Inside Lebanon, the conditions for the next extremist uprising are quietly taking root.In the summer of 2007, the Lebanese Armed Forces fought Fatah al-Islam for three months inside Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Fatah al-Islam was a Salafi-jihadist group that exploited the camp’s power vacuum to establish a strong recruitment base, drawing recruits from Palestinian, Syrian, and broader Arab networks. Once the dust settled, more than 400 people were dead, and the 30,000 residents of Nahr-Bared were displaced for a second time.

Chinese state media has published footage of the first export configured fifth generation fighter built in the country, a J-35AE aircraft, leading analysts to widely conclude that the first contract for the sale of the aircraft has likely been signed. The unveiling of a fully configured aircraft with export markings has been seen to indicate a shift towards more active efforts to market the fighter type abroad.

Iran has launched cruise missiles, drones, and weaponized small boats against commercial vessels and warships in the Strait of Hormuz over the last 24 hours, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, who briefed reporters on a new U.S. Central Command-led operation to safely reopen the global shipping chokepoint amid the war in the region.
“We have defeated each and every one of those threats through the clinical application of defensive munitions,” the Centcom commander said Monday. 
The U.S.

Two officers with the West Virginia National Guard received awards for heroism Monday for stopping a gunman who attacked a National Guard patrol in Washington, D.C. The attack killed another West Virginia soldier.
Army Maj. Ryan S. Reynolds and Air Force Maj. Edwin O. Stanfield received the Soldier’s Medal and Airman’s Medal, respectively, on Monday. The two were outside a Metro station in Washington in November when a gunman opened fire on a patrol of Guardsmen nearby, killing Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and injuring Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, two West Virginia National Guard members.

The Army is on the hunt for a readily available, rapidly deployable drone that service officials hope will address “reconnaissance and security gaps” that “severely limit” a battalion’s ability to assess the battlefield, according to a recent call for solutions notice.
Amid an ongoing effort to push longer-range, quick-launch drones to tactical units, the service wants battalion commanders to have an unmanned aerial system organic to their unit that can take-off vertically and fly over 40 kilometers.

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The post How AI-driven botnets are reshaping cyber defense strategies appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Army Apaches and Navy Seahawk helicopters destroyed six Iranian small boats on Monday as part of ongoing efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command.
“We have an enormous amount of capability and firepower concentrated in and around the strait, including AH-64 Apache and MH-60 Seahawk helicopters used just this morning to eliminate six Iranian small boats threatening commercial shipping,” Cooper said during a media roundtable on Monday afternoon.
Cooper said other U.S.

We spent a few days last week at the Modern Day

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.

All it takes is one look at your smartphone to realize why the Space Force exists.
Created on December 20, 2019, the United States military’s youngest service branch has myriad responsibilities. They include several that impact the lives of everyday Americans, especially in regard to Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and satellites. You know, the technology that makes your iPhone or Android so invaluable.
Also Read: The complete guide to Air Force ranks
The Space Force does so much more than that.

The Army has awarded AeroVironment a prototype agreement for the drone maker’s latest Switchblade variant, the company announced Monday.
The award is related to the service’s Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO) program, which aims to boost the loitering munition capabilities of mobile brigade combat teams.
Kamikaze drone technology has been a major factor on the battlefield and a leading case of casualties in the Ukraine-Russia war, and Pentagon officials are moving to boost the U.S. military’s arsenal for these types of weapons.
The U.S.

If the aircraft used to cart around the President of the United States were a car, it would be the equivalent of a Geo Storm. Both were introduced in 1990, both are classics in their own way, and both—frankly—need to be replaced. You might love President Trump or hate him but there’s going to be another POTUS one day,, and we can’t have the Leader of the Free World rolling around in a jalopy.
Would you want to fly in a 35-year-old airplane, even if it was maintained by the Air Force’s finest? It’s hard to blame the guy for wanting a replacement when you think about it that way.

Teledyne FLIR Defense has certified Emesent’s Hovermap LiDAR payload for use across its uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), ground robots, and radiation detection platforms.

The US Department of State has approved two foreign military sales to Qatar, totalling over $5 billion for air defence and precision weapons.

The Israeli Ministerial Committee on Procurement has approved the procurement of two additional squadrons of advanced fighter aircraft, namely one each of F-15IA and F-35I fighters, as part of a broader 350 billion shekel ($119 billion) military modernisation plan. The F-15IA and F-35I are modified variants of the F-15EX and F-35A fighters currently being procured by the U.S. Air Force.

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After four years of watching the war in Ukraine, NATO defense decision-makers are finally beginning to pour money into drones. The Iran conflict has drawn further attention to these investments. The assumption is that unmanned aerial systems will ensure a long-term advantage in conflicts requiring ground operations and infrastructure defense.But the battlefield in Ukraine is already pointing toward a different future. Russia is transforming slow, propeller-driven Shahed drones into cheap, missile-like systems by equipping them with turbojet engines.

