Author: Michael

Summary and Key Points: Ukraine will never get the 1945 image of total victory, and it cannot retake Crimea and the Donbas by force.

-But Russia invaded to erase Ukraine entirely, and against that aim, a free, armed, prosperous nation is a Russian defeat.

T-90M from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Here are five ways Ukraine wins the war that actually matters: a defended line, real security guarantees, a military powerhouse, the sovereign right to join Europe, and reconstruction into lasting prosperity.

Summary and Key Points: America’s network of major bases across Asia — its biggest bet for deterring China — now sits within range of Beijing’s vast missile, drone, and hypersonic arsenal, which dwarfs anything Iran fielded in the recent war.

-Key sites like Guam remain lightly hardened, and analysts, including Hudson’s “Concrete Sky” report, warn that shelters are too few.

Aircraft from the 1st Fighter Wing conducted an Elephant Walk at Langley Air Force Base, Jan. 31, 2025, showcasing the wing’s readiness and operational agility.

Summary and Key Points: Designed to replace the legendary M1 Garand, the M14 rifle entered service in 1957 — and quickly earned a brutal nickname.

-GIs called it “the anti-aircraft rifle” because it climbed almost uncontrollably on full-auto.

160509-N-IX266-013 SOUTH CHINA SEA—Civilian mariner Terrence P. Dumas, fire marshal on the fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Ericsson (T-AO 194) fires an M14 service rifle during a small-arms weapons qualification course here, May 5. (U.S. Navy photo by Grady T.

Last year, National Security Journal traveled to see both of the two Boeing X-32 aircraft that still exist. One sits indoors in the Research and Development gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The other sits outdoors on the flight line at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, where the salt air and the sun have not been kind to it. We have photos and video of both airframes, and they appear throughout this article.

Summary and Key Points: Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a striking number of Russian elites — oil executives, bankers, officials, and Kremlin critics — have died in falls from windows, balconies, and rooftops.

-They include Lukoil chairman Ravil Maganov, who fell from a Moscow hospital window weeks after his company urged peace, and a Transneft executive who fell from a 17th-floor window in 2025.

Putin Looking Grim. Image Credit: Russian Federation

-Most were ruled suicides or accidents, and proof of foul play is scarce.

-But the pattern keeps growing.

Summary and Key Points: Battered by a country smaller in every metric — GDP, population, land, and army — Russia is in no shape to take on NATO, even as Europe worries Putin might test the alliance.

-Ukraine inflicted more than 35,000 casualties in April alone, roughly erasing Russia’s fresh recruits for the month, and Putin can’t order a broader mobilization without risking dangerous unrest at home.

MiG-29 Fighter U.S. Air Force Museum July 2025. Image Credit: National Security Journal.

-As one Baltic spy chief put it, problems inside Russia “are starting to pile up.

A growing set of problems with Russia’s war in Ukraine may be pushing the Kremlin to launch a serious escalation of its military effort. This deteriorating situation in the Ukraine war is causing an increasing unraveling of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-vaunted image of wise and unparalleled effective leadership.

No small measure of that unraveling is due to the Ukraine military’s apparent ability to hit any target, any arms factory, any oil refinery – even the city of Moscow itself. It is a poisonous combination for the former KGB Lt. Col.

Evan A. Laksmana, et al.

Blake Hunnewell, Military Strategy Magazine
Lessons for Strategic Leadership, Strategy, and Statesmanship Today

Journal of Strategic Studies
During the 2025 Victory Day Parade in September, China unveiled a ballistic missile defence system capable of intercepting missiles in the midcourse phase for…