"The substantial problems they have with corruption that have yet to be resolved certainly could slow them down on the path toward the 2027 capabilities development milestone and beyond," a senior US defense official said in a press briefing on December 16.
Li Gang/Xinhua via Getty Images
China wants to hit a military modernization milestone in 2027.
But China's ongoing crackdown on military corruption could disrupt its progress, says the Pentagon.
China suspended a top military official last month, a year after firing its last defense minister.
China's near-term military modernization goal could be bogged down by its corruption scandals, a senior US defense official said on Monday.
"The substantial problems they have with corruption that have yet to be resolved certainly could slow them down on the path toward the 2027 capabilities development milestone and beyond," the official told journalists during a press briefing.
A transcript of the briefing was published on Wednesday, the same day the Defense Department released its annual assessment on China's military capabilities.
According to the Pentagon's report, at least 15 high-ranking Chinese military officials and defense industry executives were removed from their positions between July and December 2023.
Last month, The Financial Times reported that defense minister Adm. Dong Jun was under investigation for graft, the third consecutive person in the role to be investigated. A defense ministry spokesperson denied the FT's report, calling it a "sheer fabrication."
Also last month, China's defense ministry said a senior military official, Adm. Miao Hua, was suspended and under investigation for "serious violations of discipline." The accusation usually refers to corruption.
The 69-year-old oversaw political indoctrination in the People's Liberation Army and served on the Central Military Commission. The six-person commission, chaired by China's leader, Xi Jinping, oversees China's armed forces.
Miao's suspension came just a year after China's last defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu was fired. Li was in office for seven months before he was removed.
Li and his predecessor, Wei Fenghe, were eventually expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for alleged corruption in June. They were also stripped of their military ranks.
"In 2023, a new wave of corruption-related investigations and removals of senior leaders may have disrupted the PLA's progress toward stated 2027 modernization goals," the Pentagon's report said.
Earlier this year, US intelligence highlighted corruption effects including missiles filled with water and intercontinental ballistic missile silos sporting improperly functioning lids that could derail a missile launch.
US intelligence sources told Bloomberg in January that corruption was so severe in China's Rocket Force and the wider PLA that it would most likely force Xi to recalibrate whether Beijing can take on any major military action soon.
US officials believe that Xi wants China to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China first announced the modernization goal in October 2020. The 2027 milestone will coincide with the centennial of the PLA's founding.
"That doesn't mean that he's decided to invade in 2027 or any other year," CIA chief William J. Burns said in an interview with CBS in February 2023.
Representatives for China's defense and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance attended the annual Army-Navy game in Landover, Maryland, on Saturday, and they brought along some high-profile guests.
In the 125th meeting of the Black Knights and Midshipmen, Trump brought Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, while Vance's guest was Marine veteran Daniel Penny. Also on hand were House Speaker Mike Johnson, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Trump's director of national intelligence pick, Tulsi Gabbard, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Navy won the game, 31-13, behind quarterback Blake Horvath, who passed for two touchdowns and ran for two more. The Midshipmen raised their record to 9-3, while the loss dropped Army to 11-2. Both teams have had strong seasons. Navy will face Oklahoma in the Armed Forces Bowl, and Army is slated to play in the Independence Bowl, although no opponent has been announced since Marshall dropped out.
While the game was a highly anticipated matchup, the guests brought by Trump and Vance created a pregame buzz.
Penny was found not guilty in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely in New York City earlier this week, a decision which was criticized by some commentators on the left and underscored a divide between crime and mental health. Neely had been menacing riders when Penny acted to defend fellow straphangers. Penny faced up to 15 years in prison, but was acquitted of all charges.
Hegseth is still courting members of the Senate to secure his nomination for the top defense role, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whoi has been floated as a possible alternative, was also in attendance.
Hegseth’s appearance will mark a very public declaration of support from Trump, as some senators are still holding out on committing to his confirmation. Hegseth, an Army National Guard and former longtime Fox News host, deployed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and has been the focus of misconduct reports.
Trump's defense secretary nominee has denied allegations that he mistreated women but did reach a financial settlement with an accuser from a 2017 incident to avoid a lawsuit. He has vowed that he won't drink "a drop of alcohol" if confirmed as defense secretary.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Elon Musk were also spotted in Trump's box at the game.
Meanwhile, Vance took a swipe at New York City prosecutors for taking on the case in a post on X confirming Penny’s attendance.
"Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone," Vance wrote. "I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage."
Penny, 26, was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the May 2023 subway chokehold death of Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia who had barged onto the train shouting death threats while high on a type of synthetic marijuana known as K2.
