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The U.S. Navy’s future Constellation class frigates could see their top speeds cut back to help mitigate unexpected growth in their overall weight. The Navy and shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine otherwise continue to grapple with the impacts of major changes in the ship’s configuration compared to its Franco-Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM) parent design. The entire purpose of basing the Constellations on an existing in-production frigate was to help reduce costs, delivery times, and risk, but they have shaped up to be larger, heavier, and now years behind schedule.

As Ukrainian’s second-largest city has been pounded by Russian missile, glide bomb and artillery strikes, officials in Kyiv have begged the U.S. to allow the use of donated long-range weapons to strike back across the border, into Russia directly. Now that is going to happen.
In a major policy shift, the Biden administration “recently” approved Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied weapons on Russian territory, but only near Kharkiv, two U.S. officials confirmed to The War Zone. Ukraine has long been barred by the U.S. from using weapons it has donated against targets in Russia proper.

Officials at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina are looking into the possibility of setting up physical barriers to help protect F-15E Strike Eagles there from being attacked by small drones. The anti-drone barricade idea underscores the danger that drones present right now to U.S. military facilities and critical civil infrastructure domestically, as well as to American forces overseas. It also speaks to how the U.S. military is still lagging in efforts to address these still-growing threats at home and abroad, as well as continued legal, regulatory, and other challenges.

North Korea floated hundreds of balloons that contained human waste and other garbage into South Korea. (Twitter screenshot).
U.S. troops and their families assigned to South Korea received an air raid message warning earlier this week that may have sounded like the beginning of World War III.
But it was just Number Two.
The warning was to let them know that North Korea had sent hundreds of balloons carrying human waste and other foul things across the 38th Parallel.

In the wake of a new $480 million contract award, U.S. military combatant commands are about to get expanded access to data integration and artificial intelligence tools to aid battlespace awareness and targeting.
Wednesday evening the Pentagon announced that Palantir landed a deal for its Maven Smart System led by the Army.

Israel’s Iron Dome system, built by a consortium of Rafael, IAI and Raytheon (now RTX), has proven incredibly effective at swatting down thousands of rockets and other projectiles, and is now being procured by the U.S. Marine Corps for drone and cruise missile defense. At the heart of the system is the Tamir interceptor, a highly agile and precise missile that is now also in use in a naval role as part of the C-Dome system. This relatively cheap and proven weapon could potentially help solve a very pressing problem for fighter aircraft.
Here’s how.

PHILADELPHIA — The Army has reached an inflection point as it continues to modernize its network.
This journey began around six years ago to provide units with modernized kit on a predictable two-year cycle, and in the last three years the service sought to unify the tactical and enterprise networks into a single, global unified network.
Observations in Ukraine are forcing changes all across the Army to include the network, such as smaller and more mobile systems to allow forces to move faster on the battlefield.

Insurance isn’t just another line item in your military readiness checklist — it’s a critical asset that safeguards your family’s future and its importance can’t be overstated. It’s not a question of whether you need it, but rather how you can tailor different types of coverage to suit your unique life journey.
Life insurance is one of the most important financial decisions you can make. It reassures your loved ones they will have financial support to continue their lives, pursue their dreams and feel secure, even in your absence.

Welcome to Rewind & Reconnoiter. Each week, we’ll ask one of our authors to look back at an article they’ve written for War on the Rocks in light of a current news event. Did their argument hold up? Read more below to find out. *** In 2021, Kelly McFarland co-authored “To Tackle Instability and Conflict, It’s Time to Elevate Hunger as a National Security Priority,” in which he argued that, “conflict and food are intricately related” and that, “[t]he Biden administration and future U.S.

The Navy’s chief technology officer released a memo that outlines a new plan to help the department more widely adopt and host structured challenge events, like hackathons, that can speedily advance capability deployments across the sea service.