This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Brig. Gen. Steven P. Carpenter, the commanding general of Multi-Domain Command – Europe, the U.S. Army’s first multi-domain operations command, headquartered at Clay Kaserne in Mainz-Kastel, Germany. Multi-Domain Command – Europe serves as the premier multi-domain fires headquarters for U.S. Army Europe and Africa. We spoke with Brig. Gen.

On Aug. 24, 2026, the Trump administration transmitted the text of the U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement to Congress. By doing so, the administration triggered the 90-day congressional review process described in the Atomic Energy Act and relaunched a debate about the right approach to international nuclear commerce.The United States and Saudi Arabia jointly announced a deal in Nov. 2025 and signed the final text in July 2026.

China has warned that the United States’ newly acknowledged deployment of weapons in orbit could trigger a global arms race, following Washington’s first public confirmation that it possesses operational “on-orbit space control weapons.” The disclosure by U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink on September 14 represented the most direct public acknowledgement by a senior American official that the United States has placed weapons in space. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun responded by calling on Washington to halt its military expansion in outer space. “We urge the U.S.

Russian drone operators are taping $2 compasses to FPV drones to navigate without guidance systems.
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The Pentagon continues to face concerns over whether the U.S. defence industrial base has sufficient capacity to simultaneously develop and produce the U.S. Air Force’s F-47 and the U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX sixth generation fighters. Although the F-47 program is progressing towards a planned first flight by 2028, the Navy’s F/A-XX program has only recently been revived after facing an effective suspension, with Air Force’s Director of Critical Major Weapon Systems General Dale R. White having warned that limitations in manpower and production capacity remain significant constraints.

The U.S. Air Force is considering purchasing newly built F-16 fighters to address an increasingly severe shortage of fighter aircraft, as the service develops its proposed fiscal 2028 budget and accompanying five-year Future Years Defense Program. This would represent the first procurement of new F-16s by the U.S. Air Force in more than two decades, after procurements ended in 2005. Lockheed Martin currently manufactures F-16 Block 70 aircraft for international customers, which is expected to serve as the basis for the newly proposed F-16G variant.

The Korean People’s Army is expanding and upgrading facilities used to train troops for urban warfare, according to new satellite imagery. The construction is taking place at major military training areas near Pyongyang and in Unsan County, including facilities previously associated with the Korean People’s Army’s special operations forces.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki has called for an emergency meeting after Russian drones closed two of the country’s airports on the morning of Wednesday, 16th September.

Polish fighter jets were scrambled, and operations were temporarily halted at Lublin Airport and Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport after Russian drones attacked Ukrainian targets close to the country’s border.

MiG-29 Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

MiG-29 National Security Journal Photo Taken in July, 2025.

Meet LCpl Ryan Mountjoy, a serving PTI who now

Strength, teamwork and warrior skills💪
Twelv

Gen. Christopher LaNeve told an audience of soldiers on Tuesday that the decision to end a specialized unit’s drone mission and return it to an airborne infantry status predated his tenure as the service’s top uniformed officer, contradicting weeks-old reporting amid a recent chorus of Army officials defending the move. 
Last fall, the Army tasked an infantry battalion from the 173rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team to function as a dedicated drone unit.

This video describes the military situation in

A global energy crisis is brewing because of the Iran war.

The energy implications of the conflict, which has been waging for well over six months, have long been clear.

Generic Oil Tanker Image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Iran’s proximity to, and subsequent control of, the Strait of Hormuz has been well documented, as have the ramifications for global energy prices.

However, as conflict drags on, so too have its implications, and concerns are once again rising over energy prices as a new front opens up.

The search is underway to find a replacement fo

The Air Force has spent the last year building up a new system to defend bases from drones and missiles, testing everything from artificial intelligence-powered detection systems to electronic warfare and kinetic weapons designed to physically knock drones out of the sky. 
Now the service intends to dedicate airmen whose primary responsibility will be defending bases against aerial attacks.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen.

Yemen’s Houthis have gone on the offensiv

The Air Force’s portfolio acquisition executive responsible for modernizing command and control plans to create a new contract vehicle for the DAF Battle Network and other capabilities.
The upcoming multi-award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract vehicle will be called Megatron, according to Brig. Gen. Joshua Williams, PAE for command, control, communications and battle management (C3BM).

