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someforeignfield.bsky.social
Former USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, former International Rescue Committee. Humanitarian professional, missile and tank weirdo, posts stuff about missiles, the Middle East, and why it matters at https://substack.com/@someforeignfield
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In honor of SM Saturday, a reminder that the latest line of Iranian heavy AA missiles, the Sayyad 2+ family, are based on the SM-1 missile. The latest version, the Sayyad 4B, used in the Bavar 373 system (among others), is quite a development from the original 1960s missile.

submitted 6 hours ago • 0 comments

Colleagues of mine who worked inside Gaza were routinely shot at by Israeli infantry, tanks, aircraft, and ships. Usually just casual warning shots, not necessarily aimed closely. Designed to harass and terrorize. Now it appears they are doing the same to aid ships over 1000km from Gaza.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

It is only ever one "controversial" opinion that gets friendly interviews. Can you imagine Anwar al-Awlaki (before he was illegally murdered by Obama) or the Holy Land 5 getting sympathetic front page space in the NYT? Nope, only white supremacists.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"the left" does need to reckon with the fact that most people in the developing world know about USAID through food assistance, free medication and healthcare, etc rather than the microloans, development trap, color revolution stuff. And the former is good and we should keep doing it.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Wildfires in Israel surrounding the Sdot Micha military base in central Israel. Sdot Micha is home to an Arrow 3 missile defense battery... And Israel's Jericho nuclear missile arsenal. Hope they got a lot of hotshots cuttin' line down there!

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This UXO has been a major hindrance to humanitarian assistance since early on. Internal discussions in USAID basically just decided it wasn't real because doing so would require acknowledging a lot of hard truths about the nature of the bombing campaign.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

To add to this: FEMA is mostly gutted, 1000s of Forest Service Fire personnel resigned. USAID is gone. State doesn't know how to do this. DoD only knows how to fly airplanes, they can't coordinate complex disaster response. The US no longer has the ability to respond to this.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Israel has formally requested support from the US to combat these wildfires. This would normally be handled by USAID, led by the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which has a lot of Forest Service staff on detail to handle wildfires. They're all fired and the agency dissolved. Good luck Israel!

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

Famine was also confirmed in North Gaza by the Famine Early Warning Network in November '24 but Biden's USAID appointees and the Biden ambassador to Israel killed the report.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Kind of funny to do this with SM-2s. Those SM-3 and SM-6 stockpiles are probably pretty awfully precious after 15 months burning through them in the Red Sea.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Just want to say that not everything that happens in Iran, a huge country of 80+ million people, is about (a) their nuclear program or (b) their missile program.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Praying for a DEI pilot on this flight to Jacksonville 🙏🙏

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Very preliminary, but the videos I've seen look like a (smaller) version of the Beirut port explosion. Violent fire followed by explosion. Very early guess at poorly stored ammonium nitrate or similar.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

If the tactic or technology has been deployed against Palestinians in '48 Palestine, West Bank, or Gaza... Then expect it deployed here, against you, very soon.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The parade of Rezvan and/or Kheybar Shekan 2s continues. The Rezvans are particularly interesting given they're Scud-based. Turning a 60yo 300km missile into a 2000km missile is pretty amazing.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Is this good

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

I specifically wanted to address a few key points here: First, that the U.S. is merely a passive observer. That is not the case. U.S. military forces are participating in combat operations and combat support operations on behalf of the Israeli military. Full stop.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

This is the coolest anyone has ever looked Roger Waters has always had that dog in him

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Israelification

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Leave it to the GAO to say what most people at USAID, State, and DoD have been saying since day one. Our august leaders, our paragons of the liberal international rules-based order, lied to the public and censored and fired their own staff when we attempted to tell the truth.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Zionism is currently the biggest threat to the American project. Any attempt to right the ship that does not immediately crush the political power of the Zionist movement is doomed to failure.

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

imo the point of crypto is to buy more Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles for the DPRK

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

While the grants may be un-terminated (for now), all staff managing those grants will be fired by July 1 or are already fired, and the payment system used to disburse that money is in the hands of a 26 y/o DOGE staffer. Lil Marco has no power here.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Egyptian Army M109 artillery vehicles and YPR-765 armored fighting vehicles stationed just west of Rafah, in the Sinai.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

I specifically wanted to address a few key points here: First, that the U.S. is merely a passive observer. That is not the case. U.S. military forces are participating in combat operations and combat support operations on behalf of the Israeli military. Full stop.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

New article up! This is part one of a series on the degree to which Israel relies on direct and indirect U.S. military support. This article discusses direct U.S. military support to the defense of Israel, and how that support contributes to the myth of Israeli military independence and strength.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

This ambush occurred very close to the border. Shocking how IDF wasn't able to identify the ambush in advance. There's several observation/intel bases within a few miles of this corner

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

IDF apparently sending soldiers fresh out of basic training into combat roles in Gaza. These are from "elite" infantry units. They are going into combat before completing training on basic infantry tactics.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments