The Strait of Hormuz may never return to its pre-war status. The strategic waterway, through which more than 20 percent of oil and natural gas transit, is chock-full of sea mines.

Ships are languishing while awaiting permission to pass through the strait, and commercial traffic has been significantly affected.

ATLANTIC OCEAN (June 4, 2020) The Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transit the Atlantic Ocean, June 4, 2020.

Littoral Combat Ship Deck Gun U.S. Navy.

The Navy is currently searching for a missing crew member from the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier after an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter from the ship crashed in the Arabian Sea, service officials have announced.
The helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush “conducted an emergency water landing” about 3:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, according to the officials with the Navy’s 5th Fleet, which overseas the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean.

🏉 The British Army Rugby League teams put on

One aspect of total warfare is that civilians often suffer. Russia and Ukraine have bombarded each other without mercy throughout the conflict.

Both sides are used to ducking for cover and entering bomb shelters at all times, and the threat from missiles and drones is a recurring nightmare for all involved.

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.

This video describes the military situation in

Russia Forced to Import Gasoline Thanks to Ukraine War: After reports revealed Moscow was seeking fuel imports from Kazakhstan, the Kremlin confirmed on June 30 that it is looking to import gasoline from abroad for the first time in years. The shock admission reveals the extent of the damage being done to Russian energy infrastructure as part of its ongoing long-range strike campaign.

The Kremlin confirmed that discussions are underway with multiple foreign suppliers to purchase fuel – a remarkable development for one of the largest oil exporters in the world.

In 2025, Ofek Riemer, Daniel Wajner, and Ehud Eiran wrote, “Populists vs. Spies in Israel and Beyond,” where they argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relationship with Israel’s intelligence agencies could have grave consequences for Israel’s democracy. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments.Image: U.S.

The New York Times reported that Iran and Oman are moving forward with plans to collect transit fees from ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, despite public objections from the United States, according to an Iranian official and four diplomats who are involved.

If enacted, the plans would represent a significant change from Oman’s previous stance on charging fees to transit the strategic waterway.

(August 15, 2008) With SH-60 helicopters moving pallets of supplies both USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and USNS Bridge (T-AOE 10) work together during a replenishment at sea or RAS.

Amazon Web Services and Anduril debuted a new co-product offering Tuesday that officials billed as purpose-built for military commanders and first responders who need cloud-grade computing, storage and AI capabilities in remote areas, or places where connectivity is severely degraded or denied.
During the AWS Summit, experts from both companies demonstrated the hardware and briefed a small group of reporters on the underlying technologies that are already deployed in real-world warfare.

Are the ceasefire and peace framework with Iran dead? It is looking more and more like this is the case. President Donald Trump has even been given options by his national security team to resume all-out warfare against Iran.

While he has considered going the violent route, Trump has decided to give negotiations a chance for now.

Donald Trump at Turning Points USA. Image by Gage Skidmore.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has reportedly briefed the president on a new war plan even though the two countries are supposed to keep the peace and talk it out for the next six to seven weeks.

No aerosol deodorant. No vaping.

This video describes the military situation in

The Army said the M7 rifle production line has

A former soldier was found guilty of stealing more than $1 million of Meals-Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, from Fort Bliss, Texas.
Joseph Lavar Davis, 47, was convicted by a Texas jury for a heist that included tens of thousands of MREs worth more than $1.1 million, Department of Justice officials announced Tuesday. 
The MRE theft took place between February and August 2020 and included 200 pallets of the field rations. Each pallet contains roughly 576 MREs, according to federal court documents.

Can drones and robot ships save the Royal Navy?

The upcoming and much-anticipated Jimmy Stewart biopic, “Jimmy” is not only getting a new trailer, it’s getting a lot of support from brands that once supplied materiel support to the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.
A total of 40 iconic American brands, including the American Legion, American Optical, the American Red Cross, Bulova, Easy Built Models, Hanes, M&M’S, MoonPie, and The Salvation Army, are stepping up once more to honor of the actor and his legacy of service.

While British industry leaders expressed relief for the Defence Investment Plan, there is still concern about details and implementation.

As a merchant in colonial America, Silas Deane knew how to negotiate a good deal.
Those skills extended beyond the confines of his store in Connecticut, and Deane put them to good use when the Second Continental Congress deployed him to France. Deane arrived in Paris on July 6, 1776—two days after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence—with one objective. He sought to secure assistance for the Continental Army, which confronted severe shortages in men and supplies against the British, and needed to do it as secretly as possible.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly instructed the Russian General Staff to calculate multiple pathways for new offensive operations to capture Kyiv.

Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that these plans include potential strike scenarios from Belarusian territory and the Russian region of Bryansk targeting the Chernihiv region.