History Made!

In 2025, Jennifer Kavanaugh and Christopher McCallion wrote, “Armed Neutrality for Ukraine Is NATO’s Least Poor Option,” where they made the case for armed neutrality over full NATO membership as the wiser course for both Ukraine and NATO. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments. Image: MidjourneyIn your 2025 article, you argued that NATO membership and binding U.S. or European security guarantees for Ukraine were effectively unworkable, and that armed neutrality was the option best suited to protecting both Ukraine’s security and NATO’s credibility.

The House of Representatives has passed another measure aimed at ending U.S. military action in Iran after seven Republicans voted with the Democrats.

The House voted 220-204 to pass another War Powers Resolution on Tuesday, 15th September, in the third congressional effort to end the war with Iran.

President Donald J. Trump participates in a Most Favored Nation Drug Pricing for American Patients announcement, Monday, August 31, 2026, in the Oval Office at the White House.

A new Wolf has arrived🐺
Land Rover has revea

The Houthi rebels are once again gaining territory in Yemen.

After recent renewed hostilities in the country’s long-running civil war, the Houthis are threatening Saudi Arabian shipping routes and targeting the country’s civilian infrastructure.

The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) sails in the Philippine Sea Aug. 26, 2018 during a Passing Exercise (PASSEX) with the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force. PASSEX enabled the Wasp ARG and the JMSDF a chance to practice communications and maneuvering procedures.

The Army is scaling up its helicopter defenses with nearly $5 billion for new anti-missile laser systems.
Last week, the Army awarded Northrop Grumman $4.8 billion to produce laser-based missile defense systems for its Common Infrared Countermeasures, or CIRCM, program. 
The countermeasures are designed to protect against threats like shoulder-fired Stinger missiles.

The age of AI-enabled drone warfare is here, and U.S. military leaders should assume that their troops will be “hunted” by autonomous systems on the battlefield, according to America’s top officer.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine highlighted the threat during a keynote speech Wednesday at AFA’s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference, citing the Ukraine-Russia war as an example.

HII’s mission technologies division secured a five-year task order to advance research on airdrop and combat feeding techniques for the US Army.

Training as a close protection officer teaches

About 15 minutes into “Mayday” I had to be reminded that this was not the film to watch if I wanted military accuracy. It is, however, perfect for nostalgia and laughs. 
Set in 1987, “Mayday” follows a U.S. Navy fighter pilot—callsign “Assassin”—who is shot down behind enemy lines where he is saved by a man who claims he wants to defect to America.
Also Read: Why the SR-71 Blackbird is the only aircraft with the SR designation
Assassin is played by Ryan Reynolds, who has portrayed a fighter pilot in another goofy movie you may remember called “Green Lantern.

General Dynamics Land Systems-UK (GDLS-UK) and ARX Robotics have formed a new collaboration aimed at advancing the integration of autonomous systems with British Army crewed vehicles.

During his illustrious career in the U.S. Army, Stanley McChrystal became a four-star general. McChrystal was commander of Joint Special Operations Command when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003. McChrystal was also JSOC’s chief when it targeted and killed al-Qaida’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi three years later.
Even if his time in uniform did not end like he might have hoped—he submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama in 2010 after a controversial Rolling Stone article—McChrystal did his family proud.

Aviationist
AFSOC said the latest combat evaluation took place this spring within U.S.

Duncan Wood, NatInt
The U.S.

Michael Marrow, Breaking Defense
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B. Everstine, AvWeek
The U.S.

GDN
Castelion’s Blackbeard hypersonic strike weapon is moving into production for the U.S.

This video describes the military situation in

This video describes the military situation in

The Pentagon is partnering with an organization focused on unmanned system competitions to run its Top Drone program, officials said this week, teeing up events that will pit remote pilots against each other under a core blueprint.
At a Technology Readiness and Experimentation (T-REX) event run by the Defense Department’s research and engineering directorate last year, pilots flew drones under simulated battlefield conditions in the inaugural Top Drone demonstration. 
Now, the R&E office is transferring the program to the U.S.

