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After failing to reach an agreement in the first round of talks in Islamabad, the United States and Iran are set to resume talks in the coming days. Via Pakistani mediation, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reportedly made progress toward a framework agreement, though significant gaps remain and a deal is far from guaranteed. In the meantime, President Donald Trump has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports, while Israel is pressing ahead with its assault on the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil, even as it engages in direct talks with Lebanon in Washington.

Commercial technologies are enabling the U.S. military and militaries around the world to operate with greater efficiency, speed, precision, and lethality. The benefits of commercial capabilities can be particularly impactful given the defense industrial base’s struggles to produce at the speed and scale needed to outmatch China, Russia, and other aligned adversaries. It is largely for these reasons that President Donald Trump mandated the Department of Defense to preference commercial solutions.

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has exposed a reality many policymakers long preferred to avoid: The deterrence model that governed the Gulf for decades is no longer working as intended.For years, the region operated in the gray zone — covert strikes, proxy warfare, and carefully managed escalation. Iran built a strategy around missiles, regional partners, and nuclear latency.The United States underwrote Gulf security without direct war. Saudi Arabia and its neighbors relied on that umbrella while hedging against its limits, investing in missile defense and selective partnerships.

Editor’s note: This article is the sixth in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.The next major war the United States fights could be decided by supply chains long before the first shot is fired.

French Air Force Rafale fighters forward deployed in Lithuania have engaged Russian Su-30SM fighters, which are thought to be operated by the Russian Navy from facilities in the Kaliningrad region. Rafale pilots reportedly used the Thales TALIOS targeting and laser designation pod during the intercept, which provides a high-resolution long-range visual identification capability This allows personnel to confirm aircraft type and visible weapon loads from a safer distance.

The Russian S-400 long range air defence system is currently relied on to form the backbone of the country’s air defence network, with more than twice the quantities of funds having been spent on procuring the systems over the last two decades than on all types of fighter aircraft combined. While the system has been widely praised by analysts and operators for its very high mobility, its extreme engagement range, and its ability to shoot down very fast targets using missiles with speeds of over Mach 14, its high situational awareness has also gained considerable attention.

The U.S. Air Force’s B-21 Raider stealth bomber has successfully tested its aerial refuelling capability with a KC-135 Stratotanker. as part of ongoing flight testing efforts. The testing of the B-21’s aerial refuelling capabilities marks a major landmark in preparing for a future win which the two types of aircraft operate closely together to provide a global capacity for sustained penetration strikes.

The U.S. Air National Guard has sought to press Congress for a significant increase in fighter procurements, as decades of underinvestment leave the fleet increasingly out of date, while ageing airframes suffer from fast rising maintenance needs and operational costs. Air National Guard adjutants general from more than 20 states sent a jointly written letter to Congress in early April requesting multiyear funding for the acquisition of between 72 and 100 new fighters each year.

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg’s March 9 memorandum sets an ambitious deadline for Pentagon and military leaders to transition the Maven Smart System (MSS) into a formal program of record by the end of this fiscal year.
That Palantir-supplied, AI-enabled platform fuses disparate military systems and intelligence sources into one interface that rapidly integrates data and compresses the military’s processes for finding and striking targets.

The Trump administration is proposing a major overhaul of how the federal government decides which workers to lay off when eliminating jobs. For veterans, the new rule would prioritize performance reviews over both veteran status and years of service when agencies determine which workers to cut.
The rule, according to one advocate for disabled veterans, could reduce protections for military veterans who hold federal jobs.