Caught between two hammers — international law and technological dependence on the private sector — modern state sovereignty is in crisis. When a state attempts to act decisively against an adversary operating below the threshold of armed attack, it risks not only diplomatic sanctions and international condemnation but the loss of access to critical digital infrastructure owned by private corporations. In wartime, that loss is catastrophic, as we both experienced firsthand during Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.The classical understanding of state sovereignty is being challenged.

Every American administration pledges to learn from the past when devising a strategy for contending with nuclear North Korea. And yet, few portfolios are so paralyzed by path dependency and resistance to learning. But now, confronted with the inescapable prospect that the legacy approach is actually creating risk rather than reducing it, the time has come to learn and pivot.The Trump administration should sharpen the choice for North Korea, making it enticing, raising the stakes, and being prepared to back it up. In service of this, the U.S.

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Is a Nato-Russia confrontation on the horizon?

Chinese state media has for the first time published footage showing the world’s first operational next generation main battle tank, the Type 100, conducting exercises in an operational training environment, including manoeuvres at speed across dusty terrain. The footage notably shows crew member inside the vehicle operating controls, providing first insight into the layout of its entirely unique crew compartment.

The War Department has entered into agreements with seven of the world’s leading frontier artificial intelligence companies, SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services to deploy their advanced AI capabilities on the Department’s classified networks for lawful operational use. These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare.

The United States has informed several of its NATO allies in Europe to expect delays in deliveries of U.S.-made armaments due to the severe depletion of its equipment stockpiles during hostilities with Iran from February 28. The United Kingdom, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia, which have all played particularly central roles in the war effort against Russia in the Ukrainian theatre, are confirmed to have been among the states that have received such warnings. The warning of delays to arms supplies follows multiple reports from late March that the U.S.

Chinese state media outlets have provided new insight into the capabilities of the Y-20B heavy transport aircraft, after it recently carried out a mission to repatriate the remains of the deceased 13th batch of Chinese People’s Volunteers personnel from South Korea. The enhanced variant of the aircraft was first brought into service in 2023, and has since been produced and procured on a scale far exceeding that of any other large or medium sized transport aircraft in the world, revolutionising the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s airlift capabilities.

American forces will start guiding merchant ships out of the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, as President Donald Trump said the U.S. will “help free up” vessels trapped between dueling American and Iranian blockades around the strategic waterway. 
Trump announced in a Sunday afternoon social media post, saying that “Project Freedom” would start on Monday morning “Middle Eastern time.” Trump said that the United States will “guide” the trapped ships out of the strait. Soon after, U.S.

The email below was sent to AOG CEO Mark Hille by AFA ’80 graduate Tanya Regan for publication in Checkpoints, the Air Force Academy Association of Graduates magazine.
Political Conduct by AOG Women’s Affinity Group Demands Accountability
As a proud graduate of AFA ’80, the first class including women, I cherish our sharedmemories and experiences and am deeply grateful for the opportunities the AFA provided.

French Air Force Rafale fighters have intercepted to Russian Aerospace Forces Su-24M strike fighters over the Baltic Sea, marking the latest in multiple recent engagements between Western Bloc and Russian combat aircraft in the region. The French fighters had assumed a new rotation for Baltic Air Policing in the first week of April, arriving at Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania located just 130 kilometres from Russian territory.

L Todd Wood sits down with MG Bentley Rayburn (USAF, Ret), STARRS.us Chairman of the Board, to discuss the recent ideological incident at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
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Greece is preparing to leapfrog Turkey in a qualitative arms race that has been simmering for decades. By 2030, the Hellenic Air Force expects to field roughly 200 combat-ready fighter jets—including 20 F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters, advanced Block 70/72 F-16 “Vipers,” and Dassault Rafale F3R aircraft—giving Greece an air force second only to Israel in the region.

Greece Has a Really Big Air Force 
Greece operates an eclectic mix of fighter aircraft, including F-16s with Block 70/72 “Viper” upgrades, Dassault Rafales, Mirage 2000-5s, and F-4E Phantoms.

The U.S. Navy’s legendary F-14 Tomcat was actually designed from the very beginning to drop bombs—it just took the Navy decades to actually use it that way. By the twilight of its career, the “Bombcat” was hauling laser-guided munitions over Bosnian Serb targets during Operation Deliberate Force in 1995, finally living up to its multirole potential before retirement in 2006.

Meet the F-14 Tomcat Bombcat Fighter That Could Be a Bomber 
The  U.S. Navy’s F-14 Tomcat and the U.S. Air Force’s F-15 Eagle are two of the most legendary fourth-generation jet fighters.

