There was a time not too long ago when the U.S. Navy looked toward the Littoral Combat Ship with so much hope.
Take on enemies at sea? These fast, light warships could do that. Hunt mines? Yep, the LCS was down with that, too. Sink submarines? No problem.
Related: Did Russia actually get its LCS right?
But that’s the thing about hope: It can come crashing down when it runs head-on into reality. When it came to Littoral Combat Ships, we can charitably say that they weren’t billed as advertised.

As part of its ambitious push to get unmanned systems into the hands of its troops, the Marine Corps recently integrated drone familiarization into its foundational school for new infantry officers, service officials told reporters Wednesday.
The Infantry Officer Course (IOC) — based out of Quantico, Virginia — puts new infantry leaders through 15 weeks of training on crew-served weapons, patrols, reconnaissance and other job-specific skills to prepare them for being a platoon commander.

Multiple videos emerging from the US military a

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink has promised that two Space Force officers whose home was recently burglarized, vandalized, and set on fire will get the support they need as they recover.
“We are closely tracking the aftermath of a fire that destroyed the residence of Space Force Guardians living in Washington, D.C.,” Meink wrote in a Jan. 2  social media post.  “Our focus is & remains on supporting our service members to ensure they have the resources, safety & care they need as they support our national security.”
The blaze took place on Dec. 28 at the home of Maj.

In 2024, Harry Stevens wrote “Strangers in the Motherland: The Dynamics of Russia’s Foreign Recruitment,” where he explained the various dynamics of the Kremlin’s foreign recruitment enterprise. A year later, amidst many war developments, we asked Harry to revisit his arguments.

A former British Army general has given a guard

This video describes the military situation in

Lockheed Martin has entered into a framework agreement with the US Department of War (DoW) to increase production and delivery of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptors.

Shahed: The one-way attack drone so effective t

A large number of US military aircraft have bee

When the United States military wanted to disable Venezuela’s air defense system so it could capture the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, it had just the aircraft for the job.
The EA-18G Growler.
Related: Here’s how the EA-6B Prowler rules the skies
In part because of the Growler’s proficiency at jamming an opponent’s radar, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are now being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Since the Growler’s first flight in 2006, the U.S. Navy has deployed the EA-18G Growler around the world for tactical airborne electronic attacks.

The Army just published a pair of pictures this week of the next-generation version of the M1 Abrams main battle tank.
The black-and-white pictures are the first glimpse of the M1E3, the next version of the Army’s 46-year-old tank, which has been the subject of overhaul promises for close to a decade, with upgrades for a modern, drone-and-cyber-heavy battlefield.

The president of Ukraine’s office suggested that Coalition forces in Ukraine, in the event of a peace deal, would operate in all domains.

The Army unveiled its new M1E3 Abrams prototype

At 10:46 p.m. on Jan. 2, President Donald Trump gave the order for Delta Force special operators supported by more than 150 aircraft to launch a mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
Trump’s message to the force prior to the mission was “Good luck, and Godspeed,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine later told reporters. Details remain scant, but here’s what we know so far.
Named “Operation Absolute Resolve,” the order came after a U.S.

HiddenLayer has been awarded a place on the US Missile Defense Agency’s Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense contract.

SOF Aviation Deploys To UK – Question Is Why – Ship Takedown?

UPDATE: U.S. European Command announces the seizure Bella 1.

UPDATE: U.S. forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker near Iceland before Russian warships and a submarine could reach it. The ship, formerly Bella 1, had recently reflagged as Russian, reports Fox News.

UPDATE: Russian media reports US SOF elements currently undertaking a ship takedown of the tanker Marinera in the northern Atlantic.

US Special Forces have just left Wick in Scotland, heading towards Bella 1 – Marinera in the North Sea.

Nearly two decades after Adolphus Greely was wounded three times during the Civil War, he accepted a much more perilous mission. In 1881, the United States partnered with 10 other countries to develop a series of circumpolar stations to study the Arctic. Part of the first International Polar Year, the expeditions sought to learn more about a region of the world widely considered a “sheer blank” at the time. Greely was placed in charge of the northernmost station off Lake Franklin Bay in Greenland, roughly 500 miles from the North Pole.

J.R.

WSJ
Pentagon’s go-to electronic-warfare aircraft is a key tool in the military’s renewed focus in this type of conflict

Global Defense
Lockheed Martin has signed a new framework agreement with the U.S.

A.E.

BrD
In a complex multi-service, multi-domain scenario — not typically covered in Air Force training — the best of several AI tools generated tactical “courses of action” not only faster…

This video describes the military situation in

Can the Army beat the team who knocked them out

The Shenyang Aircraft Corporation has conducted the first known joint flight of two newly produced J-35 fifth generation fighter aircraft, following the type’s confirmed entry into frontline service in 2025. The flight took place near the corporation’s production complex in Liaoning Province, with dual-aircraft operational testing providing further confirmation that serial production is underway.

On a screen somewhere near the front, a drone operator scrolls through a catalog that looks uncannily like an e-commerce site. Instead of headphones or phone chargers, the tiles display first-person-view drones, electronic warfare kits, and evacuation robots. The unit has just uploaded verified strike videos into Ukraine’s DELTA situational-awareness system.

U.S. Navy and Coast Guard forces on January 7 boarded and took over the oil tanker Marinera in the Atlantic Ocean, after a pursuit that lasted over 14 days. The tanker was tracked northwest of Ireland before U.S. forces moved to commandeer it. It was targeted as part of broader efforts by the United States and wider Western Bloc to maximise pressure on Venezuela’s economy, with attacks on its civilian shipping, which have been widely criticised by legal experts as serious violations of international law, complementing the effects of Western economic sanctions.