Trump attended the game as president in 2018, 2019 and 2020, while he also appeared as president-elect in 2016.
President Biden has never attended the annual clash as president, although he did appear as vice president.
This season has been a banner year for both football programs, adding buzz to the annual rivalry match. The teams have a combined 19 wins this year and with victories over Air Force, the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy will be awarded to the winner of Saturday’s game.
Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie, Paulina Dedaj and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Retired Green Beret David Harris rates portrayals of explosions in movies and TV shows.
He looks at how RPGs are employed in "Black Hawk Down," starring Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Eric Bana; "Tropic Thunder," starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black; and "White House Down," starring Jamie Foxx, Channing Tatum, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. He discusses the different ways to launch grenades in "Extraction II," starring Chris Hemsworth and Idris Elba; and "RRR," starring Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. He explains how landmines are activated in "Commando," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; "Nobody," starring Bob Odenkirk, Christopher Lloyd, and RZA; and "Da 5 Bloods," starring Chadwick Boseman, Delroy Lindo, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. He answers whether you can stop a grenade by jumping on one in "Act of Valor." He talks about the effects of stun grenades in "The Town," starring Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, and Jon Hamm. Finally, he breaks down how airstrikes work in "We Were Soldiers," starring Mel Gibson, Sam Elliot, and Greg Kinnear.
David Harris served in the US Army for 20 years, including as a Special Forces weapons sergeant. He is the CEO of Harris Strategic Solutions, which provides tactical training to military and law enforcement members.
Find out more about David Harris and Harris Strategic Solutions here:
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed Tuesday it issued two flight restrictions following questionable drone activity in the area of President-elect Trump's New Jersey golf club.
On Nov. 18, the FAA first received reports of drone activity within Morris County, the border of which lies about two miles north of Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in Somerset County.
Upon request from "federal security partners," the agency issued two TFRs, or temporary flight restrictions, and several reports of drone sightings continued into this week in Central Jersey.
One restriction covers an area near Solberg-Hunterdon County Airport that consists of airspace above Trump Bedminster. Flights are also banned over Picatinny Arsenal, a major U.S. Army hub in Dover, N.J., geared toward research and development via its CCDCAC armaments center.
The ban remains in place over Trump Bedminster for the rest of this week and over Picatinny Arsenal until Dec. 26.
"Safely integrating drones into the National Airspace System is a key priority for the FAA," the agency said in a statement Tuesday.
"We look into all reports of unauthorized drone operations and investigate when appropriate," the agency said, adding drone pilots who endanger aircraft or people can have their certification revoked and/or face $75,000 in fines.
Local media reported law enforcement has also been probing continued drone activity in the area.
Sightings have also occurred a few miles north of Bedminster in Mendham and Parsippany, where I-80 meets I-287.
A Parsippany woman told the Morristown Record she saw as many as five drones overhead Sunday night.
Morris County Sheriff James Gannon told New Jersey Patch there is "no advisable immediate danger to the public at this time" and asked the public to send law enforcement clear photographs of the drones.
An FBI spokeswoman told the outlet the bureau’s Newark field office and New Jersey State Police are investigating.
Fox News Digital reached out to Team Trump as well as the U.S. Army’s garrison at Picatinny for comment.
The drone sightings in New Jersey come as unidentified drones have been seen over British-American joint bases in the United Kingdom.
"Swarms of small drones" have been seen over Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Fairford and RAF Feltwell in England. Some of those bases house F-15 and F-35 fighter jets.
The British military sent dozens of personnel to protect the bases, and a Pentagon spokesman said Nov. 26 none of the incursions affected the base’s buildings, personnel or assets.
Nineties punk rock band Green Day also paused a September show in Detroit after a drone was spotted overhead. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong rushed backstage as he closed out "Longview."
The show resumed about 10 minutes later, and Detroit Police said a man was detained.
Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, Liz Friden and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth, is facing a firestorm of backlash for voicing his belief that women should not serve in military combat roles. Although the media is largely united against him, opinions among combat veterans and military experts are more split.
Will Thibeau, a former Army Ranger with multiple combat deployments, told Fox News Digital that he agrees with Hegseth wholeheartedly.
"I think soon-to-be Secretary Hegseth stated simple truths that 12 years ago were commonly understood and affirmed by the senior-most leaders in the Pentagon, the rank and file of the military and the culture at large, that war and in particular units that are made and forged to fight in war with no other purpose are units meant for men and men only," he said.
