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Footage released by the Russian Defence Ministry has shown road-mobile cruise missile launchers from the Iskander-K system taking part in large-scale nuclear war exercises, which are being conducted jointly with Belarus. The Iskander-K has gained growing publicity for its role in the Russian Ukrainian War, and after entering service in the mid-2010s, it was enhanced in the early 2020s with the new 9M729 cruise missile providing a much extended 1,500-2,000 kilometre engagement range.

The United States is accelerating work on the development of the Golden Dome missile defence system specifically due to the Pentagon’s growing concerns regarding the capabilities of new Chinese and Russian hypersonic missile systems. Defence officials have increasingly warned that the current U.S. missile defence architectures were primarily designed to counter limited ballistic missile threats, namely the North Korean arsenal of the 2010s, with the far larger scale and more advanced Chinese and Russian arsenals requiring an entirely new approach.

When Shenyang rolled the FC-31 Gyrfalcon out of its hangar in 2012, nobody took it seriously. The aircraft had no customer, used Russian engines, and had lost the competition to the J-20. Fourteen years later, the same airframe has produced two operational variants — the carrier-based J-35B launching from China’s first EMALS aircraft carrier, and the land-based J-35A entering frontline PLA Air Force service. Pakistan looks set to take 40 planes. The Pentagon projects that 1,300 Chinese fifth-generation fighters will be in service by 2030.

The US Department of War has announced the withdrawal of a Brigade Combat Team, comprising at least 4,000 troops, from Europe.

Lithuania has one of the highest ratios of military spending as a proportion of GDP in Nato, at 4% in 2025.

The Republic of Korea Air Force has accelerated plans to retire its F-5E/F fighters from service, after these aircraft for decades formed the backbone of its fleet, bringing forward the date of retirement from the end of 2030, to the end of 2027. The accelerated retirement timeline was announced by Air Force Chief of Staff General Son Seok-rak, at a time when the KF-21 fifth generation fighter program has faced delays and cost overruns.

BrDef
The Navy currently utilizes a 36-month Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP), but leaders want to stretch it to 56 months

WarZone
The plan is to demonstrate a fully integrated, longer-range strike capability that could keep the AC-130 relevant in high-end conflicts.

CDR Salamander
…dead or in a medically induced coma?

Heckmann, NDM
The service is on a mission to replenish its supply in more affordable and more timely ways amid looming threats of future conflict