Ukrainian armour attacks Russian positions unde

Timing is everything in wartime. It’s also everything in politics. Right now, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are wrestling with both. According to new reporting from Axios’ Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo, the two leaders discussed launching a major new operation against Iran before Israelis go to the polls on October 27 and Americans vote in the midterms a week later.

Two U.S. officials, an Israeli official, and a fourth source with knowledge of the matter backed up the account.

In late September, shortly after announcing the new Operation Economic Outcast initiative to punish countries that trade with Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted that, thanks to the U.S. blockade, Iran would have nothing left to trade in two weeks.

In a Fox Business appearance, as reported by the New York Post, Bessent predicted that there were only “15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water” at that point, and that once that was delivered to China, Iran would be left with nothing left to trade, and therefore desperate to make a deal to end the war.

The Pentagon recently established a new task force that’s charged with rapidly iterating and advancing weaponized drones and small uncrewed ground vehicles across the U.S. military.
Col. Michael Penn, the Army official who is commanding the team — dubbed Task Force Easy — shed new light on its origin and Defense Department leaders’ overarching vision for it during the annual AUSA conference on Tuesday. 
“We’re slower, less effective. We don’t outpace our enemy and our threat in how quickly we adapt new technology. So we’re trying to fix that in our task force,” Penn said.

This video describes the military situation in

HMS Queen Elizabeth is coming to the end of it&

There’s been much whispering in the global press about what next move Israel and the United States might make against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

While there have been no official declarations from either Tel Aviv or Washington, reports do indicate that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought up the prospects of the two nations striking Iran once more before the Israeli elections scheduled for October 27 (and before the US Midterm elections).

F-22 Raptor Reverse. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

F-22 Raptor High in the Sky. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

President Donald Trump is facing growing opposition, not just from the Democrats but also from members of his own party, over his decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

As Republicans head into the November 3 midterm elections with a major disadvantage in every major poll, Trump-aligned candidates and their supporters appear to be concerned over the possibility of the United States extending more economic incentives to Russia to end the war.

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

Testing underwater drones in a back garden pond

Six commercial vessels were attacked on October 11; that was the highest number of vessels hit in a single day since the Iran War began (now more than seven months ago).

The most recent strikes hit three refined petroleum product tankers, two crude oil tankers, and an Indian container ship.

A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to the 28th Bomb Wing takes off in support of a U.S. Air Force Weapons School Integration at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Nov. 18, 2025.

On the night of October 14, Ukraine carried out another large-scale drone attack against Moscow.

According to preliminary reports, Ukraine used nearly 500 strike drones against Russia.

Putin Back in 2009. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The attacks targeted industrial facilities and data centers across the country, but the total number of impacts has not yet been confirmed.

The attacks come as Russia continues striking energy infrastructure around Ukraine as part of its annual campaign to turn off the country’s energy grid for the winter.

In 2022, Jeremy Shapiro warned in “We Are on a Path to Nuclear War” that the war between Russia and Ukraine was heading toward nuclear escalation. Four years into the war, we asked him to revisit that argument.Image: Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia CommonsIn your original piece, you named nuclear escalation as “the path that we are currently on.” Instead, the past few years have brought several rounds of stalled negotiations and, more recently, a near-frozen front line. What has kept nuclear escalation in check over the last year?We are still on that path.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said a “massive” oil, gas, and mineral exploration is set to begin in Greenland.

Trump announced the exploration in a Truth Social post in the early hours of Wednesday, 14th October, with work “getting ready to begin in our new and beautiful Greenland.”

Trump at Turning Point Creative Commons Image

Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2023 Annual Leadership Summit at the Venetian Convention & Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. By Gage Skidmore.

Iran is fortifying nuclear sites and preparing for the possibility of a renewed offensive by the United States and Israel, according to satellite imagery and Western assessments.

The country is “fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider, harsher response against the U.S. and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms and seeks to deter them,” according to a Wall Street Journal article published Monday, 12th October.

Israel F-16I Fighters IDF. Image Credit: IDF.

F-16I from Israeli Air Force.

A coordinated series of protests interrupted a keynote panel discussion at AUSA 2026, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth the target.

Iran has changed tactics against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, two senior Iranian officials told Reuters, as a container ship sank near the waterway and a series of attacks threatened to disrupt the recovery of Persian Gulf oil exports.

The officials told Reuters that Tehran had changed the methods and frequency of its attacks to prevent Washington from lowering oil prices before November’s congressional elections.

An estimated 500 Russian sea mines litter the B

Ukraine Takes the Data Center War to Sberbank – Russia wanted a digital war against Ukraine’s data centers. Now it’s paying the price for that at home.

