Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
The Canadian F-35 saga has a new chapter: observer status in the Global Combat Air Program, the British-Japanese-Italian effort to build a sixth-generation successor...
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China's naval drone force is early but growing fast, and its sharpest edge isn't firepower. Cheap, expendable craft, wave-powered surface drones that loiter for...
Twice in thirteen months, Iran has forced the Pentagon to drain scarce interceptor stocks in a theater Washington calls secondary. Latham's argument: Beijing is...
Tehran treats the Strait of Hormuz as non-negotiable, Holmes writes, and no air campaign eliminates every missile. That leaves four courses: walk away and...
The Memorandum of Understanding that paused the fighting has collapsed, Farley writes, because it never settled the status of the Strait of Hormuz or...
For all the talk of spending targets, the Ankara NATO summit's real work happened elsewhere. Europe is being handed responsibility for NATO's conventional defense...
Western analysts fixate on North Korea's missiles. The real danger is speed — a mass artillery-and-missile salvo in the war's first hours, backed by...
The second Trump administration is reviewing America's military footprint in Europe, and the worst-case outcome is a full withdrawal. Andrew Michta argues that would...
The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding is being judged on whether it cools tensions in the Persian Gulf. Strategic-studies scholar Andrew Michta argues that's the...
The Soviet Union built the Kirov-class to sink American carriers with sheer missile weight. Russia has one hull left, and after a decade of...
The United States has supplied Ukraine with more than three million 155mm howitzer shells since the war began, significantly depleting American stockpiles. A major...
Russia’s Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile is proving highly effective at evading advanced Western air defenses like Patriot. Through high-speed maneuvering, decoys, electronic countermeasures, and...
Ukraine says its drones damaged or disabled 116 Russian-linked vessels in nine days in the Sea of Azov — a claim it hasn't independently...
Social Security’s funding gap is not a forecast — it is arithmetic. The size of the shortfall is known, the levers that can close...
U.S. gas prices rose for the first time in eight weeks — 'Iran is the reason why,' per GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan — while...
Washington and Tehran can't agree whether the Strait of Hormuz is open — Trump declared it open under a new U.S. 'guardian' regime, while...
A single Ukrainian drone forced Russia's largest refinery, in Omsk, to halt operations, knocking out units that make roughly 75 percent of its output...
Carafano argues Iran has lost its nuclear option, its missile mass, its proxy network, and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz all at...
Ukrainian drones set two major Russian refineries ablaze overnight — including Salavat in Bashkortostan, the last gas refinery untouched in 2026 — while Russia...
Trump is stuck. He started a war with Iran he expected to end quickly; six months on, the central point of contention is control...
The United States can hit almost anything Iran places near the Strait of Hormuz. It cannot hit the strait itself. That distinction is the...
Last year North Korea's newest destroyer rolled over at its own launch, and the world assumed the program was finished for years. Instead Pyongyang...
The KN-23, North Korea's version the Russian Iskander missile, showed up to fight in the Ukraine war. And it isn't the same platform as...
On May 21, 2025, a brand-new North Korean destroyer rolled over and partially capsized at its own launch ceremony — with Kim Jong Un...
Fake Russian IDs, Orders Never to Be Captured, and 50% Casualties: Inside North Korea’s Secret War in Ukraine The Russian Army has sustained nearly...
The Canadian F-35 saga has a new chapter: observer status in the Global Combat Air Program, the British-Japanese-Italian effort to build a sixth-generation successor...
The USS Gerald R. Ford has begun a planned incremental availability (PIA) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard that is expected to last around 18 months....
The U.S. Navy’s last three flagship surface ship programs — the Littoral Combat Ship, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, and the Constellation-class frigate — all ended...
In April 1945, Japan sent the Yamato — the largest and most powerful battleship ever built — on a one-way suicide mission to Okinawa....
The famous number in America’s submarine crisis is the construction gap. But a large share of the boats the Navy already owns cannot go...
