On April 4, 2003, in the middle of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, then-Maj. Gen. James Mattis entered the command post of Marine Corps Col. Joe Dowdy and delivered news that would effectively end a nearly 24-year military career. Mattis told Dowdy he was being relieved of command, then asked him to empty his sidearm and hand over the ammunition.
“He thought I was going to try to kill myself,” Dowdy later told the Wall Street Journal.

On the morning of April 22, 2026, Blackhawk Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, began a 10-day collective training event at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany.
As Blackhawk Company rolled through the Bavarian countryside in a column of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, we didn’t realize our exercise would soon make national news in a Wall Street Journal article headlined “U.S. and Ukrainian Forces Went Head-to-Head in an Exercise. Ukraine’s Drones Won.

The Political Considerations of the Iran War – As the Iran War has stopped and started in recent months, some political questions have sort of existed in the background: If this war is continuing, and it remains historically unpopular, what will that mean for President Donald Trump’s party in the midterm elections? And will members of the president’s party need to answer for his support of the war?

Reuters looked at those considerations in a report published Thursday.

OVER NEVADA — A B-1B Lancer from the 37th Bomb Squadron, Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., streaks through the sky.

The service has selected the LOCUST X3 laser ma

WARSAW, POLAND – In times of war, rival government agencies and organizations will normally try to paper over their differences – if not put them aside altogether – for the sake of the common good.

That kind of “we are all in this together” sentiment, as apparent, does not operate within the Ukrainian intelligence services.

Zelensky Speaking in UK Ukraine Government Photo

On Wednesday morning, 2 September, a shootout between Ukraine’s two main intelligence services took place in broad daylight on the streets of Kyiv.

According to an intensive investigation by the London-based Financial Times, Russia has been engaged in a multi-year classified program to covertly assist Iran in developing advanced supersonic cruise missiles.

This is another, but ominous, development in Russia’s continuing cooperation with Iran in weapons development – a partnership that has become a standard feature of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Iran’s Drones That Russia Is Using. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Ford joins a host of automotive providers in pitching commercial vehicles adapted for military users, as the UK replaces its Land Rover fleet.

During a USO tour of Italy in 1944, actress Marlene Dietrich was not feeling well.
Dietrich was battling pneumonia, but no matter how ill she felt, she desperately wanted to be around the soldiers. Speaking to the Fifth Army, Dietrich expressed her admiration for the troops fighting fascism during World War II. Then, definitely knowing her audience, she concluded her remarks with a prediction.

I am a member of Generation X. In grade school, middle school, and high school I wrote paper after paper on Pearl Harbor, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the reasons we fought World War II. We studied what Newt Gingrich was doing, what Oliver North had done, and the status of the Cold War as it was ending. Those assignments were not optional coloring-book exercises. They were the civic equivalent of learning to swim: you were expected to know why the water was dangerous.

To this day I remember why we fought. World War II was not an abstraction about “conflict.

This video describes the military situation in

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / Fifth Fleet headquarters, Manama, Bahrain. Photo: U.S. Navy / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Iran launched coordinated attacks of missiles and drones on the American military stationed in Kuwait and Bahrain on Wednesday night. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced attacks on Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait as well as the headquarters of the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, according to reports from the Iranian state media and regional sources.

D.F.

Carley Welch, Breaking Defense
The Army today announced it has awarded AeroVironment (AV) a contract for the Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL) program of record

DefOne
In the past decade, U.S.

Global Defense News
The United States plans to equip the F-35 Lightning II with a new satellite-based Beyond Line of Sight communications capability using Starshield and the Protected…

This video describes the military situation in

We played a wargame using AI players. Two nuclear-armed nations — Red and Blue — with a long-standing, fierce border dispute were placed into a militarized crisis. Over the course of several turns, the states managed to avoid escalation to war, though there were non-operational nuclear demonstrations. Surprised by the lack of escalation we’d been primed to find by Juan-Pablo Rivera, Gabriel Mukobi, Anka Reuel, Max Lamparth, Chandler Smith, and Jacquelyn Schneider, as well as Kenneth Payne, we tried upping the stakes.

As a new convoy of Russian armored vehicles arrives from the port of Lomé to support Russia’s Africa Corps deployment in Mali, that mission has entered its fifth year. Russia’s investment of blood and treasure urgently demands a return, but what could this return be? What is the Russian end goal in Mali?When the Wagner Group, Africa Corps’ predecessor, entered Mali in December 2021, it was pursuing a resources-for-security deal like the one it had achieved in the Central African Republic.

L Todd Wood sits down with USAFA classmate, former F-15 pilot Brent Beecham to discuss latest US hits on Iran.
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The war in Iran has escalated once again after the U.S. on Tuesday attacked a series of sites in Iran, and Iran retaliated by launching missiles at military bases in several U.S.-allied nations throughout the Middle East.

