Ukrainian drone operators joined 18,000 Nato tr

The U.S. Navy has announced the development of a nuclear powered surface combat ship, colloquially referred to as the Trump class battleship, which would mark a major shift for the service’s power projection. The United States has not laid down a nuclear powered surface combat ship in almost half a century, since the USS Arkansas was laid down in 1977, with the extreme production and sustainment costs of such ships having been considered prohibitive.

Leading U.S. jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney has completed a fully digital assembly readiness review for its XA103 adaptive engine, which is the major design-phase hurdle before the procurement of hardware to build the first prototype.

Expert on the F-35 fifth generation fighter program Abraham Abrams has in a recent interview on his new book on the program provided insight into its possible future modernisation, responding to a question on whether the fighter would likely in future integrate laser weapons or hypersonic missiles. His answers highlighted the global scale of the F-35 program, and in particular the large number of countries with highly developed economies and defence sectors which operate the aircraft and can potentially contribute to producing new weapons or subsystems.

The inaugural Best Jumpmaster competition at Fort Benning, Georgia, began in a similar style as many of the Army’s “Best” competitions: with competitors taking a PT test and starting off on a long ruck march.
But as the 28 competitors made their way over the 13-mile course, they stopped along the way to be graded on a variety of jumpmaster skills. Then over the course of the three-day event, the paratroopers were put through skill tests that ranged from aircraft inspections and crew briefings to packing or “rigging” a parachute.

The Coast Guard plans to grow its fleet of interdiction teams who hop onto fast-moving cocaine submarines and fast-rope onto oil tankers to make mid-ocean seizures, according to service officials and a fiscal 2027 budget proposal.
In all, the Coast Guard wants to spend about $80 million to add more than 650 personnel to its Deployable Specialized Forces units and a new Special Missions Command overseeing them.

While known for their distinctive role in the H

The Missile Defense Agency is planning to deliver a provisional capability to defend against hypersonic weapons in the near term as it continues development of more advanced systems.
Under a new effort dubbed “Project Maverick,” MDA intends to conduct a flight test of a defensive system to prove the agency’s ability to track and defeat hypersonic missiles in fiscal 2027, according to the organization’s latest budget request. If the demonstration is a success, the resulting capability could serve as an interim counter-hypersonics capability until more advanced systems are fielded.

One of the largest nuclear-powered submarines o

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Much of the work of the Defense Department’s Strategic Capabilities Office is classified, but the secretive organization’s director recently shed light on the capability areas that the SCO is focused on.
The office, which aims to rapidly prototype and transition “game-changing,” high-tech solutions to address near-term challenges, is executing a $1.7 billion budget this year, according to SCO chief Jay Dryer.

The Marine Corps is expanding its Arctic footpr

More than 50 applications are under review for the Defense Department’s new pilot program offering small and medium-sized businesses free, two-year commercial evaluation licenses for hundreds of curated, government-owned patents, according to a senior official overseeing the work.
This “Defense Patent Holiday” effort is designed to let non-traditional suppliers and other firms explore, prototype, and test military technologies for commercial or defense applications without paying the usual upfront fees.

HMS Queen Elizabeth set sail from Portsmouth an

A non-profit group’s offer of $150 towards the rising cost of gas for Air Force and Space Force enlisted troops proved to be so popular that it will run out of money today, just hours after opening for applications, according to the group.
The Air & Space Forces Aid Society, or AFAS, announced the program last week and opened an online application portal Monday for a one-time grant to eligible airmen and guardians between the ranks of E-1 and E-6.

Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman, Sean Parnell, on “Establishment of the Department of War COVID-19 Reinstatement and Reconciliation Task Force” and “Reinstating Service Members Unjustly Discharged Under the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccine Mandate” Memorandums 
The Department of War continues to take decisive action in support of the many Service members adversely impacted by the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Multinational soldiers took part in a stress sh

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Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection of articles from Ukrainian media offering insight into how Ukrainians themselves debate the issues shaping their country.American coverage often narrows the view to the battlefield — these pieces widen it, revealing the texture of daily life, politics, and public argument in a nation at war.

