This is a sign that attack helicopters as we know them are going obsolete:
The government’s plan to purchase 36 additional AH-64 Apache attack helicopters will likely be scrapped after a massive budget cut, a lawmaker noted Sunday.
According to Rep. Yoo Yong-won of the main opposition People Power Party and the defense ministry, the budget for the project was cut from an initial 10 billion won (US$7.3 million) to just 300 million won in the supplementary budget passed by the National Assembly on Friday. (…..)
Calling the decision a “positive development,” Yoo noted the U.S. Army is also moving away from the aged, high-maintenance Apaches in favor of advanced drone assets like the Gray Eagle to modernize its forces.
Swimming at beach in N. Korea’s Wonsan-Kalma tourist area North Korean people play on a beach at the Wonsan-Kalma tourist area on the North’s east coast on July 1, 2025, as the newly built resort area known for its beautiful seaside scenery opens the same day, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency the next day. (Yonhap)
This case makes me wonder how much of this CAC fraud is going on that we don’t know about that is allowing Chinese access to U.S. military facilities:
A Navy reservist this week pleaded guilty to bribing a Naval Air Station Jacksonville official to provide fraudulent military identification cards to two ineligible individuals with links to China, according to the Justice Department. Raymond Zumba admitted to a federal judge that he had tried to bribe an official who is the spouse of a former shipmate he had served with previously while on active duty.
He attempted to pay $3,500 to the official in exchange for making the “real, but unauthorized” identification cards that would grant access to military bases, according to the DOJ. The IDs were for two individuals, including a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China and a Chinese national who the Justice Department accused of entering the United States without authorization and living under an assumed name. Zumba, 27, of New York City, faces up to 15 years in prison for the charge of bribery of a public official. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled, officials said.
Russia has exported to North Korea and air defense system that failed to shootdown any Israeli jets that executed the bombing campaign over Iran. After the Israeli bombing campaign, Kim Jong-un cannot possibly have much faith that this system will protect his capitol against a U.S. bombardment:
North Korea has already been using the Pantsir-S1 air defense system provided by Russia to defend the North’s capital of Pyongyang, a Ukrainian online newspaper reported Wednesday, citing Kyiv’s intelligence chief.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR), made the remark in an interview with Hromadske Radio the previous day (local time), according to The Kyiv Independent.
The Pantsir missile system is made up of self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery systems.
Budanov said the first Pantsir-S1 installations have already been deployed in Pyongyang and are on combat duty. He added that the Russians are retraining North Korean personnel, who will soon be working autonomously on this technology.
This is something I can support President Lee on, redeveloping the land former USFK bases were once on instead of just leaving it abandoned:
An artist’s rendition of the Gyeonggi Unification Plus Center, which is slated to open sometime this year in Uijeongbu city, South Korea. (Gyeonggi-do Provincial Government)
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung called on the military this week to streamline the process of repurposing government real estate previously occupied by U.S. forces since the Korean War. The directive is aimed at reusing now-abandoned property in northern Gyeonggi-do, South Korea’s most populous province, that the United States returned to the South Korean government after consolidating its forces elsewhere, presidential office spokeswoman Kang Yu-jung said Tuesday at a news conference in Seoul.
During his presidential campaign, Lee claimed that the returned lands in Gyeonggi-do were unused and neglected due to bureaucratic restrictions. Lee, elected president this year, served as governor of Gyeonggi-do until 2021. He said during the campaign that businesses had no interest in developing the land after local governments marked up real estate prices. “It can be deregulated, but it is not being deregulated,” he said during a speech in Paju on May 20. “As a governor of Gyeonggi-do, I had limited authority. But when I have presidential authority, I will change the regulations to reasonably solve problems and avoid unfair situations.”
You can read more at the link, but there has been plenty of successful examples of vacated bases being redeveloped such as the former Camp Castle in Dongducheon and Camp Sears in Uijeongbu.
Flyboarding in Seoul An athlete rides a flyboard, from which a stream of water is thrown out under strong pressure, on the Han River in Seoul on July 2, 2025. (Yonhap)
It looks like Chinese Communist Party is going to pretend they had anything to do with defeating the Imperial Japanese during World War II and they are inviting President Lee to join them in their delusion:
The South Korean government is weighing whether President Lee Jae Myung should attend China’s military parade, held in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of its victory over Japan during World War II.
This will be another diplomatic test for the Lee administration, as the invitation, extended amid heightened regional tensions, reflects China’s efforts to reinforce its historical narratives and expand its regional influence.
For South Korea, Lee’s potential attendance poses a delicate diplomatic balancing act — weighing the importance of its economic relationship with China against its security alliance with the United States and its deeply rooted historical tensions with Japan. Whether he accepts or declines could carry far-reaching implications for regional alignment and the evolving historical discourse in Northeast Asia.
You can read more at the link, but the CCP during World War II sat back and did hardly anything against the Imperial Japanese invasion of China. Nearly all the fighting against the Japanese was from the Kuomintang that ruled China at the time.
If anything the CCP should be sending the Emperor of Japan a thank you card because the only reason the CCP took power was because World War II had so weakened the Kuomintang. The degradatoin of the Koumintang allowed the CCP to win the Chinese civil war and the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan where the civil war with the CCP continues from to this day. If anyone should be having a military parade to celebrate the defeat of the Imperial Japanese in China it is Taiwan.
With that all said President Lee should not attend a military parade for a country that is responsible for the current division of the Korean peninsula. If CCP troops had not intervened in the Korean War, Korea would be one country today and instead it is divided because of China.
