The Kremlin has found a new way to fill its trenches. It’s shopping for Americans.

According to a New York Post report now making the rounds, Russian recruiters are offering U.S. citizens, including former American service members, a signing bonus of about $26,000 plus a monthly salary to fight in Ukraine.

A U.S. M1A1 Abrams tank needed for training the Armed Forces of Ukraine awaits offloading at Grafenwoehr, Germany, May 14, 2023. The M1A1 training is expected to last several weeks and will include live fire, crew qualification, maneuver, and maintainer training.

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Iran claims that its attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have pushed American forces away from its coastlines, despite Washington’s insistence that more than one billion barrels of crude oil have passed through the region under its military protection.

19 large ships exited the strategic waterway last week, according to Kpler trade tracking data obtained by Reuters.

The French Marine Nationale aircraft carrier FS Charles De Gaulle (R91), and the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) are underway in formation in the Red Sea, April 15, 2019. The John C.

President Donald Trump is signaling that the United States does not intend to settle the Iran war with any sort of return to the prewar status quo. Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said the US is going to “win” the war. “We’re going to win,” Trump said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to be one way or the other.” The remarks come as the diplomatic track appears increasingly uncertain. The question now is what Trump would deem a sufficient victory.

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It doesn’t often fall to the Secretary of the Treasury to make belligerent threats to the nation’s foreign adversaries, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did just that this week.

Appearing on Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program over the weekend, as the New York Post reported, Bessent said Iran will likely run out of things to trade within two weeks, forcing the Islamic Republic into a favorable deal.

STRAIT OF HORMUZ (May 1, 2012) The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), left, and the guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St.

President Donald Trump came back into office in 2025, after promising to bring an end to Russia and Ukraine’s war, possibly as soon as his first day in office. Weeks later, the president and Vice President JD Vance dressed down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, implying to him that he couldn’t win the war and should accept peace. Trump had even mocked Zelensky for wearing casual clothes to the meeting.

In the year and a half since then, as with most things, Trump has gone back and forth between differing public positions.

During World War II, two regiments of Marines played a legendary game of American football on Guadalcanal while training for the upcoming invasion of Okinawa. For many, it would be the last game they ever played.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is expected to convene a high-profile meeting of military personnel for a “State of the Force” address this week. Will it show the U.S. armed forces as healthy? The answer may depend on how the audience responds, regardless of what Hegseth says. How the audience handles what could be one of the higher-visibility made-for-media events of the defense secretary’s tenure could tell us a lot about how the U.S. military has adjusted to President Donald Trump’s second term.

Russia’s long-range drone campaign against Ukraine has generally depended on relatively slow, propeller-driven Shahed-type attack drones. Their low cost and long range make them useful for mass attacks, yet slow speeds allow Ukrainian defenses time to detect and intercept them. Now, however, Russia is sending jet-powered Shaheds deep into western Ukraine. For example, early on September 29, Ukrainian authorities reported a jet-powered UAV approaching Ternopil, far from the front lines. The Ukrainian Air Force tracked the drone moving south of Horodok in Khmelnytskyi region toward Ternopil.

The MOD is offering a £2bn contract for up to

Russian forces have begun using an Iranian Misagh-2 man-portable surface-to-air missile systems to intercept Ukrainian unmanned aircraft, according to Ukrainian reporting and imagery. The system is reported by Ukrainian sources to be in use in the Rostov region. The Misagh-2 uses a passive infrared seeker and is designed as a fire-and-forget weapon. Once launched, the missile can track the infrared signature of its target without requiring continued guidance from the operator, allowing the firing team to immediately leave its position.

General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) has been awarded a $510m task order by the US Army Communications Electronics Command (CECOM) to deliver worldwide logistics, sustainment, and maintenance services.

Four and a Half Years On, Russians Still Support the War with Ukraine: It’s hard to know what Russians truly think of their country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The “special military operation” launched in February 2022 was expected to last no more than three days. Instead, it has surpassed the duration of the First World War.

Why the Ukraine War?

Russian Artillery Creative Commons Image

MSTA Russian Artillery Creative Commons Image

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have been killed, and many more wounded.

The USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. returned home this week after a 10-month deployment that included defending Navy assets against ballistic missiles as part of Iran war operations.
The USS Petersen left Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, on Dec. 1, 2025, and arrived back at its home port on Monday after 300 days at sea, officials announced in a release. The ship originally set sail in the South China Sea as part of ongoing “presence operations” to deter Chinese military actions in the region.

