A cancellation notice, published by Madrid’s procurement agency last week, does not provide an explanation for the move, but it sits in line with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to accelerate approval of a Royal Decree Law, consolidating an existing arms embargo against Jerusalem. The move is one of nine actions the Spanish government said it plans to take to help “stop the genocide in Gaza, pursue its perpetrators, and support the Palestinian population.” Once adopted, the Decree will establish “a legal and permanent ban on the purchase and sale of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment” to Israel, Spain’s central government announced last week. The AFP previously reported the cancelation of the SILAM deal.

The Spanish Ministry of Defense referred Breaking Defense to “recent comments” on the matter and other cancelled weapon buys of Israeli origin from Spanish Minister of Defense Margarita Robles. “We have made it very clear that this technological material, which was being supplied to Spain by Israeli companies, will be replaced by Spanish industry,” she said. “Additional measures” announced last week by Madrid in response to the Gaza conflict include a ban on any aircraft transiting Spanish airspace to transport defense equipment to Israel. Similarly, ships carrying fuel to the Israeli armed forces are prohibited from entering Spanish ports.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in response, accused Sánchez of antisemitism and barred two senior Spanish officials from entering Israel.

The SILAM contract was originally awarded in 2023 to a joint venture between Spanish companies Escribano Mechanical & Engineering and Rheinmetall Expal Munitions, a subsidiary of the German giant. According to the Spanish Ministry of Defense (MoD), Expal, Escribano and Spanish technology firm GMV, displayed the SILAM solution at the FEINDEF trade show in 2023, alongside Elbit, prior to contract award. The weapon system was put forward for acquisition in order to address an “absence of artillery capability that arose a decade ago when the [Spanish Army’s] Teruel system was decommissioned,” noted the MoD at the time [PDF]. Elbit Systems company literature states that PULS “can fire a variety of ammunition types to various ranges from the same position, to ranges of up to 300km.” The system can fire munitions including Accular and Predator Hawk rockets. PULS European customers include Germany, Denmark and The Netherlands. Earlier this year, Madrid cancelled a €285 million contract for the purchase of 168 launch units and 1,680 Spike LR2 anti-tank missiles produced by Israel’s Rafael. Elbit and Rafael did not immediately respond to a request for comment at the time of publication. A United Nations independent commission announced today that it has found that Israel “is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza” — an accusation Jerusalem has vehemently denied as it carries out military operations in Gaza that it says target Hamas fighters.

Hispanics: -30

Black Americans: -73

Hwites: -5

18-29: -26

30-44: -25

45-64: -9

65+: -15

<50k: -24

50-100k: -13

100k+: -4

Prior to taking up the post as German chancellor, Freidrich Merz criticized US President Donald Trump’s “America first” doctrine and said he is prepared for the “worst case scenario,” hinting at a future where Washington would no longer be seen as a trusted ally. But Papperger pushed back on political signaling from Merz for Germany to establish “independence” from the US. “Chancellor Merz now will invest the money, and the whole government will invest the money,” added Papperger, on Berlin’s plans to increase defense spending. “So I think that Germany, but also Europe … will grow up to be a reliable partner of the United States.”

Trump’s pressure on Europe to do more for its own security has since led to most NATO allies agreeing to a 3.5 percent GDP defense spending pledge and an additional 1.5 percent GDP on related items like infrastructure. The German government is investing “more than the rest of Europe” and years of underspending in the country’s armed forces before the war in Ukraine has been “fixed” under a Ministry of Finance plan to reach a military budget of €160 billion in 2029, said Papperger. Rheinmetall holds robust industrial ties with US giant Lockheed Martin and strengthened cooperation further this week at DSEI by unveiling a next-generation “missile tank destroyer” technology demonstrator. The land system comprises a 6×6 Fuchs armored vehicle and Hellfire Longbow and Joint Air to Ground Munition (JAGM) missiles. The latest move to join forces builds on partnerships across several other high profile weapon system programs including F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets and the Global Mobile Artillery Rocket System (GMARS) capability.

