Flesh-eating bacteria warning, Gulf Coast 2026. Photo: The Wellness Company
The last few months the media has been transfixed by the cyclospora “explosive diarrhea” outbreak that has spread across the country – with no relief in sight. Not garnering near the media attention as cyclospora, but deadlier and more dangerous, is a flesh-eating bacteria crisis that has developed along the Gulf Coast.
Writing in his Substack, Dr.

This video describes the military situation in

In a Pacific war, the U.S. military cannot assume uncontested access to its depots and supply lines for munitions, spare parts, food, water, and energy. Jonathan is joined by David Tuttle (Rune Technologies), Paul Lwin (HavocAI), and Tom Garvey (CACI) to discuss sustaining a dispersed force that’s facing enemy fire and lacks stable, secure communications. They debate autonomy versus automation, predictive resupply, where the data comes from, and which lessons from Ukraine transfer across theaters.Image: Sgt. Alora Finigan via DVIDS.

The Iran war is beginning to resemble the Ukraine war in one important way. Operationally, the wars themselves are still very different — Ukraine is a large-scale ground invasion, while the Iran war is not there just yet. But their political logic after a failure to achieve a quick result is starting to look very similar. In both cases, a larger power expected its overwhelming military force to produce a quick political result. And in both cases, that expectation failed.

Following confirmation that the Russian Navy has begun factory sea trials of the first Khabarovsk class nuclear-powered strategic submarine, a growing consensus has emerged that the country’s strategic nuclear deterrent is entering a new phase as unprecedented capabilities begin to be introduced. The warship left the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk on August 17, 2026, marking a major milestone in a programme that has been under development for more than a decade.

In early 1963, a single number characterized the difference in the positions of the United States and the Soviet Union on a comprehensive nuclear test ban. Nikita Khrushchev had proposed three on-site inspections each year. Washington was asking for seven. Other differences remained, including inspection procedures and treaty language. But the difference mattered: Seismology could not always distinguish an underground test from an earthquake, and inspections created both assurance and opportunities for espionage.Neither number had been delivered by a technical expert wielding a seismograph.

NextGenDef.

NDM
Key to maintaining command and control on the battlefield is having robust electronic warfare defense and offense

Dylan Malyasov, Defence Blog
REGENT’s Squire Seaglider drone completed a 13-day electronic warfare exercise called Silent Swarm

AvWeek
Shield AI will receive $50 million from the U.S.

Paul Giarra & Kevin Eyer, RCDefense
The Unused Shield: The Case for Forward-Deployed Aegis Destroyers in Gulf Air and Missile Defense

they are not distracted trying to police the world–they want to dominat it

It is easy to forget how long the China Doves and the China Lobby—wait, I repeat myself—held absolute control of power and influence over the full spectrum of the American political nomenklatura.
Bush-41 and Bush-43 were both supporters of a rising China. The Clinton Administration was LITERALLY the Coffee Klatch Era.

President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to prepare for a major redesign of one of America’s newest aircraft carriers, demanding that the Navy abandon its electromagnetic jet-launching system and return to traditional steam catapults beginning with the USS Doris Miller.

The president is also pushing for a significant change to the Ford-class carriers, which would move the ships’ command tower, known as the “island,” farther forward so the enormous warships more closely resemble older American aircraft carriers.

The world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R.

Ukraine has some of the world’s most advanced air defense systems currently sitting idle because it is running out of the missiles it needs to use them – even as Russia intensified its campaign of ballistic and cruise missile strikes across the country.

On Tuesday, August 18, Ukraine once again saw the damage that Russia can do when two cruise missiles struck Pechenihy in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.

Russia is upping its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of the winter.

Kyiv’s state-owned Naftogaz Group said on Monday that its facilities had endured 13 strikes from drones and missiles in just one week.

U.S. Army soldiers assigned to Bravo ‘Bad Bet’ Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, conduct Table V exercises with the M1A2 Abrams Tank at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, July 12, 2024. The purpose of the training is to ensure the Abrams were fully functional and fit to fight.

Russia and North Korea’s military partnership is expanding. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow and Pyongyang were working on a “new and righteous world order.” The comments came amid news that North Korea could be poised to send tens of thousands more troops to aid Russia’s war effort.