Iran and its IRGC, in particular, stated that they were retaliating for a U.S. strike on a wedding taking place at a home in Sirik, a town on the Strait of Hormuz.

PACIFIC OCEAN (April 27, 2026) U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-Class guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG) 53, fires its Mk.45 5-inch deck cannon during a live fire exercise, April 27, 2026.

Trump’s Plan to Stop Iran Attacking Oil Tankers – U.S. President Donald Trump has authorized a new strategy intended to stop Iran from wreaking havoc in the Strait of Hormuz and forcing the regime to pay every time Iranian forces strike commercial shipping vessels in the waterway. It is the latest in a series of efforts intended to reduce Iran’s power over the strait as Washington attempts to normalize shipping through the Gulf.

In response to Iranian strikes, the U.S. military is now targeting Iranian government tankers. The U.S.

In April 2013, an old iron casket was found dug up and pulled out of a desecrated gravesite, its contents spilled all over the Old Church Cemetery near Waynesboro, Ga. A man, later found to be Ralph “Bubba” Hillis, along with accomplice Jerry Atkinson, had taken to digging up graves in the cemetery.
Why target the little Old Church Cemetery near Waynesboro? Because it dates to 1758 and holds the remains of Revolutionary War soldiers as well as those of Confederate troops from the Civil War—and old war relics are big business.

The Pentagon recently moved to issue a sole-source contract to a New Mexico-based nonprofit corporation that reportedly holds North America’s largest private collection of historical records documenting unidentified anomalous phenomena, including heaps of exclusive UFO case files that exist outside of the U.S. government’s expansive cache.

The next electronic warfare arms race could tur

U.S. Prepares to Sanction Banks – The United States is preparing to follow through on the biggest threats from Operation Economic Outcast, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying on Wednesday that Washington will begin targeting foreign banks, airlines, shipping companies, and other businesses that continue to help Tehran move money around the world. Speaking on September 2, Bessent said he expects to announce another sanction against a bank this week, followed by another the following week.

The United States military campaign against Iran is heating up again. Tuesday marked the largest U.S. attack on Iran since fighting paused in late July.

U.S. Central Command claimed it hit a slew of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military assets overnight following Iranian attempts to target commercial vessels and American forces in and near the Strait of Hormuz.

A U.S. Navy F/A-18F and F-35, both assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 9, fly over the Point Mugu Sea Range in Southern California with a U.S. Air Force F-15 during Gray Flag 2024 on Sept. 24, 2024.

America’s emergency oil stockpile has fallen to its lowest level since 1982, just as renewed U.S.-Iran fighting again threatens traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and pushes crude prices sharply higher.

Oil Storage Falls by 3 Million Barrels

Oil Tanker. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Oil fields. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by more than 3 million barrels in the week ending Aug. 28, leaving 286.6 million barrels in storage, ABC News reported, citing Department of Energy data.

Iran has spent years under Western sanctions, but the regime in Tehran has spent that time finding ways to sell oil anyway.

And it has done so successfully, building a sprawling network of shadow-fleet tankers and intermediaries that have enabled it to sell huge volumes to China.

A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to the 345th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron is photographed after landing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, Aug. 22, 2025.

The Army has awarded a $464.8 million contract for a laser weapon designed to destroy the type of drones that Iran has launched against U.S. troops and partner nations in the Middle East for more than five months.
The service has selected the LOCUST X3 laser made by AeroVironment, Inc. for its Enduring-High Energy Laser program, according to a company news release.
The 30-kilowatt laser is specifically designed to counter mid-sized drones that the U.S. military refers to as Group 3 unmanned aerial systems, said John Garrity, vice president of directed energy systems at AeroVironment, Inc.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Ground Force has provided a further indication of how its extensive long-range fires arsenal could be employed in a potential conflict, with new ‘Steel Rain’ airburst munitions demonstrated from PCL-191 multiple-launch rocket systems. Footage shown several rockets detonating above a training range and dispersing large quantities of high-velocity metal fragments over the area below. The weapon appears intended primarily for suppressing personnel and lightly protected equipment rather than penetrating hardened facilities.

The future of air-launched effects is here🚀

The Army awarded AeroVironment a $464.8 million deal for its Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL) program, service and company officials announced, moving the system from a prototype to what the firm said was the first production contract for directed energy weapons in U.S. history. 
AV expects to deliver “well into the dozens” of its LOCUST X3 laser weapon systems to the service under the other transaction agreement over the next few years, said John Garrity, vice president of the company’s directed energy systems arm.

In the parlance of military training, two Marine officers faced a key “Go-No Go” test last weekend in their long-shot hopes of playing NFL football.
Both got their “Gos.”
Marine 2nd Lt. Landon Robinson was named one of the 53 players who will be on the roster of the Cincinnati Bengals when the NFL season starts Sept. 9, while 2nd Lt. Eli Heidenreich made the same cut with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
By making that final 53-man roster, both are now tantalizingly close to completing a rare leap to the NFL after graduating from a service academy.