The UK will allocate £6m to QinetiQ-led Team Elaris for the development of an eLoran system – an alternative navigation system to GNSS.

The crack of a rifle pierces the morning silenc

Poland has obtained €43.7bn ($51.5bn) in financing through a loan agreement under the European Union’s Security Action for Europe programme.

It must have seemed like a relatively harmless work detail, in the way that any detail in the world’s most heavily armed border area can be harmless. When Capt. Arthur Bonifas and Lt. Mark Barrett reported for duty to chop down a tree in the Korean DMZ, they probably never thought they’d be hacked to death by North Korean soldiers.
Also Read: Adopting North Korean basketball rules would be a game-changer for the NBA
The two officers were leading a South Korean work detail with a South Korean officer on Aug. 18, 1976.

Two Army bases, two Air Force bases and one Nav

Steve Blank, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and educator, recently warned startup founders that if their company was built on assumptions from more than two years ago, their business plan may already be dead. The same is true of military plans.
Replace “startup” with “combatant command,” and the warning becomes existential.

Swedish defence prime Saab has introduced the Bolide 2 missile for its RBS 70 short-range air defence (SHORAD) missile system.

As America faces a housing and skilled labor crisis, students and mentors work to build better hands-on futures for themselves and their communities in a new documentary series called “Building Back America’s Trades”—and two of those skilled professionals are military veterans.
Also Read: This metal manufacturing jobs program wants to fill 122,000 openings
The series features Gordon Unrein, a Marine Corps veteran and longtime trades instructor at Columbus Technical College, alongside William Franks, a retired Air Force veteran and graduate of the program Gordon leads.

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U.S.

Airforce Tech.

Todd South, A&SF
A combined Navy and Air Force program is seeking to build a smaller version of a ubiquitous air-to-air missile that could give advanced aircraft, such as the Collaborative…

Aviationist
The Rapid Dragon program, now called Dragon Cart, transitioned to a Program of Record and will see cargo aircraft able to deploy palletized cruise missiles by 2027

Joseph Trevithick, The WarZone
Remotely triggered containerized drone swarms, potentially placed behind enemy lines, create a hard-to-defend-against threat from pretty much everywhere

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The Iranian Navy has deployed lightweight attack submarines for operations the Strait of Hormuz, which are prized for their ability to manoeuvre in relatively shallow waters and for their quietness, making them optimal for strikes on adversary shipping. Iran first began to procure submarines ships from North Korea in the 1980s to strengthen its sea denial capabilities, representing one of multiple potentially high impact assets supplied by the East Asian state.

Talk of war in the Middle East abounds on social media, but not just about the one with Iran. A small, but significant, portion of this chatter relates to a conflict that has not begun. For more than a year now, pundits and politicians have warned of a potential clash between Israel and Turkey. Driving this hypothetical confrontation are a series of issues related to Syria, the Palestinian territories, and regional security as a whole. In December 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indirectly charged Ankara with wanting to reestablish Ottoman imperial rule over the Levant.

Editor’s Note: This article contains frank descriptions of battlefield conditions, including accounts of soldiers dying by suicide following injury. Western battlefield casualty evacuation doctrine is built on assumptions forged during the “Global War on Terror.” Central among these is the belief that the wounded can be rapidly moved from the point of injury to progressively higher levels of medical care within a defined timeframe, commonly referred to as the “golden hour.” The concept itself originated in civilian trauma medicine decades prior, generally attributed to Dr. R.

Footage taken in Russia has confirmed the expansion of the fleet of enhanced Tu-160M strategic bombers to ten aircraft, as work continues both to complete a post-Soviet production run of 50 aircraft, and to upgrade the much smaller fleet of 17 Soviet-built aircraft to the new standard.Tu-160 serial number 8-04, named Deynekin, was previously seen undergoing modernisation at the Kazan Aircraft Production Association in 2020, and has belatedly been brought up to the much improved new standard, with the same avionics as new production variants.

