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Raytheon secured a $627m agreement to provide the Netherlands with additional Patriot air and missile defence system equipment.

The states most likely to draw America into its next major crisis or war are not unknowns. They are the usual suspects: The same handful of states that have threatened the United States repeatedly across decades. Interstate rivals have caused roughly 80 percent of history’s wars and the odds of any given rivalry ending peacefully are little better than a coin toss.

On March 27, Iranian drones and missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, destroying an E-3 Sentry, an airborne command center for U.S. operations in the region, and damaging multiple KC-135 tankers. It was not the first strike. Earlier in the month, an Iranian attack had already damaged five KC-135s at the same base. In the history of these aircraft, no enemy had ever achieved such a hit until Iran did both — within two weeks.These strikes are the latest in a broader pattern, part of a deliberate counterair campaign waged through asymmetric means in the U.S.

The F-35 fighter program’s primary contractor Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $11.4 million contract modification to develop additional software for Israel’s F-35 fleet, namely to produce three software data loads referred to as “productionized plus builds.” These are to be developed off existing enterprise software baselines, with work falling under Israel’s System Development and Design Phase II effort, which encompasses both software development and systems engineering activities.

The British Armed Forces have conducted a month-long operation to track three Russian submarines in British waters, accounting to a statement on March 9 by Defence Secretary John Healey. The secretary observed that an Akula class attack submarine and two spy submarines were involved, with the two secretive ships, referred to as the ‘Gugi class,’ having spent time over “critical infrastructure relevant to us and our allies.

U.S. Marines with Expeditionary Operations Training Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force test Marine-Build drones off the coast of Naval Base White Beach, Okinawa, Japan, March 22, 2026. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Cpl. Giovanni Navarrette)
For the first time, Marines and Naval Special Warfare operators struck an unmanned vessel with a small first-person view drone they launched from a boat during a test in the Pacific, the service said, billing it as a new chapter for the amphibious branch.

Iran’s drone arsenal and weapons stockpiles are mostly depleted and its capacity to produce new assets is nearly gone, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
Those two senior officials supplied updates on Operation Epic Fury Wednesday during the first Pentagon press briefing to follow President Donald Trump’s announcement late Tuesday of a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. 
They each broadly quantified the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities over the first five weeks of the war.

The Air Force is offering active duty pilots and other aviators up to $50,000 per year to stay in the service as part of this fiscal year’s Aviation Bonus program.
Under the program, aviators and pilots can sign contracts ranging from 3 to 12 years to be in line for up to $600,000 under the maximum bonus, according to the Air Force.
Traditionally, such bonuses have been intended to persuade pilots and other highly trained and skilled aviators to extend their service in the Air Force rather than take jobs with civilian airlines or employment elsewhere in the private sector.

The Army is conducting market research for new algorithms and sensors that could help its forces detect hazardous objects on the front lines.
The service, led by the Capability Program Executive Ammunition and Energetics, issued a notice Tuesday requesting information from industry on their automatic target recognition tools. 
“The purpose of ATR is to increase the Soldier’s ability to detect, classify, and identify threats in support of maneuver elements during autonomous breaching operations,” officials wrote.

A boom operator on a KC-135 tanker earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses on recent combat missions, the Air Force confirmed this week, a rare double-award of the military’s top medal for flight.
Staff Sgt. Gabrielle Stallings, a KC-135 boom operator, was one of 15 members of the 93rd Air Refueling Squadron who were presented with DFCs or Bronze Stars for combat flights on March 31, in a ceremony at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington.
In all, 12 pilots and boom operators from the squadron were awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses.