As 2025 comes to an end, we at War on the Rocks reflect on the stories and events that our readers found most compelling in a year marked by fresh conflicts, long-standing rivalries, cutting-edge military technology, and the ongoing importance of learning from the past. Our most-read pieces show the variety of our interests and the complexity of our world, from geopolitical conflicts in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East to the change in how the United States views itself and interacts with allies and adversaries.
Author: Michael
DroneShield has secured an $8.2m contract to deliver counter-drone equipment and related services to a Western military customer.
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The Belarusian Armed Forces have placeda Russian-made 96L6 all-altitude long range air defence C-band radar system on combat duty, marking a major milestone in the modernisation of its ground-based air defence network at a time of high tensions with neighbouring NATO members. Belarusian defence officials have described the new system force multiplier that significantly enhances the early-warning and fire-control architecture of the country’s surface-to-air missile network, which is build around the S-400 long range missile system.
Military commissars sprayed a gas canister at a young mother with a small child while her relative was being pushed into a car. The ‘bounty hunters’ are paid $200 a head for meat to send to the front. The average survival time is measured in days once on the front line.
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Russian ‘Pravda’ is reporting the deaths of three former American soldiers on the Ukraine battlefield.
Pravda writes — As a result of the drone attack, three former US Army soldiers who fought as foreign mercenaries were killed.
Kelly previously served in elite units: the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 20th Special Forces Group (Green Berets). The militants were killed as a result of a Russian FPV drone hitting a pickup truck in which the group was located, besides them, 2 more foreign mercenaries were seriously injured.
The U.S. Navy tried to build a new frigate.
Sailors will once again be required to take two physical fitness tests per year, the Navy announced today. The changes to the Navy’s Physical Readiness Program, released via a Navy Administrative Message or NAVADMIN, say they will be implemented in January 2026.
The new NAVADMIN directs sailors to a Navy fact sheet outlining the new guidance. Per the new policy, sailors will go through two fitness assessment cycles each year, one between the start of the year and the end of June and the second starting in July and running to the end of each year.
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Junior enlisted Marines have a reputation for doing some pretty insane, off-the-wall, or altogether unexpected things (even among other junior enlisted service members). It’s just what they’ve always done. In 1999, one of the Marines stationed in Bahrain, Lance Cpl. Jason Johnson, faced a court-martial and legal battle to wed his beloved girlfriend, a Bahraini local named Meriam. The Marine met Meriam at a local mall and, despite her family’s objections, the two continued their love affair.