This video describes the military situation in

Russian President Vladimir Putin this week ordered another expansion of Russia’s armed forces, seeking to add 15,500 troops to bring the total to  2.44 million personnel, including 1.55 million active, CNBC reported, citing a Telegram post with the official government decree.

The report said that this is the fourth time that Putin has ordered such an increase since the start of 2026, after treating such increases much more sparingly in the earlier years of the war.

Putin in 2021. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Putin in 2023. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Eight Reactors, One Hull, and a $1.4 Billion Bill: Why Scrapping the USS Enterprise Costs So Much – The USS Enterprise, CVN-65, was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Launched in 1958, it was the eighth vessel in the US Navy to bear the name Enterprise. Like her World War II predecessor, her crew nicknamed her “The Big E.”

The vessel had a long, distinguished career in modern U.S. Navy history, including the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis; aerial combat and bombardment missions during the Vietnam War; the evacuation of the U.S.

President Donald Trump has insisted that the United States will win the war with Iran “very soon” amid ongoing negotiations between the two warring states.

Trump spoke to reporters at the White House on Monday, 28th September, where he affirmed his belief that the U.S. will win the war “one way or the other.”

A B-52 Stratofortress leads a formation of a B-1 Lancer, A-10 Warthog, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-18 Hornet, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning, assigned to Air Combat Command and Global Strike Command, during the Hyundai Air and Sea show at Miami, Florida, May 23, 2026.

When the Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was first announced as the replacement for the iconic Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the news was met with great fanfare. After all, on paper, the Ford-class would bring many new capabilities and truly become the United States Navy’s aircraft carrier of the twenty-first century. This did not happen, though. Instead, the USS Gerald R. Ford went significantly over budget and over its scheduled development time.

That means a math problem no one can easily solve: the US Navy now simply doesn’t have enough aircraft carriers.

Feel the rush of speed, pressure, discipline an

Paratroopers from the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division return to Pope Army Airfield after supporting the drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. Photo: Sgt. 1st Class John Laughter / DVIDS / Public Domain

By Tuesday, September 30, 2026, the last of the boots from American troops will have left the soil of Iraq — the same land that the US invaded in 2003 and where, over twenty-three years, the military lost the lives of 4,500 Americans.
Iran-backed militias are celebrating tonight.

This video describes the military situation in

In recent weeks, the U.S. and its allies have had some success in moving oil through the Strait of Hormuz by finding new routes to circumvent Iran’s control of the crucial waterway, as oil exports from the region have rebounded.

That’s according to an analysis published Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, which also reported that Iran could seek to halt that progress by military means.

(July 28, 2017) An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 approaches the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) for an arrested landing.

A new guidebook outlines the duties for soldiers in the barracks and offers management tips to noncommissioned officers on how to address emergencies in living spaces.
The “NCO’s Barracks Guidebook,” published Wednesday morning, includes recommendations and outlines steps for addressing issues ranging from maintenance needs to cleanliness in the barracks. 
The guide’s introduction notes that it is not setting policy but is meant to be a “professional tool, a resource built to educate, clarify, and strengthen the NCO’s ability to lead.

The European Council has approved five European Defence Projects of Common Interest (EDPCIs), making the cross-border initiatives eligible for funding through the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP).

The United States has embarked on an unprecedented campaign of maritime and financial isolation against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Following the escalation of hostilities in early 2026, Washington deployed a formidable dual-pronged offensive. First, the enforcement of a comprehensive naval blockade by Central Command, initiated in April, effectively sealed the Iranian coastline and crippled traditional maritime exports.

Milford Beagle Jr. had been in the Army for about a year when a new battalion commander took charge of his unit.
It was 1991, and Beagle and five other lieutenants waited nervously together for their one-on-one meetings with the colonel. The furniture was hard, and there was a faint smell of pine oil in the air, Beagle recalled last week at the 2026 Military Influencer Conference (MIC) in Tampa, Florida. The six young service members shared a collective sense that they were heading into the principal’s office.

This video describes the military situation in

Alison Bath, S&S
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt departed San Diego on Sunday for a deployment expected to last more than seven months

NatDefMag
The Navy is taking on its largest-ever construction and restoration effort with its multi-billion-dollar Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, but it lacks the consistent…

Navy T.
In the span of two months this summer, U.S.

Parth Satam, The Aviationist
The test validated the MV-22B’s as an alternative platform to the P-3C Orion for the Navy’s Sonobuoy Quality Assurance Program

DefScoop
Anduril unveiled the Pulsar-L last spring, billing it as a compact…

The Pentagon describes Golden Dome for America as a “system of systems,” an integrated air and missile defense architecture that combines space-based sensors, orbital interceptors, ground systems, and a command network designed to defeat any aerial attack. Eighteen months after its founding executive order, the program broke ground on its first operational site. Its architecture remains so closely held that the Congressional Budget Office cannot fully price it, and cost estimates span from $252 billion to $3.6 trillion.