Images released on Chinese social media on May 11 have confirmed that the J-10C ‘4+ generation’ fighter has integrated the new DF-4/3 external weapons pylons, which are used to integrate the world’s longest ranged air-to-air missile type, the PL-17, onto J-16 fighters. This has led analysts to widely conclude that J-10C units will very likely also begin to be equipped with PL-17 missiles, which could transform how they are employed.

Footage released by the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has shown the destruction of launchers from an Israeli Iron Dome air defence system using first person view drones. maintenance crew were seen diving away from the drone seconds before impact, with the aircraft approaching unobserved until less than five seconds before it struck. The launchers were deployed at the Jal al-Alam military site in northern Israel. Analysts observing the footage have indicated that the drones may have integrated PG-7VL or PG-7-AT high-explosive anti-tank warheads.

She saw her son standing in formation and said, “Look, he’s wearing his little outfit.”
A drill sergeant overheard her, turned around, and said, “BDUs, ma’am. It’s not a little outfit. Welcome to the Army.” She wanted to vomit. Just sayin’.
Also Read: Your spouse just retired. Now your child wants to enlist. WTF.
How could a mother be prepared for that moment? Mom didn’t get an orientation packet at basic; no pamphlet was slipped under the door with proper terminologies and nomenclatures. One day, she’s the woman who packed his lunch and knew where everything was.

The U.S. Department of War has confirmed that the second Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy, has again seen its delivery date significantly delayed, following months of speculation by analysts that such delays would occur. The warship, which began construction in 2011, is now confirmed to be scheduled for launch in March 2027, meaning it will take 16 years from construction to delivery.

L Todd Wood talks with Commander Salamander on the prospect of a long-term blockade in the Persian Gulf. We also talk Naval readiness.
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Today, Hezbollah released a video of an FPV drone attack on the Israeli Iron Dome system near the border with Lebanon.
The IDF has struggled to respond to the FPV drone threat, which uses special cables and manual operation of the drone to outwit the IDF’s advanced technologies for jamming and tracking drones, reported The Jerusalem Post.
Israeli military units operating in southern Lebanon have begun equipping vehicles with improvised anti-FPV drone protection systems, mirroring battlefield innovations widely used by Ukrainian forces against Russian drone attacks.

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The U.S. Army recovered the body of one of the two soldiers who went missing a week ago while taking part in an international training exercise in Morocco.
This afternoon, the Army’s Southern European Task Force, Africa announced that Moroccan search and rescue teams located the remains of 1st. Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., 27, of Richmond, Virginia. Key, an air defense artillery officer, served as a platoon leader with Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
“Today, we mourn the loss of 1st Lt.

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Six F-16 fighter pilots were presented with the Distinguished Flying Cross last week for their role in Operation Midnight Hammer, last year’s strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities
Gen.Adrian Spain, head of Air Combat Command, presented the honors — the highest award for valor during flight — on May 5, although the Air Force did not announce the awards until Friday, May 8. The pilots were part of a massive force of 125 planes that took part in the June 21-22 strikes on three Iranian facilities.

The retirement ceremony is the easy part. The flag is folded, the speeches are kind, the family takes pictures, and the Air Force band plays a song that gets every fist in the room in the air for one last “GIVE ‘EM THE GUN!” Then you go home. And on Monday morning, for the first time in your adult life, nobody is waiting for you at 0600.

Russian developers appear to be testing a specialized blinding ammunition for shotguns, designed specifically to neutralize the optics of FPV drones at close range, according to a video recently circulating online.
According to the footage, the munition deploys a highly adhesive red compound upon firing. This payload rapidly creates a cloud of fine particulate matter that adheres to the drone’s camera lens. The substance then quickly hardens, rendering the optics completely opaque and blinding the drone operator.

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