Japan’s requirements for the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) have helped drive the development of an unusually large fighter, reflecting Tokyo’s need for substantially greater range, weapons capacity and endurance than anything previously co-developed by European states.

The chaos at the Pentagon continued this week, as Daniel P. Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army, resigned. Driscoll submitted his resignation to the president in person. Wednesday will be his final day in the role.

According to the New York Times, Driscoll had been clashing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, especially over the recent ouster of Army leaders. Hegseth fired Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff, in April and has not replaced him; the Defense Secretary has also pushed out three senior officers seen as possible successors.  U.S. Army Europe’s Gen.

In the latest Sub Life, we reveal how families

Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, this week, appeared with Iran’s president and reiterated Russia’s longstanding support for Iran.

According to the Washington Post, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian appeared alongside Putin, thanked him for his support, and called for the two countries to work together to counter U.S. sanctions.

The Army test fires a Patriot missile in a recent test.

For military families, a deployment is measured in more than months. It’s birthdays, holidays, school milestones, family vacations, and ordinary weeknights spent waiting for someone to come home. So when a deployment suddenly gets extended, the math changes.
Also Read: Viral post offers hysterical ways to ragebait your service member—the comments are even funnier
Kendall Mariah is no stranger to the mental math of separation.

Iran is Divided on Whether to Continue Fighting – Iran’s authoritarian regime is in crisis.

An obvious statement, undoubtedly, given six months of war with the United States and Israel. The country has been battered militarily, the economy is collapsing, much of its previous leadership is dead, and food shortages could plunge the country into civil unrest.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II from the 924th Fighter Group of the 944th Fighter Wing fires its 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling gun during Exercise Desert Hammer 25-1 at Barry M. Goldwater Range East near Gila Bend, Ariz., Nov. 14, 2024.

Diesel Prices Are Rising to Record Highs – And That’s Bad News for Donald Trump: Experts are warning that the United States could face diesel shortages this coming winter.

Diesel reached record highs earlier this week amid a re-escalation in the Middle East and Russia’s recent export ban on the commodity.

Vice President JD Vance attends a bilateral meeting with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Monday, April 7, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Emily J.

In 2025, Michael Hunzeker and Yuster Yu wrote, “Taiwan’s Biggest Problem in Steeling Itself for War With China is Cultural,” where they argued major cultural changes were needed in both Taiwan’s military and civilian society if it were to be competitive in a conflict with China. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments.

Iran’s Economic Squeeze Gets Tighter – Six months into the U.S.-Iran war, inflation is accelerating, and Iran’s oil exports have collapsed.

Iran’s year-over-year inflation rate reached 84.4% in August, according to Central Bank figures reported by IranWire, while the rolling 12-month rate climbed to 65.1%. The rial has traded at around 2 million to the dollar on the open market, and food prices are rising considerably faster than the headline inflation rate.

Iran Claims It Killed U.S. Troops in Biggest Exchange of Fire in Weeks – Iran is publicly challenging the United States to reveal what it claims are American casualties from a major overnight missile attack in Jordan. The claim comes as the war between Washington and Tehran returns to direct military exchanges after roughly a month of relative calm. Iran launched a barrage of missile and drone strikes against American military facilities across the Middle East early on Wednesday, September 2, following extensive U.S.

286 days at sea. 5,000 sailors.

This video describes the military situation in

Germany is investigating two suspected sabotage attacks on its electricity grid within 24 hours.

Blackouts Averted

Putin in August 2025. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Police opened investigations after separate attacks in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia disrupted power infrastructure Tuesday.

Neither caused widespread blackouts, but the western attack knocked five lignite-fired generating units with a combined capacity of 4,200 megawatts off the grid, according to operator RWE.

Almost every day of the year, state-of-the-art

The war in the Middle East is once again escalating after over a month of non-combat between the United States and Iran.

Both sides had not struck one another since the end of July prior to last weekend, but U.S. strikes on Iranian rocket launchers have prompted retaliation from Tehran.

Aircraft Carrier in the Sunset. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

F-16 in Sunset US Air Force Photo

It marks the end of a chapter in the six-month conflict, in which both sides opted for an economic war instead.

An Issue of Mines
On Sunday, 30th August, the U.S.

New information suggests that Russia has been secretly helping Iran to build a new generation of supersonic cruise missiles that could dramatically escalate the current conflict, allowing the Iranian military to threaten American aircraft carriers and other naval vessels in the Middle East. A new investigation has revealed deep military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran under a program codenamed C430L.

The US Department of War (DoW) has awarded a contract to Kymeta for the supply of over 100 Osprey u8 satellite terminals.