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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Congress for a significant increase in fighter procurements, as decades of underinvestment leave the fleet increasingly out of date, while ageing airframes suffer from fast rising maintenance needs and operational costs.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.

On April 13, the U.S. military began a “blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports.” The move came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced on April 12 that the United States would begin a blockade after American and Iranian negotiators were unable to reach an agreement during a meeting in Islamabad.The announcement of a blockade immediately raised questions about how a blockade would work, how it fits into a broader U.S. strategy, its impacts on the global economy, and more.

Federal agencies have always faced the challenge of finding and retaining talent that meets current and future mission needs. For too long, however, federal and defense agency heads have lacked the tools and incentives to view workforce planning as the agile, proactive, strategic discipline it should be: one that drives, not just supports, an agency’s mission.

From a business systems perspective, the Pentagon operates in essentially the same manner that any other multinational conglomerate does.
Yet, the department has long seen its requirements, even those for everyday business operations, as unique. To meet those supposedly one-of-a-kind needs, it has been willing to foot a hefty upcharge to build highly customized software applications.

In 2024, John Stanko and Spenser Warren wrote, “Russian Threat Perception and Nuclear Strategy in its Plans for War with China,” where they explained some of the potential tensions between Russia and China that could make armed conflict between the two countries a possibility. Two years later, we asked them to revisit their arguments. Image: Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2024 article, you explained some of the potential tensions in the Sino-Russian partnership that could make armed conflict between the two countries a possibility.

Germany and Ukraine will cooperate on missile deliveries, drone technology, and battlefield data exchange.

Raytheon has finalised a contract valued at $3.7bn to supply Ukraine with Patriot Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical (GEM-T) interceptors.

Somewhere in Ukraine, a crew sits in silence next to a launcher that could pass for a rooftop HVAC unit.
A radar pings. A Shahed is inbound, low and slow, grinding toward a power station at 185 kilometers per hour. The crew has roughly 12 minutes of battery life to find it, chase it, and kill it before their interceptor falls out of the sky like a four-kilogram brick.
That interceptor is called JEDI Shahed Hunter, and it might be the gnarliest multirotor drone ever built.
Also Read: Your standard rifle can now be an anti-drone weapon. Seriously.
On Mar.