A former Fort Bragg contractor was arrested Tuesday and charged with leaking national defense information online. The Department of Justice said that Army contractor James Thomas Ashbacher, 37, He was charged with theft of government property and unlawfully transmitting and retaining national defense information. 
Prosecutors alleged that Ashbacher photographed or took photos and videos showing military operations and kept some of write ups inside his home.

Some thank-yous come in the mail. This one comes with the reply.
This Veterans Day, Navy Federal Credit Union is covering reply postage on eligible Sandboxx letters from November 1 until 4:30 p.m. ET on Friday, November 13. Here’s what’s included and how to make the most of it before the offer ends.
Why Is Navy Federal Providing Free Reply Postage?
Veterans know what a letter from home is worth. For many, mail was the thread that connected them to the people who loved them while they served.
Navy Federal wants to honor that service in a way that reaches the military community directly.

The U.S. Air Force has returned fighter aircraft to an air defence alert posture at Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island in Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands for the first time since the 1990s. The deployment, which took place from October 18 to 26, 2026, saw F-16 lightweight fourth generation fighters maintain an alert posture while operating from one of the United States’ westernmost military outposts. The move highlights the growing strategic importance of the North Pacific and Arctic approaches amid intensifying military competition with Russia and China.

The Pentagon’s top commanders leading the charge against Iran met with American President Donald Trump earlier this week to discuss with the Commander in Chief what his options are against Iran, should he choose to renew strikes against the country’s embattled, notionally Islamist regime there. The president has publicly eschewed renewed attacks on the country before the United States’ looming midterm elections next week, likely to help cool the volatile energy prices seen in recent weeks.

West Point cadets march during Acceptance Day, August 16, 2025. Photo: Michael J. Gray / Wikimedia Commons

Originally published at STARRS.
By Col. Rob Maness, USAF retSTARRS Board of Advisors
The Department of War has ended lifetime tenure for future civilian professors at our five military academies.
The mission is simple and clear. These schools exist to prepare the next generation of officers to lead the men and women of the greatest military on Earth and win, not to churn out faculty-lounge theorists.

Let’s set the scene for this super sweet military spouse “meet-cute.”
You recently PCS’d to a new duty station and took the kids to the local playground on base. While pushing your child on the swings, you notice another parent by the slide. She’s chasing a darling toddler, and you find yourself smiling because, well, that is your life too. Chasing kids while your spouse serves the nation.
You hesitate to approach her, but then you remember you’ve been here before. You’re the newbie at a new installation, and honestly, you need friends ASAP.

This video describes the military situation in

John Fairlamb, Defense Opinion Russia is no longer a great power.

Michael Connor, Yoni Tobin Drone warfare is expanding from the skies to the seas, and the United States must be ready.

Matti Pesu A New Way to Deter Russia

Shoebridge, Strategic Analysis Aus. After watching Russia bombard Ukrainian civilians and cities for 4.

A. Tarapore, et al.,, The Strategist (ASPI) The Quad has more policy space to undertake maritime security activities than its members’ policymakers have assumed.

This video describes the military situation in

Russia may retire its Kirov class nuclear-powered cruiser Pyotr Velikiy, the flagship of the Northern Fleet, after a special commission preliminarily concluded that the ageing warship could not be economically restored. Vladimir Maltsev, head of the All-Russian Navy Support Movement, disclosed the assessment on October 30, although he stressed that a final decision had yet to be announced. “The commission has already made a preliminary decision, the final one has not yet been announced: the cruiser cannot be restored. The ship has a certain degree of wear,” Maltsev said.

Through the first two years of the second Trump Administration, national security experts worried he might start a war to annex Greenland. Turns out we were worried about the wrong part of the Great North.

He’s been waging a quiet war on Alaska.

President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks on Trump Accounts, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

Trump’s policies and the fights he has picked have kneecapped everyday Alaskans. His bellicosity has damaged Alaska’s tourism industry.

American oil companies are profiting from the war with Iran, with new data showing U.S. energy firms have raked in more than $130 billion in profits over the last six months, nearly tripling their earnings from the same period last year.

The New York Times published the findings on Friday, October 30, as ExxonMobil and Chevron report massive third-quarter profits. The companies have benefited from disruptions to global oil supplies caused by the conflict in the Middle East.

Generic Oil Tanker Image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Oil Platform. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

President Donald Trump’s war with Iran and controversial tariff policies are two of the biggest issues in this year’s midterm election campaign.

Both are costing American households thousands of dollars, leaving many voters wondering if there will be any payoff at all.

Donald Trump Speaking in 2024. Creative Commons Image.

Trump Happy Back in 2024 Creative Commons Photo

An October 29 Bloomberg report examined the financial burden of the administration’s trade and foreign policies, and the findings were bad news for Republicans.

This video describes the military situation in

Russian attacks cut power to more than 350,000 customers in and around Dnipro, Ukraine, late Thursday, October 29 — and repair crews battled to restore power to more than 200,000 on Friday.

The blackouts followed a deadly drone attack on the city’s railway station amid missile and drone attacks overnight on the capital city of Kyiv and across central Ukraine.