Military doctrine gives officers a clear rule for manifestly unlawful orders: Refuse them. It offers no comparable rule when lawful action appears to threaten the constitutional structure the military serves. The first response is neither refusal nor resignation, but rather deliberative friction.Deliberative friction is the professional duty to raise a credible constitutional concern in a form that remains attributable and survives the decision to execute.

Analogies for artificial intelligence abound. In recent years, analysts have likened the development of AI to the advent of electricity, the Industrial Revolution, contact with extraterrestrials, and at least fifty other things. One analogy, however, appears to have won out over the rest: AI is like nuclear weapons.This comparison is now ubiquitous in government rhetoric, policy debates, and media accounts about AI. The risks of advanced AI are equated with the existential risk posed by nuclear weapons. There are several references to AI development as a modern-day Manhattan Project. The U.S.

This video describes the military situation in

The Republic of China Minister of National Defence Wellington Koo has confirmed that there are no financial penalty provisions attached to the delayed delivery of 66 F-16 Block 70 fighters ordered in 2019, while stating that Taipei and Washington are discussing compensation measures for the delays. Koo said the F-16 transfer has reached the stage at which some of the aircraft are ready for delivery, with preparations for accepting the fighters proceeding according to the schedule established by the U.S. program office.

Oil prices are rising again after the U.S. rejected Iran’s latest proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz.

“I reject their proposal…I rejected their deal,” President Donald Trump said on Saturday, claiming that the Islamic Republic was only proposing an agreement because “they’re losing so badly.”

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Bulkeley, right, and USS Mason participate in a strait transit exercise.

British police have arrested five men near Royal Air Force Fairford after three suspicious vehicles were reported travelling towards the military airfield, which is a major operating hub for U.S. Air Force B-1B and B-52H strategic bombers. The men were initially arrested on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act and were subsequently also arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act. British counterterrorism authorities are investigating whether the suspects were acting on behalf of a foreign state.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Photo: DoD / Chad J. McNeeley (Public Domain)

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum on September 28, 2026, directing U.S. Cyber Command and the entire Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) to mobilize every authorized asset, capability, and partnership to defend America’s 2026 election infrastructure from foreign interference.
The memo, addressed to the Commander of U.S.

A Rough Winter Is Coming for Americans Thanks to the Iran War – Americans are about to face an expensive winter, with higher costs for heating their homes, traveling home for the holidays, and shipping packages to loved ones. Those prices will skyrocket largely because of the war in Iran, with disruptions to oil and gas shipments raising fuel costs and, in turn, increasing prices for everything from airfares to goods.

The increases will differ by households, of course. A family that heats with oil, for example, will face a different bill than one that heats with electricity.

Speaking at the Labour Party Conference, Defenc

U.S. Africa Command is hustling to adopt AI assets, unmanned systems and other modern technology products as it pivots to do “more with less” of a physical force presence on and around the sprawling continent.
For example, “the command is examining commercially available vessel data and sensor technologies that could help identify illicit maritime activity, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and narcotics trafficking,” Africom’s first Chief Innovation Officer Lt. Col. Jared “CLiF” Bindl recently told DefenseScoop.

The Marine Corps awarded $15.7 million to Anduril for its Pulsar-Lite electronic warfare system, according to a recent public notice, fulfilling a sole-source purchase the service was eyeing for months over an “urgent need” to equip its amphibious vehicle fleet with drone-zapping technology.
Anduril unveiled the Pulsar-L last spring, billing it as a compact version of its family of EW systems capable of detecting and defeating drones, including swarms.

How Do U.S. Military Vets Feel About the Iran War? – Seven months after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, American veterans, and indeed supporters of the president, are still divided over the war – and whether the costs, which have extended well beyond the battlefield, have been worth it. Some support the campaign against Iran’s nuclear program and the regional threat it poses, while others question its duration and the burden it places on those serving, and the damage done to American bases in the Middle East.

Space Force guardians are now getting certified in jungle warfare. This month, two officers with the Space Force became the first guardians to graduate from the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course-Panama.
Maj. Alyson Gleason and Capt. Stephen Brown graduated from the jungle warfare school on Sept. 25, having finished the 18-day course alongside other U.S. and Panamanian troops.

Boxers from every company in 4th Battalion The

Dramatic last-gasp try clinches victory!