RAF Vulcans faced a US Air Force’s Tri-Ba

Northrop Grumman successfully completed a critical design review (CDR) for upgrades to the Navy’s fleet of airborne early warning planes, putting the company on track to deliver the modernized aircraft before the end of the decade.
The Navy announced Monday that the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Block II program cleared CDR in May, officially moving the effort out of its design phase. With the new upgrades finalized, Northrop now has the green light to begin retrofitting the aircraft with new capabilities in preparation for flight tests slated for fiscal 2029, according to the sea service.

When first responders rushed to the scene after a Marine Corps F/A-18 crashed in Washington State in June, they were greeted by the pilot. The Marine walked towards them, holding up a phone and calling 911, with blood smeared across his face. 
On Friday, the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office released body camera footage of the moment responders found the aviator on June 13. Shortly beforehand, around noon, the F/A-18 Hornet was flying near Rimrock Lake, near Mount Rainier, approximately 55 miles south of Seattle.

SC Smart Start: Your Free Transition Assistant

How well do you know your jackspeak ?

In 2025, James Cameron wrote, “Eurodeterrent: A Vision for an Anglo-French Nuclear Force,” where he argued the United Kingdom and France should cooperate to develop a nuclear deterrent umbrella for Europe, independent of Washington. A year later, after French President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark nuclear speech, we asked him to revisit his argument. Image: SAC Rob Bourne/MODIn your 2025 article, you argued that, given Europe’s perceived uncertainty about the U.S.

The U.S., after months of war with Iran, is running low on missile interceptors.

The Trump Administration’s response has been a combination of denials, threats of reprisals to leakers, and the president reportedly demanding answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the status of the missile stockpile.

President Donald J. Trump meets with his cabinet at Camp David, Maryland on Friday, July 31, 2026.

This video describes the military situation in

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday, August 18, that the Strait of Hormuz is open and operational, and even went as far as to share a map that labeled the waterway as “NEW U.S. Territory.”

But the ships aren’t moving, and Trump’s narrative appears to be based on the fact that a limited number of ships continue to move through the Strait.

Oil Platform. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Generic Oil Tanker Image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

UAS Test Specialist Marc Cook believes British

On Monday, the 60-day period from the June Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Iran expired, seemingly rendering that agreement even more dead than it previously appeared.

This leaves the conflict between the U.S. and Iran in a sort of limbo, as the sides have not been attacking each other in recent weeks, but have also not made peace.

Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) transits the South China Sea, June 4, 2026. Boxer, flagship of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, is underway with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.

U.S. Special Operations Command’s program executive office for SOF digital applications is planning to test and evaluate new mission autonomy software that could boost drone operations.
The command is pursuing the effort in partnership with the SOFWERX innovation hub to support the Unmanned Systems Autonomy and Interoperability (UxSAI) program.
SOCOM will hold multiple events to assess industry capabilities in the coming months, according to a special notice released Monday.

Ukraine again launched hundreds of drones toward Moscow overnight into Tuesday, August 18.

It is the second massive assault on the Russian capital in just three days, with Kyiv accelerating its long-range campaign designed to disrupt logistics and infrastructure and raise the cost of sustaining the war in Ukraine.

Putin Back in 2010 Creative Commons Image

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that at least 620 Ukrainian drones were launched toward Moscow and surrounding areas through early Tuesday, with Russian air defenses destroying 180 over the Moscow region.

A 41-year-old Kentucky woman charged with vandalizing Washington D.C.’s World War II Memorial walked free Monday after a federal magistrate judge ordered her release — over the strenuous objections of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Melissa Farris faces two federal felony counts, each carrying up to ten years in prison. A judge decided that was not enough to keep her behind bars while she awaits trial.
The vandalism happened on August 13.

The Balaklava Company hosted His Royal Highness

The Department of the Navy announced Tuesday that Barry Tanner will serve as the chief information officer for both the Navy and Marine Corps on a permanent basis.
Tanner enters the role having served as the department’s acting CIO following Jane Rathbun’s departure from the position in 2025. Prior to taking on that job, he served as the Department of the Navy’s deputy CIO beginning in 2024 and has held a number of IT leadership posts in both the military and private sector.

In a surprising move this week, President Donald Trump put some distance between the United States and longtime ally South Korea.

In a Sunday Truth Social post, Trump announced that, based on his “very good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, “I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok, Russia April 25, 2019.

The acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said during a briefing that frozen Russian assets could provide critical financial support for Ukraine as the country faces more than $600 billion in infrastructure damage caused by Russia’s invasion and attacks against its civilian infrastructure.

He said these assets could be a lifesaver for Kyiv and that their transfer should not be delayed.

Putin and Russian Military Creative Commons Image

Putin in May of 2026. Image Credit_ Creative Commons

This is fair.

Royal Marines boarded the Russian shadow fleet

President Trump confirmed Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has responded to his diplomatic outreach — and described the response as “very positive.” The development comes one day after Trump ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, a decision with far deeper roots than the foreign policy establishment is willing to acknowledge.

Raytheon, an RTX business, has secured $22.9bn from the US War Department for the production of Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Russia Fires Economist Who Warned War Economy Is In Trouble – Russia has spent years insisting that Western sanctions and the enormous cost of the Ukraine war have failed to seriously damage its economy, with President Vladimir Putin repeatedly assuring citizens that the economy is resilient. But when Moscow fired one of the country’s most prominent economists, it became clear that the Kremlin may be hiding the real economic damage being inflicted on the national economy and its wartime industries.

Andrei Klepach, the chief economist at Russia’s state development corporation VEB.

Drones are revolutionising how militaries go about protecting deployed forces, and governments sites of critical infrastructure and citizens.

Russia has long been known to give some support to Iran during this year’s war with the United States. But a new report states that this cooperation has been deeper than previously known.

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Russia has been shipping “drone components, ammunition and TNT” to Iran, in part to replenish stockpiles damaged in the war.

Lancet Drone. Image Credit: Russian State Media.

Lancet Drone from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

NBC cited a European government document as evidence of the transfers.

A delay to funding expansion plans for the UK&#

On Tuesday, Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone attacks yet on Russia.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said forces intercepted and destroyed some 791 Ukrainian drones overnight. National Security Journal can’t verify this figure.

The Army test fires a Patriot missile in a recent test. The Patriot missile system is a ground-based, mobile missile defense interceptor deployed by the United States to detect, track and engage unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, and short-range and tactical ballistic missiles.

Rheinmetall has received an additional order of 149 mobile rescue stations from the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr).

During one of the last times that Darlene Krashoc spoke with her mother, she mentioned possibly reenlisting in the U.S. Army. That conversation left Betty Lou Krashoc with the impression that her daughter was enjoying her assignment to Fort Carson in Colorado.
In a follow-up phone call, though, Darlene said something was going on at the military base. Her concerned mother asked for more details.
“I can’t tell you right now,” Darlene replied, according to a 2019 article from The Colorado Sun’s digital newsroom.
Also Read: My spouse is employed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Soldiers at a Georgia combat engineer unit can get official time off to play the new Grand Theft Auto game when it drops this fall — if, and only if, they sign up for more years of service. 
The offbeat incentive is being offered to soldiers by the commander of the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion at Fort Stewart, Georgia, according to a memo circulated on social media that was confirmed by Army officials. 
According to the memo signed by Lt. Col. Ryan Hodgson, the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion commander, soldiers in the unit who reenlist between Aug. 1 and Nov.

Rheinmetall has received an additional order of 149 mobile rescue stations from the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr).

The U.S. Navy has brought the USS Massachusetts, its 25th Virginia class nuclear-powered attack submarine, to the fleet following the completion of sea trials. Rather than undergoing the planned post-trial shipyard period, the submarine has been cleared directly for fleet tasking, allowing the Navy to bring additional undersea combat power into service more rapidly. The Navy has increasingly suffered from an acute shortage of nuclear submarines, as shipyard capacity has remained far below the service’s requirements.

Over the weekend, Ukraine launched its largest attack of the year against Russia, firing what is estimated to be over 600 drones against Moscow alone in the hours between Saturday evening and early Sunday morning.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it had downed a total of 822 Ukrainian drones across all regions of the country.

Mirage 2000 Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Last Wednesday, 12 August, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine’s armed forces had carried out a “unique operation” against Russia’s Novorossiysk port and naval base.

Ukraine’s attack hit three Russian warships docked in one of Moscow’s major Black Sea ports, according to the Ministry of Defense and Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) officials in Kyiv.

Finnish artillery units fire Howitzers At Rovajärvi exercise area In northern Finland. Image Credit: NATO Flickr.

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