“We make a Europeanisation of that stuff,” said Papperger. “It’s not that we buy American technology, it’s that we implement American technology into Europe.” Relying on European solutions alone would be counterproductive, he suggested. “If you want to make a R and D [Research and Design] program in Europe to build up everything … you are not [going to be] ready in 10 years,” he said. A total of three F-35A fuselages, being built by Rheinmetall for non US-customers, have so far been produced by the firm at a new production facility in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. A “grand opening” of the site is scheduled in four to six weeks, Papperger explained. In 2023, Rheinmetall stated that “at least” 400 of the fuselages will be manufactured in all.

“Europeanisation” is when you locally manufacture one part, import everything else (including the engine and the delicate electronics which actually make the plane what it is), and then pat yourself on the back for the might of your domestic industry. This is like that deal for Egyptian M1 Abrams production, where in the end they ended up only being able to make like a fifth of the parts and mostly just assembling tank kits imported from the US.

Breaking — Israeli Forces Deploy Howitzers in Syria:

Local sources confirm that Israeli forces have stationed howitzers in Syria capable of reaching the capital, Damascus. The artillery is reportedly placed at IOF-controlled positions since the fall of legitimate government, including Haramoun 1 and 2 in western Damascus countryside and military barracks near al-Hamidiyah in Quneitra.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, this marks the deepest Israeli incursion since 1973, reaching 10 km from Damascus and 38 km into Syrian territory. Hundreds of 210th Division soldiers reportedly raided two abandoned Syrian bases, seizing or destroying mortars, anti-tank missiles, Soviet tanks, and 3.5 tons of explosives.

Zionist-aligned Druze factions in Al-Rihla reportedly welcomed Israeli troops, exposing previous government’s depots and requesting protection from the HTS. Israel now reportedly holds an 5–10 km strip with eight positions, cutting arms routes to Hezbollah. Commanders indicate further deep raids may follow.

🔹@enemywatch

North Korea’s strong performance, according to a BOK official during a briefing, is “mainly due to significant increases in manufacturing, construction and mining industries,” which were brought about by North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine. BOK also cited “the strengthening of national policy projects domestically, and expansion of economic cooperation between North Korea and Russia externally.” North Korea’s heavy chemical sector, per the bank, saw double-digit growth. South Korea’s bank has been publishing data about North Korea’s economy, based on “various sources including intelligence and foreign trading agencies and data from the South’s unification ministry,” since 1991, Reuters said.

North Koreans in Russia

Per CNN, North Korea recently released a 20-minute propaganda video through state media KCTV, aimed at praising its soldiers who have fought on Russia’s side in Ukraine. The video, per CNN, features “heavily dramatized shots of soldiers on the snow-covered battlefield – handling weapons, holding meetings with Russian soldiers, and installing bombs on trees.” Soldiers in the video are also shown gazing at a portrait of the North Korean leader. It’s not clear, per CNN, how “real” the footage is in the video. Citing Western officials, CNN said that it is believed that up to a third of 12,000 soldiers sent from North Korea as part of the initial deployment were either killed or wounded. Kim held two events in August to meet with families of those killed in the war.

our realistic and honest documentaries, their propaganda videos

citing my ass: “yeah actually a gajilion North Koreans died, and all that footage? CGI, not like our brave Ukrainian friends who have never lied or exaggerated throughout the whole war!”

Kim in China

The economic numbers were released as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a rare trip out of North Korea, in order to attend a military parade in China to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also scheduled to attend the parade, as is the president of Iran. There is speculation, NBC News reported, that a trilateral meeting might take place among China’s Xi Jinping, Putin, and Kim. NBC also described the military visit as Kim’s “first multilateral event” since he took power upon his father’s death in 2011. Per NBC News, Kim arrived in Beijing by train, clad in a dark suit. “Standing side by side with Xi Jinping and Putin on Tiananmen Gate, he will reproduce the triangular solidarity structure of the Cold War era,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a message to South Korean lawmakers this week, NBC reported.

Another Trump/Kim Meeting?

Donald Trump, during his first term, met on three occasions with Kim, in what were the first meetings between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader in decades. The diplomatic opening was historic, but it never led to any lasting agreement. In August, Trump announced that he would be willing to resume his diplomacy with Kim, and did so while seated next to the president of South Korea. The comments came during the first visit to the White House by President Lee Jae-myung, who recently took over as South Korea’s president. Lee offered to “usher in a new era of peace on the Korean peninsula,” and even raised the possibility of a Trump Tower being built in North Korea one day. “We will do that,” Trump told his South Korean counterpart. “We look forward to meeting with him, and we’ll make relations better.”