Ukraine War Map. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

While Belarus has made a lot of noise about Ukraine, it has thus far stayed clear of becoming more actively involved.

KNDS Deutschland marked a production milestone at its Görlitz facility with the unveiling of the 40th interior cabin Protected Transport Vehicle.

Both Russia and Ukraine are increasingly relying on tactical glide bombs as traditional artillery becomes more vulnerable to drones. The shift reflects the ongoing revolution in warfare, where persistent ISR drones, electronic warfare, and precision strike have made massed artillery difficult to use. Presently, Russia leads in both the inventory and operational experience of glide bombs. But Ukraine has begun fielding its own domestically produced glide bomb, too, suggesting that both sides see the weapon as central to the campaign’s future.

Battlefield Problems

Russian Artillery.

Putin’s Goals in Ukraine, Then and Now: Russian President Vladimir Putin still insists that peace with Ukraine is possible – but only on his terms. Today, Putin’s demands of Ukraine are hard to parse. The goals have moved over years of fighting, and with Ukraine now proving it can cripple the Russian economy and make warfighting even more expensive than it was before, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a negotiated deal doesn’t end up with concessions from Russia.

One silver lining of receiving less funding tha

President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the United States is getting along very well with Iran, that Iran’s denuclearization is moving along well, and that recent meetings in Qatar had gone well. He said it within hours of a report that he had spent recent days weighing whether to walk away from those talks and restart the war outright.

Both things are true, and the distance between them is the story.

Last fall, the U.S. Marine Corps had virtually no first-person view attack drones. That’s changed quickly. This episode is about how a team of marines at Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico went from a cold start to building a Marine Corps-wide first-person view drone training system. Ryan was pleased to welcome some great marines onto the show: Col. Scott Cuomo, CWO5 Steve Pearsoll, CWO3 (Gunner) Troy Hotaling, GySgt Jude Stewart, GySgt Justin Creasman, and Sgt Timothy Brockup.Since we recorded this episode, Cuomo has changed command and is off to his next assignment.

Rheinmetall has received an order from Ukraine to supply 155mm long-range artillery shells, with production for the contract already underway.

The global satellite market forecast will see an increasing share spent on military and dual-use systems over the coming decade.

Ukraine Warns Russia May Be Preparing Northern Offensive: Amid Ukraine’s hugely successful long-range strike campaign, Kyiv is now warning that a new Russian offensive could be on the way – this time, from the north. And the goal this time would not be to capture Kyiv, but to stretch Ukrainian defenses to their limits.

The tail insignia for the Air Force’s E-4B Nightwatch airborne command post — unofficially nicknamed the “Doomsday Plane” — pays tribute to a legendary World War II bomber unit that was awarded three presidential citations.
On June 26, the first E-4B featuring the Square B tail flash — a black box with a white letter “B” — was unveiled at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, as part of the 95th Wing’s heritage week, according to a news release from Eighth Air Force, which oversees the wing.

Then-sergeant first class Jacob Gaskill felt uneasy last year. He had been in the Army for more than a decade as an explosive ordnance technician before heading to the Army Software Factory. There and over the course of multiple years, he helped fix some of the service’s most pressing digital issues.
But in 2025, his software tour was coming to a close. Armed with an “additional skill identifier” that denoted his qualifications as a software developer from his time at the ASWF, he was set to go back to the EOD branch and finish out his service in the job he entered back in 2010.

…just good stuff to report, really…

Public Domain

One day, and that day may never come, there will be an easy search mechanism for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Until then, the best a humble citizen from the provinces can do is take a low pass, bite a nibble at the most attractive bits, and then head off to digest what you got.
Speeches, orders, and policy statements from the Executive Branch are important, but if you really want to drive change or correct error, you have to do it through the legislative branch.

The Ukraine War Comes Closer to Putin: Russia’s capital city was once again under bombardment by Ukrainian drones in the latest round of strikes to hit Russia’s largest city and the seat of power in the world’s largest country.

Posting to his Telegram channel, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote that more than 60 explosive-laden drones had been successfully shot down by Russian air defenses, but it was not immediately clear how many Ukrainian drones had managed to evade being shot down.

Tu-160 Bomber from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russia Tu-160 Bomber on Tarmac.

At the beginning of this year, world events seemed to be leaning in Russia’s favor. Distracted by military action in Venezuela and Iran, with the potential for conflict in Cuba and other parts of the world, the Trump Administration’s attention and interest in resolving the war in Ukraine through a peace deal seemed to be on life support. Perhaps waning interest in Washington would provide a window of opportunity, thought the Kremlin.