"Biological sex and relationships between men and women is a reality that you can't avoid," he added. "And when you induce stress, physical uncertainty, physical proximity and unique scenarios to that biological reality, you get a fracture of what would have been a typical military team, or a military unit forged for warfighting."
Hegseth, 44, is a former Fox News host and Army infantry officer who served two combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and an additional deployment to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Trump tapped Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, one of the most influential positions in his cabinet, on Nov. 13, just over a week after he won the election. The president-elect said of Hegseth that "nobody fights harder for the Troops" and "with Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice."
However, Hegseth is facing a great deal of pushback from Democrats and the media, most especially for his comments on a Nov. 7 episode of the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast in which he said, "I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles."
Hegseth asserted that women serving in combat roles "hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal" and "has made fighting more complicated."
He did not argue against women serving in the military or even in non-ground combat roles such as in the Air Force. Rather, he made the point that the U.S. military has been lowering its physical standards to allow more women to be eligible to serve in combat roles, something that he said increases the risk of combat complications and fatalities.
He said, "I love women service members who contribute amazingly," but asserted that "everything about women serving together makes the situation more complicated and complication in combat means casualties are worse."
He also criticized the upper echelons of military leadership for changing standards and prioritizing filling diversity quotas above combat effectiveness. He pointed to a 2015 study by the Marine Corps that found that integrated male-female units did "drastically worse" in terms of combat effectiveness than all-male units.
"Between bone density and lung capacity and muscle strength, men and women are just different," he said. "So, I’m ok with if you maintain the standards just where they are for everybody, and if there’s some, you know, hard-charging female that meets that standard, great, cool, join the infantry battalion. But that is not what’s happened. What has happened is the standards have lowered."
Hegseth noted that he was not necessarily advocating for making the change right now, commenting; "Imagine the demagoguery in Washington, D.C., if you were actually making the case for, you know, ‘We should scale back women in combat.’"
"As the disclaimer for everybody out there," he added, "we’ve all served with women and they’re great, it’s just our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where … over human history, men are more capable."
Despite this, Ellen Haring, a retired Army colonel, told Fox News Digital that many women and men in the military are concerned about Hegseth becoming secretary and instituting these changes.
"Women who are in these combat jobs and many of them have been there for six, eight years now, are very energized and concerned about the idea that they might lose their jobs," she said.
According to Haring, there are 2,500 women currently serving in ground combat roles in Army infantry, armor, field artillery branches as well as special forces. She also said that 152 women have earned Army Ranger tabs and there are currently ten women in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment.
She said that despite women making up only a quarter of all West Point Academy graduates they accounted for a third of all lieutenants slotted to armor combat units.
"There's no indication that any of those units have been harmed by their presence," she said. "So, Hegseth claims that adding women to these units is going to create a degree of complication and is somehow or another puts people at risk. That hasn't happened at any unit that we've seen so far. So, I don't know where he's coming up with these notions."
Beyond not harming units, Haring went on to say that women have helped to improve the professionalism of units, especially infantry units.
"Infantry units had a culture of hazing and kind of abuse of each other," she said. "Their presence there has turned a spotlight on that kind of behavior and has actually eliminated a lot of it across the force. So, this kind of brutal behavior that infantry units engaged in amongst themselves is slowly being eradicated by the women's presence."
Similarly, Captain Micah Ables, an Army Infantry company commander, told Fox News Digital that women in his unit have improved the "team player" attitude of the company as well as broadened its capabilities when deployed.
Ables’ first deployment to Afghanistan was with an all-male unit, however, he later deployed with one of the first integrated companies in the infantry. He said that though there was some initial pushback and tension, the female soldiers in his unit quickly proved themselves as capable and the company adapted without too much issue.
He said that many of the women in his unit have proved to be some of the most physically and tactically capable leaders and soldiers under his command.
"Once I did take over the mixed-gender company, I didn't really know what to expect," he said. "But they dug in, and they did what they needed to do to be experts."
On the other hand, Jessie Jane Duff, a retired female gunnery sergeant in the Marines, told Fox News Digital that allowing women to fill combat roles is a "lethal mistake."
She also cited the study by the Marines that she said found that integrated units were only 60 percent as effective as all-male units and women were between 20 and 30 percent more prone to injury.
"From a biological level. We're not equal," she said. "With the lack of testosterone, women take a longer time to recover and rebuild muscle because they lack that testosterone. Whereas men who also get severely injured based upon the training have a higher rate of being able to come back into the combat unit and perform."
"Why would you water down the effectiveness of our infantry units? You're watering it down because you're trying to reach a goal of equality," she went on. "You can have the opportunity to pass, but you should not be accommodated because of your gender when a more qualified man could take that slot."