Damn, I didn’t realize that the Seals murdering civilians leaks were like 10 days after Lee Jae Myung met with Trump. What timing!

also the way other countries’ politicians have learned to just glaze Trump is great, “oh and we’ll build a Trump Tower there too! A Juche Trump Tower!”

“With Fuze, the Army is telling innovators that we’re open for business. Fuze will help us to not only invest but scale promising capabilities — bridging the valley of death,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said in a statement to Defense News. Unlike traditional procurement that starts with an Army-defined problem followed by appointing a company to solve the problem, Fuze flips the approach. The new process allows the service to find technology to bring in “that helps us think about what our problems are differently,” Chris Manning, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for research and technology, told Defense News in a recent interview. Venture capitalists make 100 investments and only end up with a few with outsized returns. The Army is accepting that same risk to capture bigger payoffs. “We’re really taking the approach where we’re going to deliberately make a large number of investments in emerging tech companies,” Matt Willis, the Army’s Fuze program director, said in the interview. “Some tech might not reach the maturity that we want, [but] there’s going to be some companies that are going to have an outsized, revolutionary impact on our soldiers.”

Y’know, there’s this amazing thing called a planned economy, where you can just, like, put in the economic plan “we’ll provide X money/resources to this and that R&D program”, with the same expectation that not all of this research will actually produce something directly usable, and you don’t even need to pad tech CEO’s wallets for that, you can just have guys directly working for the government doing all that! Many valuable pieces of technology were developed under this model!

The program aligns four existing fundings streams: XTech prize competitions, small-business funding, tech maturation and manufacturing technology — worth about $750 million in fiscal 2025. The Army plans to initiate the program by running an XTech Disrupt live pitch competition, in partnership with Y Combinator — a technology startup accelerator and VC firm — at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference next month in Washington.

the… hackernews guys?

The competition, according to Willis, will focus on four technology areas important to the Army: electronic warfare, unmanned aircraft systems, counter-UAS and energy resiliency at the edge. The prize pool totals $500,000. Technologies that win out in the competition will go straight into the hands of soldiers in operational environments for real-world evaluation. The Army has spent the better part of a decade trying to match its acquisition speed with the rest of the high-tech world, but trying to break down the bureaucracy and change the culture has been a challenging task. Fuze is central to a broader shift in the Army as it seeks dramatic transformation rapidly. “Continuous transformation is like our once-in-a-generation change for the Army to get at and prepare for the future battlefield,” Brandon Pugh, the Army’s cyber adviser, told Defense News. “But a key part of that is the acquisition process to really make sure that the warfighter and the soldier on the battlefield has the correct technology they need.”

And surely tech-bro dipshits will be able to deliver that. Logistics? Oh, we have an app for that, just pick the ammunition you need from the menu (and don’t forget to tip your BattleDash driver!). This whole program is even named like an app!

Speed is central to that transformation. “We’re hoping to have a capability to an acquisition pathway in 10 days, and hopefully within 30 to 45 days, for the first prototype to be with an Army unit,” Pugh said. “That is extraordinary.” The Army has struggled with the pace of past acquisitions, particularly in fast-evolving fields like electronic warfare. “It’s so quickly evolving, you have to be able to acquire this quickly and iterate quickly, or else you’re instantly behind, even if you do successfully acquire it. I think that’s the risk,” Pugh noted. Army officials stressed that Fuze is not just a bureaucratic reshuffling. “This isn’t just like a rebranding. We’re coalescing these innovation programs from a strategic, operational and execution standpoint… to help companies move through that pipeline more quickly,” Willis said. “The end outcome we want is having the best technology here quickly,” Pugh said.

Hmm, I wonder if maybe there’s a reason that technology which people’s lives depend on has a somewhat slower development process than, like, a fucking app. Now, there obviously is plenty of graft in US military procurement, but throwing stacks of cash at random tech companies doesn’t exactly solve that problem.