Overnight on October 14, Ukrainian drones targeted and hit Sberbank’s mega data center in Balakovo, in Russia’s Saratov region. Sberbank First Deputy Chairman Alexander Vedyakhin confirmed the attack to TASS a few hours later.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Josiah “Sirius” Gaffney, Pacific Air Forces Demonstration Team commander, prepares to fly a practice sortie before the Dubai Airshow in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 11, 2021.

The Army’s newest cannon, the XM1776, was

A year ago, an Army brigade rotating through the service’s major training center in Hohenfels, Germany might launch a few hundred drones during a 14-day exercise. Soldiers would get even less use of the systems designed to counter those drones.
The reasons ranged from German airspace restrictions over the training area to U.S. units simply arriving without any drones they knew how to use. 
Now, that number has skyrocketed, according to the general in charge there.

Russia Says 493 Drones Headed Toward Moscow: Russia said that it had intercepted hundreds of Ukrainian drones overnight on October 13-14.

Moscow’s airports temporarily suspended flights, and a major Sberbank data center was struck hundreds of miles from its border with Ukraine.

Putin Back in 2025 Creative Commons Photo

Putin Back in 2010 Creative Commons Image

The attack follows three strikes on Russian technology company Yandex’s data centers in four days.

The sound of Russia’s air war against Ukr

The ‘Grynch’ tells some alternative facts

Some housekeeping up front.
I am not anti-Ukrainian. I have been to the front in Donbass. I was there during the 2022 invasion, dodging Russia paratroopers and cruise missiles in Kyiv; I walked across the Moldovan border. I appeared before House Oversight Committee attorneys on Ukraine. I had a Ukrainian refugee family in my house for eight months. I have a lot of friends in Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have been good to me.
However, we are not helping the people of Ukraine.

Donald Trump Loses His Grip on the Economy – President Donald Trump’s problems are growing as the American voting public prepares to head to the polls on November 3 to determine the makeup of the next Congress. New polling shows Americans now trust Democrats more than Republicans to manage the economy, remarkable news after decades of Republicans being widely seen as the party of fiscal conservatism and responsibility.

The findings are particularly damaging for the president, too, because he returned to the White House on a promise to bring down prices and rebuild American industry.

New footage from the aircraft carrier Liaoning’s far seas operations have for the first time shown the integration of J-35 fifth generation fighters into the ship’s air wing, marking a significant expansion of Chinese carrier aviation capabilities. The J-35 is one of four fifth generation fighter types in production worldwide, and one of two in China, and was confirmed in 2026 to have entered service both in the Air Force, and as part of the air wing of the supercarrier Fujian.

The Army is set to launch Project Gatekeeper later this month, officials said Tuesday, an effort intended to speed up the onboarding of defense vendors’ software into the service’s network by using AI to vet prospective industry code in an isolated environment.
Headed by the Army’s Acting Chief Information Officer Gabe Chiulli, Project Gatekeeper will start Oct. 23. The goal is for companies interested in selling software to the Army to get their code assessed and accredited in a matter of minutes instead of months, according to officials.

President Donald Trump says that his administration is preparing to decide on Iran “very soon,” raising the possibility that the U.S. could return to military strikes against the Islamic Republic in the near future.

The president suggested on Tuesday, October 13, following reports that he had been discussing a new major military operation against Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli Air Force F-15I Image Credit IDF

Israeli F-16I Fighter.

Tehran is currently campaigning hard in the American midterm election. Unlike before, it doesn’t need a single fake social media account. Two senior Iranian officials told Reuters that Tehran is deploying new tactics against ships in the Strait of Hormuz, with the goal of keeping oil prices high and influencing November’s midterm elections.

One said the shift began about 10 days ago and has already driven up the number of attacks.

Iran claims a vessel was sunk in the Strait of Hormuz after striking an Iranian sea mine.

The vessel, reportedly carrying 2,500 containers, sank Wednesday morning, 14th October, according to state media.

Idaho National Guard pilots land A-10 Thunderbolt IIs after a flight mission near Gowen Field on March 15, 2023 with the Boise foothills in the background. (U.S. National Guard photo by Master Sgt.

Donald Trump Makes a Fool of Himself – U.S. President Donald Trump’s handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has certainly raised eyebrows in the past few days.

Since Friday, 9th October, Trump has announced a surprise deal to allow Russian diesel onto the U.S. and global markets; he has called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to be replaced, and he’s publicly demanded that Ukraine, currently fighting an unprovoked war within its own borders, stop striking oil refineries.

Su-34 Fullback. Creator: Vitaly V. Kuzmin. Credit: Vitaly V.

Starlink’s New Speed Limit Is Grounding Ukraine’s Drones – Satellite internet just became a political lever in Ukraine. Again.

Overnight on October 13-14, SpaceX imposed a 160 kilometers per hour (about 100 mph) speed cap on Starshield, the military-grade Starlink package Ukraine’s drone units rely on.

Lancet Drone. Image Credit: Russian State Media.

Lancet Drone from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser on defense technology, confirmed the change on Telegram and said several missions were disrupted.