The CIA knew Aldrich Ames was drinking excessively, was prone to extra-marital affairs, lived a lifestyle that was far above his pay as an intelligence officer, and even failed a lie detector test when he was suspected of being a mole. In spite of all the red flags, he was still placed in a position with the Soviet-East Europe Division that gave him access to all of the CIA’s operations against the KGB and GRU.

A Republic of China Air Force F-16V fighter crashed during a routine training mission in January 6, after taking off at 6.17pm from Hualien Air Base, marking the latest of several fighter losses by the service to accidents in recent years. The fighter’s mission computer is reported by local media outlets to have malfunctioned, resulting in the spatial disorientation of the pilot, with the mission computer having experienced a similar malfunction a few days prior.

The Air Force is no longer requiring airmen to complete a 2-mile run for at least one of their biannual physical fitness tests, and the Space Force is now requiring all guardians to take their service’s fitness test twice a year, under changes announced by the services Tuesday.
The Air Force initially announced in September that airmen would have to complete a 2-mile run at least once a year as part of the service’s new PT test.

It’s not often someone gets to collect the bounty on their own head. Denis Nikitin was on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hit list. He still is, but now he’s evading Russian hit squads using the Kremlin’s own money.
Related: Ukraine’s new, drone-delivered weapon is basically a phallic claymore
Nikitin, also known as “White Rex,” is not Ukrainian; he’s Russian. But as the founder of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), he’s fighting against the Putin regime in Ukraine. He has an entire battalion of like-thinking Russians who were the first to bring the fight to Russia.

The Defense Department is soliciting ideas for how artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities can assist in the zero-trust assessment process as the deadline to reach target-level compliance approaches.
According to a request for information posted Tuesday, the DOD’s Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office is interested in leveraging “automation, AI and ML to accelerate and scale [zero trust] assessments” across the entire department — specifically for “purple team assessments.

A trio of federal watchdog reports found conditions at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals that posed risks to mental health patients. Referred to as “suicide hazards” in the reports, investigators identified issues ranging from loose wires to sharp edges, as well as malfunctioning equipment and insufficient training, which they said put mental health patients at greater risk. 
In late December, the department’s Inspector General published the findings of three separate investigations on the state of medical facilities in West Virginia, New York and Massachusetts.

Special operators are looking for new technology to help their non-standard commercial vehicle fleet — often modified civilian trucks — keep a low profile during missions as advances in sensors and telematics open the door for enemy exploitation.
U.S. Special Operations Command is asking industry, cybersecurity, academic and government lab experts to develop or acquire existing solutions to minimize electronic signatures emitted by advanced telematics, sensors, GPS and communications systems that have become common in commercial vehicles, according to a special notice released Monday.

The British Army men’s rugby league team

On Dec. 18, President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2026, authorizing approximately $900 billion in spending. The expansive bill covers many topics, including lifting sanctions on Syria, approving important but relatively small amounts of funding to help Ukraine, reforming defense acquisition, and directing policy on a wide range of military issues. We asked four experts to identify and assess a key measure in the act and its implications for U.S. defense and national security.Read more below.

Armed Forces Minister Al Carns – a former col

There are so many rich, incredible facts surrounding the World War II-era Netherlands American Cemetery near the Dutch city of Maastricht. It lies along a highway that saw some of history’s most memorable names—Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, just to name a few.
Related: 3 Stories from the Battle of the Bulge you won’t see in ‘Band of Brothers’
In the 20th Century, Hitler’s Wehrmacht also used the road to capture the Netherlands and Belgium and bring them into the Nazi Reich.

The Pentagon is looking to launch a new Enterprise Command and Control Program Office in a move that would consolidate and refresh its long-standing efforts to provide common operating panes and user-specific AI tools to track and target enemies in real time.

US president Donald Trump said that Washington

The German Armed Forces has awarded Rheinmetall a new order for 30mm ammunition intended for its infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs).

Delta Force – the US military’s most elite

Pentagon leaders are directing a review of the “effectiveness” of women in combat arms jobs — a move that comes nearly a decade since women got the right to serve in these roles. 
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told Task & Purpose in a statement that the Institute for Defense Analyses is reviewing the “effectiveness” of women in ground combat roles. The Pentagon memo, originally reported by NPR and confirmed by Task & Purpose, calls for the Army and Marine Corps to submit data on ground combat troops’ readiness, training, casualties and deployability.

This video describes the military situation in

Navy SEAL trainees and other sailors hoping to join one of a handful of hard-charging Navy jobs have to pass many brutal fitness tests. But beginning this year, fully qualified SEALs and others in combat roles must now pass a specific, Navy-wide Combat Fitness Test every year to keep those jobs.
Sailors in the Navy’s four combat-focused career fields must now take an annual swim test and then wear a 20-pound weight vest for both a run and a set of traditional strength tests.

Strength Is Built in Silence
✓ Link to the vi

When most people retire from the military, they look forward to spending more time with family, relaxing, and maybe pursuing their hobbies. Neall Ellis isn’t most people.
After a successful career in both the Rhodesian Army and South African Air Force, Ellis became bored with civilian life. Rather than sit back and relax, he decided to pursue the only hobby he knew: kicking ass.
With plenty of strife and a need for fighters throughout the African continent, Ellis decided to become a mercenary. He wasn’t going to be just any mercenary, though.

If one checks the Reddit reviews in Brooklyn, they might highlight the world-famous pizza, the multi-million dollar brownstones, or the hipster baristas who silently judge your coffee order (and your clothes, your voice, don’t get them started on your shoes). They rarely mention the doody-brown brick of Sunset Park’s waterfront. It is here that the world’s least popular power couple has just checked in.

Marine Corps Compass Points
World events provide the answer