For all the warnings about an increasingly capable Chinese military, this may very well be an awkward moment for Beijing to have that military tested. General Secretary Xi Jinping has hollowed out much of the People’s Liberation Army’s senior command through purges and is now trying to rebuild it while preserving the appearance of uninterrupted strength. Several factors have allowed Xi to purge and rebuild on this scale, among them a temporary easing of external pressure. The United States unintentionally provided that comfort.

The U.S. Air Force and Boeing are making progress towards finalising the design of the F-47 sixth generation fighter, with the aircraft remaining on schedule for its first flight within the next two years. Air Force General Dale White, the service’s direct reporting programme manager for major acquisition programs, stated on September 15 that there were currently no significant obstacles threatening the target. “We are absolutely on [track] to be able to hit the mark of flying within this administration, we see no issues in front of us right now,” he stated.

The Israeli defence sector is integrating the Rafael SPICE 1000 precision-guided standoff weapon with its F-35I fifth generation fighters, providing the aircraft with a significantly longer-range air-to-surface strike capability. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced on September 15 that it was working with Lockheed Martin to integrate the 1,000-pound-class munition with the F-35 for the first time, in a project being conducted at Lockheed Martin facilities in the United States.

Newly released photographs leaked by U.S. Armed Forces personnel at facilities in the Middle East have provided a rare look at the extent of damage inflicted on American military facilities in the Middle East by Iranian missile and drone strikes during. The photographs, obtained exclusively by CBS News from serving U.S. military personnel who requested anonymity, show heavily damaged buildings, vehicles and aircraft at American positions in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

U.S. Army physical training formation, Fort Lewis, Washington. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC0

Keep the numbers in perspective. Pentagon officials estimated roughly 4,200 affected service members in 2025, a tiny fraction of the force, and treatment costs were small compared with the defense budget. That is not the hill to die on. The stronger question is consistency. The military treats chronic medical limits as readiness issues.

The U.S. Air Force is facing growing difficulties sustaining its aerial refuelling fleet, with its ability to sustain global air operations increasingly constrained by the age of its KC-135 Stratotankers and continuing problems with the newer KC-46A Pegasus. A recent assessment by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the condition and sustainment of the tanker fleet had deteriorated significantly, while the service’s transition from the KC-135 to the KC-46 has failed to proceed quickly enough to prevent a growing capability gap.

Footage released by Chinese state media has provided a rare look at the country’s underground military facilities, which form a vast network designed to protect strategic weapons, command structures, aircraft, ammunition and personnel from air and missile attacks. This subterranean infrastructure has a much broader role and represents an important component of China’s approach to surviving and continuing to fight through a major conflict.

China has for the first time provided a semi-official acknowledgment of its significant investments in expanding its silo-based intercontinental-range ballistic missile arsenal, after work on this was first observed in commercial satellite imagery in 2021. A new CCTV documentary marking the 99th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army features a PLA engineer discussing his work constructing what he describes as “houses for missiles” in remote mountains and deserts.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Manned fighter jets from NATO nations have recently been called upon to shoot down suspected Russian drones flying over allied territory, but the commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe envisions a future in which that type of work could be offloaded to AI-enabled unmanned platforms.
USAFE boss Lt. Gen. Jason Hinds on Tuesday outlined “vignettes” for Collaborative Combat Aircraft employment.

The French Rafale F5 program represents an effort to keep an ageing fourth generation design relevant into the fifth and sixth generation eras, according a recent assessment by leading combat aviation expert Abraham Abrams.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — As policymakers and Pentagon leaders determine the Space Development Agency’s future, its personnel are focused on meeting near-term deadlines to deploy the next generation of U.S. military satellites that detect hypersonic missiles and other emerging weapons threats.
SDA’s Director Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo shared new details about how the agency is operating in this time of uncertainty, during a media roundtable Tuesday on the sidelines of AFA’s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference.

The U.S. military has “probably used” one-half to two-thirds of its missile defense interceptors in its war with Iran, a congressional report found. The report’s authors warned the diminished stockpile could hamstring U.S. efforts if it had to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion.
The dire warnings about the U.S. munitions were included in a Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday. The report was produced in response to a request for cost estimates related to combat operations against Iran by Rep. Brendan F. Boyle (D-Pa.

A Nato fighter has shot down a drone over Lithu