Neptune Missile. Image Credit: Government of Ukraine.

Ukraine War Map. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Vice President JD Vance has hit back at former President Barack Obama, accusing the Democratic heavyweight of being “super elitist.” It comes after Obama recently compared President Donald Trump’s White House renovations to a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, joking that it looks like it was opened by former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein.

Vance made the comments during a Fox News town hall event in Texas on Thursday, October 29, as Republicans and Democrats continue to exchange criticism over the president’s extensive renovation projects, including the construction of a ballroom.

A Navy corpsman with Marine special operations forces was recognized with a battlefield medic award for saving the lives of French soldiers injured in a drone attack during the first month of the Iran war.
“It was just a surreal moment … You train and you practice for real-world scenarios like this. However, every corpsman doesn’t get the opportunity or will not have that experience to actually be in a moment like that, or to even provide real-world care to that extent,” Petty Officer 2nd Class Jajuan Hernandez told Task & Purpose.

An oil tanker has been hit with limpet mines in the Strait of Hormuz, marking a key escalation in the war that broke out in February, following joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

An average of 20 million barrels of oil passed through the narrow waterway each day in 2024, marking about 20% of global petroleum liquids trade.

Oil fields. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Oil Platform. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

After being attacked, Louise 1 caught fire and was disabled after a small boat approached and affixed two explosive charges to its hull on Thursday.

Brent December futures were up 2.4% to $117.62 a barrel by 10:45 a.m. GMT on Friday, October 30. U.S. West Texas Intermediate reached $104.18 as both benchmarks seem set for their fourth straight month of gains.

These figures come amid fresh speculation that the U.S. and Israel could launch renewed strikes on Iran after next Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States.

Gas Prices in Davenport, Florida. Image by National Security Journal.

Air Force maintainers can spend days replacing

Two airmen supporting U.S. operations against Iran died this month in noncombat incidents, the Pentagon revealed late Thursday, bringing the total number of American military fatalities in the war to 23. 
The incidents were logged in the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the Defense Department’s casualty database, on Oct. 29. The Department of Defense has not identified the two airmen. Or the specific time and location of their deaths, except that they occurred in October.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow is ready for war with Europe, but claimed he did not want the conflict to unfold in the first place.

Putin made his comments following an unusual call with the leaders of Finland and Norway, as Washington tries to spark a new round of talks on the war in Ukraine.

Tu-160 Bomber Russian Air Force Photo

Tu-160 Bomber from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its southern neighbor in February 2022.

As a sign of how isolated Russia’s leader feels he and his country are, Putin said he would welcome any warming of relations between Russia and the West.

But ensconced within the Kremlin’s walls, the Russian president also affirmed that should the war he started in Ukraine expand outward, the ensuing conflagration on the European continent would benefit no one.

T-14 Armata. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Main battle tank T-14 object 148 on heavy unified tracked platform Armata. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

“First of all, we are ready, but we want no war with Europe.

Cheesecake Factory Dispute Continues as Obama Renews Attack on White House Renovations – Former President Barack Obama renewed his attack on President Donald Trump’s White House renovations on Wednesday, accusing the administration of focusing more on a joke about its decorating choices than on Americans’ rising costs.

Speaking in Morrow, Georgia, Obama ridiculed the response to his comparison of Trump’s gold-heavy White House makeover to a Cheesecake Factory opened by Saddam Hussein.

President Donald J.

The Army is rehearsing how to temporarily bury thousands of fallen soldiers and honor their religious beliefs in a future war where recovering bodies and returning them home may be impossible until the fighting ends.
The exercise, reported by Military Times, brought together Army chaplains, engineers and mortuary affairs specialists to rehearse a scenario in which the military could no longer provide individual funeral ceremonies for its fallen.

Putin Raises Taxes to Fund Ukraine War – Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to introduce a new round of tax hikes as the cost of the Ukraine war continues to put significant pressure on the country’s finances. On Thursday, October 29, Russia’s parliament approved the first reading of a new three-year federal budget that would see military spending increased to record levels. Taxes on businesses, investors, and consumers will increase.

ASEAN members continue the development of their defence industries, with localised production of foreign designs being key.

Are Britain’s elite Paras training for th

According to recent media reports, false intelligence generated by AI came close to causing a military confrontation with China this spring. Thinking a Chinese ship in the Middle East was carrying components for nuclear weapons, the U.S. military was prepared to board the vessel. Just before the operation was launched, it was discovered that a chatbot had inaccurately identified the ship’s cargo.
With the Department of War (DoW) aggressively pushing to implement AI across all levels, we cannot assume that close calls like this one will be isolated incidents.

Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have canceled scheduled appearances ahead of the final weekend before Tuesday’s midterm elections.

President Trump pulled out of planned rallies in Kansas and Iowa and replaced them with telephone appearances.

2016 Donald Trump Campaign Stop Creative Commons

Donald Trump Speaking Creative Commons Released Photo

At the same time, Vance, expected to announce the administration’s anti-fraud campaign, canceled a scheduled rally in Minnesota on Friday.

