US Military Becoming Huge Child Care Enterprise as Biden Pushes Allies Toward China

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – American Liberty News (ALN) – in collaboration with respected national security expert Paul Crespo and the Center for American Defense Studies (CADS) – provides our readers the PDB:

Not the President's Daily Brief, but almost as good – PAUL'S DAILY BRIEFING.

Get Your Best Daily Defense and Foreign Affairs Intelligence Here in One Brief. Read the summaries or dive deeper via the linked articles.

PENTAGON WOKE WATCH

US MILITARY TURNING INTO MASSIVE CHILD CARE ENTERPRISE – Congress approves construction of 14 more military child care centers. Responding to the clarion call for more child care availability across the services, lawmakers have authorized construction of 14 more military child development centers — in addition to the two that were requested by the military services.

YOU DON'T GO TO MILITARY ACADEMY AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE TO GO PRO RIGHT AFTER! – Lawmakers rush to find an opening for Army star blocked from NFL. Lawmakers are scrambling to tweak rules regarding whether military academy athletes are eligible to play professional sports after graduation following an outcry from legislation which may block an Army football star from a potential multi-million-dollar career in the National Football League.

AND PHYSICAL ABILITY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT – Discrimination, sex assault are among barriers that prevent more women from serving in special ops forces, watchdog study says. There are several possible reasons why less than 10% of the military's special operations forces are women – including discrimination, sexual assault and conflicting military policies, a government watchdog concluded in a study released this week.

SERIOUSLY?! – It's time for another Truman moment in the military … with beards. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, mandating the end of racial segregation in the armed forces.

A compromise on the military covid vaccine mandate. Many readers vehemently disagreed with my recent column in favor of ending the coronavirus vaccine mandate for the military. As they argue, there is a key difference between the military and everyone else: Force readiness is a matter of national security, and even a small reduction in infection or severe disease is worth a mandate.

POLITICS

MAYBE IT'S ABOUT BEING INAPPROPRIATELY HYPER-PARTISAN – NOT FREE SPEECH – A retirement check from the armed services is not a muzzle. As a retired general officer who, from time to time, has publicly expressed my opinions about political issues and candidates, I read with great interest Dov S. Zakheim's recent op-ed opposing political activities by retired flag and general officers. His thesis is that because political polls have shown that many Americans have lost confidence in the military, the first step toward restoring it should be to prohibit retired generals and admirals from engaging in political speech. I feel obliged to offer a contrary view.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Is Elon Musk the man to fix the Pentagon? He should take his bureaucracy-smashing act where it's most needed.

BIDEN PUSHING SOME ALLIES TO CHINA – The Saudi-China deal tells us what autocracies want from each other. Biden's blunt democracy-vs.-autocracy rhetoric may be pushing U.S. security partners toward Beijing.

Why Congress can't stop the CIA from working with forces that commit abuses. The Leahy Law prohibits the U.S. military from providing training and equipment to foreign security forces that commit human rights abuses, but it does not apply to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Pentagon has received ‘several hundreds' of new UFO reports. A new Pentagon office set up to track reports of unidentified flying objects has received “several hundreds” of new reports, but no evidence so far of alien life, the agency's leadership told reporters Friday.

Military spending surges, creating new boom for arms makers. The combination of the war in Ukraine and concern about longer-term threats from Russia and China is driving a bipartisan push to increase U.S. capacity to produce weapons.

HOMELAND SECURITY

Jurors can't agree if reservist charged in Jan. 6 riot had illegal silencers. U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff declared a mistrial in the case of Hatchet M. Speed.

Lengthy prison terms for Marine vet, 2 others in Whitmer kidnap plot. A judge on Thursday handed down the longest prison terms so far in the plot to kidnap Michigan's governor.

CHINA THREAT

‘Breakthrough' Japan strategy eyes China threat, drives huge defense changes. Faced with an increasingly militant and militarily capable China, Japan has made the decision to effectively double its defense spending, deploy an aircraft carrier for the first time since World War II, buy hundreds of long-range cruise missiles and field other weapons that seem to mark a fundamental transition from a strictly defensive military to one that can effectively deter and defeat threats.

Worried about China's air force? Here's everything you need to know. What exactly are senior leaders afraid of, particularly regarding the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)?

RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR

Russian shelling targets heart of city of Kherson. Russian military forces have shelled the center of Kherson, the major city in Ukraine that Russian soldiers retreated from last month.

UK's PM Sunak to announce $304m in new military aid for Ukraine. Sunak's office says the new package will include ‘hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition' for use against Russia.

New EU sanctions target Russian military-industrial complex. The European Union said Friday its latest round of sanctions will hit Russia's military-industrial complex, as well as people and groups that are attacking Ukrainian civilians or kidnapping children.

Patriot missile system not a panacea for Ukraine, experts warn. The US government appears to be finalizing plans to deliver the Raytheon-made Patriot surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine, with multiple outlets reporting that the Biden administration could announce its intent by the end of the week to transfer a single battery from US stocks.

Front-line video makes combat in Ukraine some of history's most watched. User-generated content has been essential to coverage of the war in Ukraine since it began in February.

White House leans on Congress, rallies allies, to aid Ukraine through winter of war. Republicans threaten to trim funding, but will they prevail?

NORTH KOREA THREAT

North Korea fires 2 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Japan. North Korea fired a pair of ballistic missiles on Sunday toward its eastern waters, its first weapons test in a month.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY – NATO, MIDDLE EAST, ASIA, AFRICA

Lithuania signs $495 million deal to buy HIMARS, ATACMs. Lithuania and the U.S. government have finalized a $495 million deal for as many as eight M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, the Lithuanian government announced Friday.

Israel eyeing kinetic, non-kinetic options to disrupt Iran-Syria cargo flights. Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli senior expert on Iranian and Middle Eastern issues, told Breaking Defense that the new relations between Iran and Russia has encouraged Tehran to restart the cargo flights from Iran to Syria. “They feel good with their new friend and that explains their recent moves,” he said.

SPACE

The US military just sent its first biological experiment to space. On December 11, the Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific, ending the historic Artemis I 25-day trip around the moon and back.

SES launches advanced broadband satellites as military demand grows. Satellite communications firm SES on Friday launched two Boeing-built broadband satellites meant to deliver advanced communications to government and commercial customers.

US MILITARY

Have US soldiers forgotten how to use a map and compass? About seven months after the Army reintroduced land navigation to its Basic Leader Course, or BLC, half of the soldiers in that pilot program have failed the training.

Green Berets are testing a new highly mobile 120mm mortar system. An Army Special Forces group is working on testing and fielding a brand new 120mm mortar system platform for U.S. special operations forces around the world, officials announced on Thursday.

Drones critical to US info-warfare playbook, Air Force's Kennedy says. The three-star general spearheading the U.S. Air Force's information warfare efforts foresees a sustained future for drones in the military, as nations monitor, analyze and attempt to outfox each other from greater and greater distances.

Air Force vice chief: B-21 not just a bomber, will mesh with JADC2, NGAD. The many capabilities embodied by the Air Force's next-generation B-21 Raider extend beyond conventional measures of range, payload and radar-penetrating stealth—they also include “other things that it can be a part of that could help leverage the agility and the speed that we need to stay ahead of the adversary,” Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said.

END of PDB

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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