The dramatic surge in U.S. military power in the Caribbean since August 2025 — anchored by the arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the deployment of F-35s to Puerto Rico, expanded naval patrols, the buildup of some 15,000 U.S. personnel, and the announcement of a naval blockade of Venezuelan tankers carrying sanctioned oil — suggests that Washington is preparing for a forceful confrontation with Venezuela. The Trump administration initially framed the deployment as a counter-narcotics surge, but the scale of the buildup far surpasses what is typically required to interdict drug boats.
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The Coast Guard is keen on expanding its use of drones and autonomous vessels, but service leaders and government officials foreshadowed to lawmakers this week the need to update regulations on their use, specifically in the face of cyber threats, questions over crew requirements and safety.
Transitioning out of the military is the most anxiety-inducing land nav course you will ever attempt. You go from having a clear mission and a chain of command to being a thirty-year-old freshman surrounded by teenagers whose idea of stress is a misplaced iPad charger.
You have the GI Bill, which solves the financial problem, but money cannot buy you peace of mind, and it certainly cannot buy you the sense that you belong.
Related: Everything there is to know about military pay and veteran benefits for 2026
The statistics are pretty brutal, too, no sugarcoating.
When people talk about Iran’s “axis of resistance,” they usually mean places like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, or Yemen. But Tehran has another partner thousands of miles away, sitting on the edge of the Caribbean and just a few hundred miles from the United States: Venezuela.
The relationship between Iran and Venezuela isn’t new. Their formal ties predate the Iranian Revolution of the late 1970s, but they got much deeper under Hugo Chávez in the early 2000s and under Nicolás Maduro since 2013.
Starting this month, the Army has begun closing some dining facilities at major bases to begin renovations that will overhaul and privatize how soldiers eat on base. But according to documents posted on a federal contracting site, the Army’s next major dining makeover may be the chow halls that feed brand new soldiers as recruits at basic training and when they move on to advanced individual training schools.
In 2024, Shanshan Mei and Dennis J. Blasko wrote, “Don’t Ever Invade China: Xi Jinping Prioritizes Border, Coastal, and Air Defense,” where they argued that homeland protection has always been and will continue to be the Chinese military’s primary directive. A year later, amidst developments in both China’s military capabilities and geopolitical shifts, we asked them to revisit their article.Image: U.S.
For generations, the Indian Scouts served as the essential eyes and ears of the United States Army across the vast, unforgiving landscapes of the American West. Decades before radios, satellites, night-vision devices, drones, or GPS changed warfare, these Indigenous warriors perfected the arts of tracking, reconnaissance, infiltration, and survival.
Douglas Matty is exiting his role as the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer and moving on to focus on the Trump administration’s “Golden Dome for America” missile defense initiative, DefenseScoop has learned.
Congress was sent notification regarding the move this week and the Defense Department is expected to announce its plans on Wednesday.
Principal Deputy CDAO Andrew Mapes will lead the department’s AI hub in an acting capacity until a new CDAO is hired.
The UK government has missed its own self-imposed deadline to publish the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) in the autumn of this year.
The military has long struggled with keeping enlisted troops’ barracks clean and safe, for a variety of reasons ranging from age, deferred maintenance, and that properly maintaining them tends to slide to the bottom of a long list of budgetary priorities. However, the Navy’s top enlisted leader said he believes one possible solution would be to have sailors make repairs to their own living quarters, but no final decision on the matter has been made.