Finally, Anna Simons, a retired professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, told Fox News Digital that it comes down to diversity versus similarity.
"Women have been in combat from the beginning of time," she said. "They've defended their children, they've defended their property, they've defended husbands, they’ve fought valiantly, that's absolutely true. But the issue isn't women in combat. The issue is women in combat units, small groups of individuals where everybody needs to be essentially interchangeable and equally proficient at certain combat skills."
"The whole point of combat is to wield violence and to be able to absorb violence," she said. "So there has to be a sameness or similarity to people so that they become easily interchangeable when it comes to fundamental skills, shoot, move and communicate skills."
"Everybody needs a baseline of that, and you want the baseline to be as high as possible," she concluded. "That means that people need to be less similar rather than more diverse in their capabilities."
US Army military police soldiers are responsible for protecting Army posts by guarding gates, controlling traffic, and responding to emergencies. They also oversee military prisons and detention centers that house uniformed criminals, like the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Business Insider spent four days at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri to see how 31 Bravos and 31 Echos spend 10 weeks training to become military police and detention specialists. Students in military police training learn skills like riot control in a mock prison, detainee operations, and firing weapons like 9-millimeters in limited visibility with the aid of their flashlight.
In early 2024, the Army announced that it would restructure its force as it moves away from counterinsurgency operations, like those used in Afghanistan and Iraq, to large-scale combat operations for potential conflicts with China and Russia. A reported 3,000 soldiers working as cavalry scouts and military police would need to move to new positions. We look into how that could affect the 1,306 military police soldiers training at Fort Leonard Wood and what that could mean for the safety of Army bases around the globe.
The DoJ said Dell and Iron Bow created the false appearance of competition in bids to the US Army.
NurPhoto/Getty
Dell has agreed to pay $2.3 million to settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act.
Dell and reseller Iron Bow overcharged the US Army for computers over four years, the DOJ said.
Fraud in the government contract process costs taxpayers, said a US attorney involved in the case.
Dell has agreed to pay $2.3 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act in its business with the US Army.
The Department of Justice said the Texas-based tech giant and one of its resellers, Iron Bow, had overcharged on government contracts between May 2020 to April 2024.
This resulted in the Army overpaying for the Army Desktop and Mobile Computing 3 (ADMC-3) contract, of which Dell is a prime contractor, the DOJ said.
The government alleged that Dell sold certain computer hardware products at a discounted price to Iron Bow.
When both companies submitted bids for the ADMC-3 contract to the Army, Dell knowingly inflated its prices, "creating the false appearance of competition," the DOJ said. Iron Bow would win the contract, while Dell shifted stock.
The DOJ said this violated the False Claims Act, influenced the Army's selection process, and enabled Iron Bow to overcharge the Army for certain Dell products.
Iron Bow has agreed to pay just over $2 million to settle the claims, bringing the combined settlement to $4.3 million.
Brent Lillard, a whistleblower who raised concerns about possible collusion, will receive $345,000 from Dell's payment. Lillard is the CEO of a rival IT reseller, Govsmart.
There has been no determination of liability, the DOJ said.
"Dell has entered into a settlement agreement because we believe it is in the best interest of Dell, our customers and partners. The settlement is not an admission of guilt or liability," a Dell spokesperson told Business Insider.
Dell sells certain laptops and desktop models to the US Army.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
While the $2.3 million payment is significant, it represents a tiny fraction of Dell's overall earnings. The tech company had revenues of $88.4 billion in its last full financial year.
The ADMC-3 contract is worth roughly $5 billion and is open to eight contractors, including Dell and Iron Bow.
Government officials had strong words for Dell after issuing the fine.
"The United States relies on competition to get the best value and price for the American taxpayers," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department's Civil Division.
The Justice Department official added that the department was committed to holding "those who overcharge the government through collusion or other unlawful conduct" accountable.
"Fraud in the government contracting process costs taxpayers untold dollars each year," said US Attorney Prim F. Escalona for the Northern District of Alabama, where the case was brought.
The US government spends hundreds of billions annually on contracts with private companies. In 2023, the DOJ recovered nearly $2.7 billion from 543 settlements "involving fraud and false claims against the government." That was the most claim settlements in a single year.
Government contracts are under increasing scrutiny since Donald Trump named Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as leaders of a new unofficial "Department of Government Efficiency" — or DOGE.
Ramaswamy said on Sunday that DOGE could abolish entire federal agencies, reduce the head count in "bloated" areas of government, and make "massive" cuts to federal contracting.
Iron Bow did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
