Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao announced Monday the launch of the department’s Office of the Defense Industrial Base, which will be tasked with leading efforts to bolster supply chains and accelerate the delivery of dual-use technologies.
The move comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump issued a memorandum on “Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base.
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The cost of maintenance work needed on barracks and other facilities has doubled over five years to $285 billion, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, as the Pentagon has struggled to hire and retain workers while underfunding on-base repairs.
The Aug. 21 report faulted the Pentagon for not requesting enough money from Congress to fully fund facility repairs, improvements, and construction. The GAO said that the military services were funding about 80% of their maintenance needs, falling short of the Defense Department’s goal of 90%.
An eight-month deployment of over 100 National Guard troops to New Orleans ended Monday, officials said, as troops wrapped up final patrols around the city’s popular French Quarter and other tourist-heavy areas. The federally funded but state-managed deployment was supposed to last just two months but extended into the summer, ostensibly to provide security at major events.
“I am extraordinarily proud of the Guardsmen who participated in the New Orleans security mission,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas Friloux, Adjutant General of Louisiana, in a statement.
The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has warned neighboring countries not to join the United States’ “economic war” against the authoritarian regime.
Mohsen Rezaei, who succeeded Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr as secretary earlier this month, said that Tehran would “retaliate in a seismic manner” and would consider any country that cooperates with economic sanctions as an enemy of Iran.
Iran’s Drones That Russia Is Using. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Iran F-14 Tomcat Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
A huge question mark hangs over Canadian defense policy, mainly over its F-35 purchase.
Trump: ‘We Don’t Need Canada’
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he could raise tariffs on all Canadian automobile-related exports by up to 50%.
An F-35A Lightning II assigned to the 419th Fighter Wing, Hill Air Force Base, Utah takes off from the Air Dominance Center during Sentry Savannah on May 11, 2022.
Sexual assaults reported by deployed troops doubled last year, according to Pentagon officials, while the total number of reports across the entire military fell slightly, according to newly released Department of Defense statistics.
Among U.S. troops deployed to specific countries, those in Poland reported twice as many assaults as those in any other nation, according to the Pentagon’s Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, which was released Friday with data from fiscal year 2025.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has urged Donald Trump to “finish the job” in Iran following a prolonged period of economic pressure on Tehran.
Speaking with CNN’s State of the Union, Pence described the continuation of military action as “inevitable” as President Trump seeks a long-lasting solution to the conflict in the Middle East.
Vice President of the United States Mike Pence speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. By Gage Skidmore.
When will the war between Ukraine and Russia end?
It doesn’t seem like any endgame is anywhere close to arriving, as the two countries haven’t held peace talks in months, and if anything, the war has continued to escalate.
Putin with a Rifle. Image Credit: Russian State Media.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin at the at the BRICS+ meeting (via videoconference). Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Oil shipments through the embattled Strait of Hormuz appear to be increasing even as Iran insists it has full control over the waterway, as Gulf producers now use a nightly convoy organized and protected by the U.S. military and vessels sail without tracking signals.
While the current situation appears to be unsustainable, with Iran threatening to escalate strikes, a combination of methods, including ship-to-ship transfers, is helping keep millions of barrels moving out of the strait and onto world markets.
Oil Platform. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Generic Oil Tanker Image.
Ukrainian officials reportedly drew up plans to send as many as 1,000 AI-guided drones per night toward Moscow’s airports, according to The Atlantic.
Citing two unnamed sources speaking on condition of anonymity, the operation, codenamed “M&Ms”, would have involved nightly assaults on Moscow airports in order to keep Russian airspace closed.
Ukraine Drone. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declined to comment, while another unnamed official for the president’s office described the plans as “total nonsense”.