched by the Yemen-based Houthi militant group in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are reliant on multimillion-dollar missiles, among other arms.


Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said April 24 during a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington that “cost curve matters” in counter-drone operations.

The goal is to get the cost down to approximately tens of thousands of dollars per round, he added, noting a price exceeding $100,000 a shot is “getting too expensive.”

https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/uas/2024/04/25/drone-killing-costs-must-come-down-says-pentagons-chief-weapons-buyer/

April 25, 2024  T
NATO’s Real Problem is Europe, Not The U.S.
American power is overstretched, and the future of NATO and Europe itself depends on the continent’s ability to adapt.

by Ramon Marks

Following the organization’s seventy-fifth anniversary, the conventional wisdom about NATO is that it is threatened by growing U.S. “isolationism.” Critics say that former President Trump could withdraw the United States from NATO if he is reelected. Controversy in Congress delayed supplying $60 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine. Trump has said that “he would encourage” the Russians “to do whatever the hell they want” to allies that fail to meet the 2 percent of GDP defense spending pledge. Some even express worry that the United States might withdraw its nuclear umbrella over Europe.
 
Overlooked in all this is that the attitudes of European allies about NATO and U.S. protection have always been variable. Just three years after NATO’s founding in 1949, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Germany entered into a separate European Defense Community Treaty. The initiative reflected the vision of Jean Monnet, who dreamed of establishing a supranational organization for European defense. The idea of an integrated European military, led by a European defense minister, died in 1954 when the French parliament refused even to consider the concept—a harbinger of Gaullism and French skepticism about surrendering any defense responsibilities to a supranational organization, whether an Atlanticist or European grouping.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/nato%E2%80%99s-real-problem-europe-not-us-210755

 
Why the West will refuse to fight Citizens won't sacrifice themselves

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
AMERICAMILITARYUKRAINEUSWAR
 
 
Malcom Kyeyune
APRIL 25, 2024   5 MINS
Western politics is defined by a conflict that is always awkward and sometimes cringe. On the one hand, our leaders are full of loud-mouthed passion, warning that the days of peace are over and that we now need to prepare for total, generational war. On the other, it’s beyond obvious that nobody cares. Across Europe and America, politicians now openly exhort their populations to feel righteous patriotism and to answer the call of duty, but all seem to accomplish exactly nothing: our militaries are shrinking due to a lack of recruits, polling shows a massive disinterest in fighting for King and Country, the young in particular remain completely unmoved. Even in embattled Ukraine, young men are choosing to dodge the draft and go clubbing instead.

How did this state of affairs come to pass? Most “analysis” starts and ends with a bit of hand-wringing about the moral decay of the youth. But this doesn’t explain much. There were countless complaints about the sad state of young people in the late 19th century — but that didn’t translate into a society-wide lack of patriotism and disinterest in defending one’s country.

More useful, perhaps, is the model supplied by British historian Arnold Toynbee, whose life’s work mapped the lifecycle of human empires. In particular, one concept is of interest here: the idea of the internal proletariat, a group of people who tend to grow in number as empires begin to stagnate and decline.

https://unherd.com/2024/04/why-the-west-will-refuse-to-fight/