War can be pretty gruesome, especially for the wars that were won and lost by hacking people to death with sharp objects, smashing the enemy with big, heavy rocks, and yeeting plague-ridden corpses into cities by catapult. These days, wars aren’t “clean” but they aren’t as horrifying as your great-grandaddy’s war, either. Even so, as medical technology advanced, the horrifying ways to maim and kill the enemy advanced, too.

Qatari mediators have returned to Tehran as part of a diplomatic mission to help the United States and Iran reach a deal to end their nine-month war, Reuters reported on Friday.

The source, “an official briefed on the talks,” also said the United States coordinated the talks.

An F-22 Raptor performs an aerial demonstration at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, Sept. 21, 2025. Designed for both air superiority and ground attack missions, the F-22 demonstrates the flexibility and power of fifth-generation fighter technology. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt.

A Win on Tuesday May Not Be a Win for the Democrats – Unless the Republican Party pulls off a historic political turnaround, the Democratic Party is set to win the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3.

National polling shows the party benefiting from dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump.

According to a generic congressional ballot polling average, the Democratic Party leads by nine percentage points, suggesting a successful night is forthcoming even if polls overestimate voter enthusiasm for the Democrats.

Donald Trump Getting Off Air Force One. Creative Commons Image.

The views and opinion expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities mentioned.
On a summer day in the French Alps, Peter Ortiz made a decision. Surrounded by more than 100 Germans with machine guns, the 31-year-old American Marine major stepped into the open and called out in German, French, and English, waving a makeshift white flag.

President Donald Trump was presented with several military options for potential new military strikes against Iran on Thursday, October 29, as the Pentagon continues to move additional military equipment into the Middle East.

The briefing, which was delivered by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. Brad Cooper, comes as Washington considers options to resume major combat operations against Tehran.

A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit Bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, undertook a hot pit refueling operation at Lajes Field, on September 12, 2023.

Drones from Ukraine carried out a couple of major strikes in Russia on Friday, hitting both the Novokuybyshevsk Oil Refinery in the Samara region and a military food supplier, the Konservsushprod factory, in the Bryansk region. Fires were reported at both facilities.

According to the Kyiv Post, the oil refinery produces jet fuel for the Russian military, while the food supplier also works with the military. Owned by Rosneft, the Novokuybyshevsk Oil Refinery processes about 8.8 million tons of crude oil per year and produces 20 different types of petroleum products.

BUILT FOR BATTLE | Military Motivation
✓ Mili

Trump’s presidency lived by inflation and could be stung by it: There’s a good reason to think that inflation was the biggest reason why Donald Trump is president today.

Throughout Joseph Biden’s presidency, inflation was a major problem, for the first time in a generation. As in much of the world, pandemic-era supply-chain bottlenecks combined with too much money in the economy drove prices up. Politicians had few answers on how to solve the problem.

Joe Biden and Russian President Putin. Image Credit: Creative Commons

President Joe Biden.

JD Vance Sends Letter to Iran to Resume Peace Talks – Vice President JD Vance has reportedly sent a letter to a senior Iranian official in an effort to revive negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the eight-month conflict.

The letter to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, comes as Washington considers renewed military action after Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Vice President JD Vance gives remarks at a Sports Council announcement, Thursday, July 31, 2025, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Over the past decade, the United States has come to recognize that space is no longer a sanctuary. China and Russia are developing weapons to disrupt, disable and destroy American satellites. The Space Force now talks openly about weapons in space, orbital warfare, and space superiority. Just last month, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink stated for the first time that the Space Force “has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”
Government funding has followed. The Space Force’s fiscal 2027 budget request, at $71.

The European defence procurement organisation OCCAR has ordered 69 additional Schakal wheeled infantry fighting vehicles for the German and Dutch armed forces.

Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $1.08bn Other Transaction Agreement from the US Army to further develop and test the PAC-3 Edge interceptor, marking a significant step in the Army’s Future Interceptor programme.

A new survey found that support for President Donald Trump remains strong among white evangelical Christians.

A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll found that 66% approved of Trump’s performance, while nearly three-quarters planned to support Republican congressional candidates.

President Donald Trump holds a press conference with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Monday, May 12, 2025, in the Roosevelt Room. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

President Donald J.

Eliseo Garcia celebrated his 20th birthday on February 13, 1951.
Well, it wasn’t as though Garcia blew out candles and opened gifts at a party. There was no time for that. Garcia, who retired from the U.S. Army as a command sergeant major in 1972, was fighting in the Battle of Chipyong-Ni, one of the most pivotal skirmishes during the Korean War.
“A lot of us were young guys,” Garcia later reflected. “… Some of the guys were teasing me that I was getting some unwanted guests for my birthday.

Russian forces launched ballistic missiles against Kiev’s Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts late on October 29, reportedly employing RM-48U missiles fired from S-400 long range air defence systems. The strikes caused fires and damage to warehouses, residential buildings and other infrastructure. The RM-48U is understood to be a modified derivative of the 48N6 interceptor family originally developed for the S-300PM and later integrated into the S-400.

As military leaders call for public support and