The US Army will redesignate its Futures and Concepts Command as the US Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command (FASCOM), placing responsibility for integrating autonomous capabilities across its warfighting functions under a new three-star command.

Oshkosh Defense has commenced production of the first prototype of the Dutch Expeditionary Patrol Vehicle (DXPV), designated “Kaaiman,” for the Netherlands Ministry of Defence.

With oil flowing from the Gulf at levels more than eighty percent of the pre-war levels, and the price of Brent Crude, a global oil benchmark, down from its springtime peaks when the fighting in Iran erupted, it would appear that a new normalcy has set in, one in which Washington and Tehran grapple for the upper hand. As they struggle to best one another, trade through the Strait of Hormuz, particularly in energy, has resumed.

The Saudis have leveraged other outlets besides that fickle wartime bottleneck to get their oil to the outside world.

Iran Missiles.

At one of Jason Redman’s lowest moments, his 3-year-old daughter saw him cry.
The previous year, Redman was a Navy SEAL deployed to Iraq when insurgents ambushed his unit. Redman was hit eight times during the attack on September 13, 2007, including one round to his face and another that almost took off his left arm. Doctors rebuilt his nose three times, and his myriad injuries ultimately required 37 surgeries.
When Redman’s daughter walked into his room, he was at home. His recuperation was not going very well. Infection ravaged his body, medication made him sick, and his arm was fused.

This video describes the military situation in

The U.S. Navy’s F-35C fifth generation fighter has made its first arrested landing aboard a Gerald Ford class supercarrier, which took place on October 13 aboard the future USS John F. Kennedy in the western Atlantic during an ongoing aircraft compatibility testing campaign. This follows several years of delays, and marks the first time a fifth generation fighter has operated from an aircraft career with an  Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) outside China.

Riley Ceder, Defense News
The Army

Sydney Freedberg, Breaking Defense
The service’s new cybersecurity testing sandbox will stand up on Oct.

Steve Trimble, Aviation Week
The U.S.

Hope Seck, Army Times
A heavy-duty quadcopter carrying

WarZone

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier Liaoning and its accompanying task group have deployed to the western Pacific for a new round of training, continuing efforts to improve far seas operational capacities. The deployment began on October 14 and forms part of the navy’s annual training program, according to an official statement reported by Chinese state media. The Navy said the exercises were intended to test and improve the group’s combat-oriented training and strengthen its ability to fulfil operational missions.

The British Royal Navy’s Type 45 class air-defence destroyer HMS Dauntless has been seen integrating what appear to be new launchers for interceptor drones, potentially marking a significant addition to the fleet’s capabilities against unmanned aerial threats. Images released by the UK Ministry of Defence show two previously unseen containers mounted on either side of the ship’s main communications mast.

For most of its history, Pakistan’s geopolitical value has risen and fallen with other countries’ emergencies. The Mecca Pact may be its most serious attempt yet to break that cycle. On Aug. 31, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey established a secretariat in Saudi Arabia for the Mecca Defence Agreement. The first secretary-general comes from Pakistan for a three-year term. The agreement builds on the Saudi-Pakistani agreement signed in September 2025, locking a decades-old informal security arrangement into a mutual defense pact.

Advancing military AI capability is a priority for the United Kingdom, and in recent weeks, the new government has doubled down on its ambitions for AI and defense via two major partnerships.On Aug. 24, 2026, on his first overseas trip as the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham signed a landmark partnership: The United Kingdom is the first international partner to receive access to Ukraine’s Avengers AI Labs. The deal will allow the United Kingdom to train its military AI systems with battlefield data, which give crucial insights into warfighting in the 21st century.

The AUSA 2026 exhibition saw a reduced presence of heavy armour, with a greater spread of 4×4 mobility and FPV drone strike munitions.

European NATO members could face years-long delays in obtaining American weapons as the United States prioritises replenishing its own military stockpiles following its war against Iran, according to Washington’s ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker. Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on October 12, Whitaker warned that American defence manufacturers would be largely occupied with meeting domestic requirements, leaving limited production capacity available for foreign customers.

The U.S. recently made a surprising decision to strike a deal with Russia to purchase large quantities of diesel fuel. The deal has drawn criticism not only from Democrats and Republicans within the U.S. but also from America’s international allies, especially Ukraine.

The situation was further complicated by President Trump’s announcement that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt strikes against each other’s energy infrastructure, a deal neither side had been made aware of beforehand.

President Donald Trump reportedly reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 9, 2026, designed to increase global diesel supplies.

The arrangement reportedly involves temporarily relaxing certain US restrictions on Russian energy exports, with initial shipments totaling 300,000 metric tons of diesel.

Putin in March of 2025 Russian Federation Photo

MSTA-S Russian Artillery. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The larger goal here is to release 4.8 million metric tons by winter.