It’s one of the most important days in Gu

Annual “religious liberty training” may soon be required for troops and commanders if the Pentagon adopts recommendations from a White House-directed commission of faith leaders and military advocates. 
The recommendations, which Pentagon leaders said Tuesday they “welcome,” come from the Religious Liberty Commission, a 12-person committee established by President Donald Trump in May 2025 to develop policies across the federal government to “secure domestic religious liberty.

Image by Simon Dawson/10 Downing Street

Outgoing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — expected to leave office next month after losing Labour MPs’ support — unveiled a long-delayed Defence Investment Plan on Tuesday, pledging almost £300 billion over four years to “transform” Britain’s armed forces. Headline items: over £5 billion for drones and autonomous systems, a promise to make the Army “10 times more lethal” through drones, missiles and AI, and roughly 60,000 new jobs by decade’s end.

Ukraine’s top general says Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian General Staff to draw up plans for a new offensive that includes capturing Kyiv. Speaking on the TSN telethon on June 30, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Putin tasked his General Staff with calculating several options for a renewed assault, one of them launched from Belarusian territory and aimed at the Ukrainian capital.

The claim is real and alarming on its face.

Archibald MacLeish didn’t have much downtime to enjoy the holidays in 1941.
As the United States’ ninth Librarian of Congress, MacLeish was too preoccupied with work. A few weeks after Japan’s surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, MacLeish was among those tasked with making the final arrangements to safeguard the nation’s most important documents from enemy attack or sabotage.
Related: 6 things you didn’t know about the Declaration of Independence
This initiative was on such a need-to-know basis that MacLeish did the packing himself, according to a 2016 article on History.com.

After months of increased drone attacks, multiple regions throughout Russia are starting to feel the economic ripple effects of the war. Originally contained to Crimea and other border regions along the border with Ukraine, regions throughout Siberia and even Moscow itself have been forced to implement fuel rationing as drone attacks against oil refineries and other fuel infrastructure sites have forced the government to take drastic measures to cope with the strained supply, much to the displeasure of ordinary Russians.

Iran has blocked nearly one-third of the world’s agricultural inputs via the Strait of Hormuz. Critical ingredients needed to grow food–from fertilizer feedstocks to industrial chemicals–have been prevented from moving through one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints at precisely the worst possible moment: the heart of the global planting season. The disruption has persisted for so long that even if the Strait fully reopened tomorrow, much of the damage has already occurred — it has not yet harmed Americans.

Warsaw, Poland – It could be that worsening conditions inside Russia are adversely affecting an increasing share of the population. It could also be a growing perception that the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin may end as soon as this year. All thanks to the Ukraine war.

It could also be that there is a realization across the board that Putin cares little for any of the disastrous effects of the war on his country as a whole, nor the unprecedented casualty figures on the battlefield.

Ukraine Artillery Strike. Ukraine Armed Forces Photo.

Bruce Allen Lubbering, RCDefense
The United States Navy is facing an acute crisis of capacity.

Naval T.
The destroyers finished Depot Modernization Periods under DDG Modernization 2.

Jay Rogers, RealClearDefense
Why the Military Has Always Said No to Those Who Can’t

This video describes the military situation in

In 1990, the idea that deployed commanders could access the latest intelligence from three-letter agencies in the middle of nowhere was radical. But the Army was starting to make this idea real through a program called Trojan Spirit, so they could address a major strategic barrier: There were too many systems and databases for intelligence collection and analysis, some centralized and some forward deployed, and little access to practical insights. During Operation Desert Storm, the early Trojan system transitioned out of development and into operational deployment.

What can leaders do about a transnational organization that is a militia, a political party, a social services network, and a smuggling operation at the same time — and one that has resisted various dialogues and survived repeated attacks?American, Lebanese, and other leaders should recognize Hizballah’s hybrid, transnational nature and grapple with the unique challenges the organization creates. Otherwise, they will fail to resolve the Hizballah predicament while creating conditions for ineffective agreements, new wars, and squandered opportunities in the Levant.

The amphibious invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, remains the largest and most complex amphibious operation in history. On the first day alone, Allied forces landed eight divisions, including five amphibious assault and three airborne, totaling roughly 160,000 personnel. That force more than doubled within days.Normandy was unprecedented in scale but not in kind. A Taiwan invasion would present the reverse problem: Taiwan’s size is not the unprecedented part — the operational challenges are.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy has been confirmed to have brought the Z-8D helicopter into service, with the aircraft relied on primarily for anti-submarine warfare operations, but also to support amphibious assaults, search and rescue, and logistics missions. The first clear images of the aircraft emerged publicly in March 2025.

WSAV TV news (Savannah, GA) reported that Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 29, was given six consecutive life sentences for six offenses of attempted murder. He was found guilty on June 18.