In 1997, the U.S. military quietly purchased 21 Soviet MiG-29 fighters from the tiny Eastern European country of Moldova—not from Russia, but from a poor former Soviet republic that couldn’t afford to maintain them. The reason had nothing to do with using the jets operationally and everything to do with one fear: Iran wanted the MiG-29s to carry nuclear weapons.

The Forgotten 1997 Deal Where the U.S. Bought 21 MiG-29 Fighters to Block Iran

MiG-29 Fighter U.S. Air Force Museum July 2025. Image Credit: National Security Journal.

In the late 1990s, the U.S.

Japan’s Taigei-class submarine—the “Big Whale”—is the first submarine class designed entirely around lithium-ion batteries, abandoning traditional Air-Independent Propulsion altogether. At just $700 million per boat compared to $3-4 billion per nuclear attack submarine, the Taigei is a cost-effective asymmetric counter to China’s expanding navy in the First Island Chain.

The Taigei-Class Explained 
The Taigei-class, or ‘big whale’,  is Japan’s newest attack submarine.

This video describes the military situation in

This video describes the military situation in

U.S. and Moroccan forces are conducting search and rescue operations after two U.S. Army soldiers went missing after taking part in a training exercise in Morocco on Saturday. 
On Sunday, U.S. Africa Command reported that two American service members who were participating in the ongoing African Lion 2026 exercise at the Cap Draa Training Area near the city of Tan Tan had been reported missing on May 2 after an unspecified incident. 
“U.S.

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China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy is now the world’s largest by hull count—and Beijing’s shipbuilding capacity is reportedly 230 times that of the United States. The U.S. Navy still holds the qualitative edge in aircraft carriers, submarines, and combat experience, but every trend line is moving in the wrong direction.

China’s Navy Is Bigger Than the U.S. Navy 
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is a highly capable force and the world’s largest navy by hull count, designed primarily for anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) operations in the Western Pacific.

There’s a particular kind of energy that arrives with PCS season. It shows up in half-packed boxes, forwarded mail, school withdrawal forms, and the endless mental checklists running in the background of everything else. It’s equal parts anticipation and exhaustion closing one chapter while bracing yourself for impact to begin another.
Also Read: A 4-step action plan for milspouses to reclaim their own ambitions
For military spouses, moving isn’t just logistics.

The British Army’s smartest NCOs battled

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We asked you whether you think recent portrayal

Following successful Ukrainian strike on Shagol Airfield in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, which was reported by Ukrainian and Western sources to have destroyed Su-57 fifth generation fighters and Su-34 strike fighters, multiple Russian and Western analysts have noted that the attack is unlikely to have destroyed any serially produced Su-57s, and appears to have instead destroyed flight prototypes.

North Korean state media has published images confirming the delivery of captured NATO military equipment to the country, after the Korean People’s Army was deployed from late 2024 to help Russian forces repel a Ukrainian and Western assault into the Russian Kursk region. NATO member states have supplied armaments to Ukraine on an outstandingly large scale, providing considerable opportunities for Russia’s defence sector to analyse equipment such as U.S. M1 Abrams and German Leopard 2A6 tanks, U.S. Javelin anti-tank missile systems, and U.S. Excalibur precision guided artillery rounds.

Crowds descend upon press gangers trying to kidnap a Ukrainian man.
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The Indian Defence Ministry has signed a contract for the sale of 300 Russian R-37M long range air-to-air missiles, which has been valued at over $1.2 billion, according to multiple reports from local media outlets. The sale is expected to revolutionise the performances of the Su-30MKI ‘4+ generation’ fighters that form the backbone of the Indian Air Force’s combat fleet. This follows reports in early March from multiple Indian sources that a very scale procurement of several hundred R-37M missiles was being considered.

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Lt. Col. Asad “Genghis” Khan (Ret.

The Army is hoping to eventually put meat alternatives in ration packs for soldiers. No, the Army isn’t going vegan, but it is looking at “alternative proteins” to help keep soldiers well fed in combat zones while reducing reliance on logistical networks. 
That’s according to a Sources Sought Announcement from the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command – Soldier Center. The notice, posted to SAM.gov on April 29, calls for researchers and food industry groups to partner with the Army to develop new technologies to make the meat alternatives.

Questions are swirling after the Navy’s new acting secretary, Hung Cao, initiated what some are calling “disruptive” changes in the sea service’s intelligence and security apparatus during his first week in charge.
The swift reforms and an unexpected personnel shift have sparked uncertainty about the path ahead for the Navy’s I&S enterprise, according to several sources who were granted anonymity to speak freely about the fluid situation.