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Summary and Key Points: It looks almost comical — a squat white dome sailors nicknamed “R2-D2.” But the Phalanx is one of the deadliest defensive weapons afloat: a radar-guided Gatling gun that fires 4,500 rounds a minute and decides on its own when to shoot, no human required. It’s a warship’s last line of defense — and in the Red Sea, it shredded a Houthi missile that had slipped past a destroyer’s Aegis shield to within a mile. But the autonomy that makes it lethal has a dark side: once, a Phalanx locked onto the wrong target and opened fire on a friendly American jet.

Summary and Key Points: At first glance, it was a display of raw power: in one night, Russia hurled 656 drones and 73 missiles at cities across Ukraine, one of its largest barrages of the war. But a growing chorus of European officials and Western spy chiefs reads it the opposite way — as a sign of weakness, even desperation. Four years into a war meant to last weeks, Russia has barely advanced past the lines it held in 2014, and one spy chief warns, “time is not in Russia’s favor.

China’s crude oil imports have collapsed since the Iran War began, but global oil markets have so far avoided the supply shock many analysts predicted. Prices at the pump are elevated, but not as high as some predictions, and crude price per barrel continues to fluctuate every time the White House indicates that a deal could be on the way. But the reason for the optimism is not that demand has fallen, or that supply isn’t short – it is, in part, because China and other economies are drawing from strategic reserves in the hope that the problem will be rectified soon.

Summary and Key Points: There’s a single island in the Persian Gulf through which Iran ships 90 percent of its oil — and planners call it the Achilles’ heel of the Iranian economy. Take Kharg out of the equation, the thinking goes, and Tehran would have to sue for peace. It’s one of several ways Washington could force the Strait of Hormuz open — from mining Iran’s waters to choking off the oil it sends to China. But each carries a cost in dollars and blood, and the war’s price has already climbed toward $100 billion.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has mandated that “joint warfighting ability” be one of the criteria considered when officers and noncommissioned officers are evaluated for promotions, according to a recent memo.
“To that end, I am directing the creation of an additional metric for our officer and non-commissioned officer evaluation processes,” Hegseth wrote in the May 20 memo, which was shared on Reddit. “The effort to create objective, data-driven metrics for measuring and identifying warfighting ability is not a bureaucratic exercise; it is a warfighting imperative.

Summary and Key Points: It was intended as a demonstration of American power. Instead, argues national-security editor Brandon Weichert, it’s becoming a lesson in its limits. Months after the U.S. set out to topple Iran’s regime, strip its nuclear program, and obliterate its navy, the ayatollah still rules, the missiles still fly, and the Strait of Hormuz stays in Tehran’s grip. The ceasefire the president insists is holding has already shattered — and the longer the war grinds on, Weichert contends, the more it resembles the one war no American wants it compared to: Vietnam.

In 2024, Michael Swaine wrote, “How to Stop the United States and China from Sliding into War,” where he identified areas that could increase the possibility of an armed conflict between the United States and China. Two years later, after recent talks between President Trump and President Xi, we asked Michael to revisit his arguments.Image: U.S. Department of StateIn your 2024 article, you flagged a rising possibility of major armed conflict between China and the United States. That was before American forces became militarily involved in Iran.

The Navy wants enlisted sailors to be able to use their meal cards at restaurants on base — including chains like McDonald’s or Panera Bread.
The service is currently testing a pilot program at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington where sailors can swipe their meal cards at Navy-branded food spots like Bombers Fresh Mex, which is the “equivalent of a Chipotle,” Vice Adm. Scott Gray, commander of Navy Installations Command, told reporters on Wednesday. The hope is to expand this program and eventually allow sailors to use their meal entitlements at chain restaurants on post.

The US Army has placed a $22.4m order with Swedish defence contractor Saab for the supply of Vehicle Tactical Engagement Simulation System (VTESS) Base Kits.

Summary and Key Points: It weighs 35 pounds, a single soldier can fire it, and it has terrorized the Russian air force across two wars and two generations. When the CIA slipped the FIM-92 Stinger to Afghan fighters in 1986, five missiles downed three Soviet gunships on the first outing — and within a year, half of Afghanistan’s sky was swept clear. Decades later, analysts wrote it off as obsolete. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the same missile, newly upgraded to kill drones, sent Russian helicopters fleeing for altitude all over again.