The UK-Poland defence treaty has been questioned by an influential committee in the UK House of Lords amid a crisis in UK military readiness.

“Ministers will be fully behind and supportive

U.S. Destroys Five Iranian Tankers, Oil Market Responds – The United States hit and destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday, September 8, following Iranian ballistic missile attacks against U.S. warships.

U.S. Central Command said four Iranian crude carriers — the Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1 and Riesco — were struck in the Gulf of Oman. A fifth vessel, the Derya, was struck near Kharg Island, Iran’s most important oil export hub. American forces reportedly ordered the crew to abandon the vessels before they were attacked.

U.S. Rejects Iran Attack Disinformation – The U.S.-Iran war continues to ramp up in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran now says it has attacked commercial shipping and a base in Jordan after American forces torched five Iranian oil tankers.

U.S. Denies IRGC’s Hit Claims

The B-2 Spirit flies over the Rose Parade at Pasadena Ca., Jan. 1, 2024. The Rose Parade is a parade of flower covered floats, marching band, and equestrian units that is produced by the Tournament of Roses. (U.S.

Louis Skupien, the first British civilian to fl

What is Iran doing at Pickaxe Mountain? – Pickaxe Mountain is a mountain facility in Iran that the Iranian regime is widely believed to use as part of its nuclear program. President Donald Trump has threatened, at various times throughout the war, to attack Pickaxe Mountain, but the U.S. is not known to have struck the facility.

Now, a new report says there’s been an “uptick” in recent construction at the facility.

A B-2 Spirit soars after a refueling mission over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. The B-2, from the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

Elbit Systems UK provided its Recce Strike Training System to support British Army live virtual constructive training exercises.

Pilots and crews of the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing returned home Sunday from a deployment that began before last Christmas and sent the unit into combat in two hemispheres.
The extended stint away from home for the F-35 unit included a rare back-to-back redeployment from one combat theater to another, first in operations in the Caribbean and South America and then directly to the Middle East.
The final deployed members of the wing arrived home Sunday in Burlington. An earlier group returned in early August, according to photos released by the 158th.

The Australian government has announced a A$2.4bn ($1.7bn) investment aimed at modernising the country’s air and missile defence systems.

“The Fix” has everything you could ever ask for from a Hollywood action-thriller: good guys versus bad guys, small arms combat, explosions, and a brotherhood of special operators coming together for one last, high-stakes, do-or-die mission deep inside enemy territory that will have you tearing through a bucket of popcorn.
What it also shows is an entire genre of military action movies slowly transitioning away from the Global War on Terror to what might be Hollywood’s new “big bad” guy—Iran.

There was much more activity overnight in the war in Iran, as the U.S.S, reacting to what they claimed was an attempt to attack one of their warships, struck five Iranian oil tankers. After that, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Jordan.

U.S. Central Command issued a statement about the exchanges of fire, which included video of one of the tanker explosions. CENTCOM stated that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a Naval warship with ballistic missiles twice in two days, although neither ship was struck, and no American personnel were harmed.

(Aug.

Russian drones and missiles struck Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Tuesday, reportedly killing five people and wounding around 30 others. The attack, which targeted a number of civilian, non-military sites, came just after American envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, departed Ukraine.

The strikes marked a definitive end to the temporary three-day ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv that had been in place during Witkoff and Kushner’s visit to Kyiv.

This video describes the military situation in

The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office is piloting a new “shared savings” contract model with venture studio Red Cell Partners that marks a clear pivot from long-standing traditional government buying structures.
This unique agreement for AI assets is designed to demonstrate a contracting framework where vendors are paid only for the costs they eliminate and the outcomes they deliver for the Defense Department, officials from the agency and venture firm revealed on Tuesday. 
The work will unfold via an Other Transaction Authority deal worth up to $100 million in the first year.

More than 80 military occupations are now designated as combat arms and require a combat field test be completed in addition to their standard service fitness test.
The Department of Defense’s physical fitness and body composition policy, which was updated on Aug. 31, lists Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force jobs that fall under the new requirements. They include soldiers in infantry and Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders, Air Force pararescuemen and dozens of other occupations.

How does a retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant go from serving his country to weighing 424 pounds?
Jason Bush likely posed that question to himself countless times as the scale told no lies. It began when injuries slowed him down during the tail end of his military career. After he transitioned to the civilian world, Bush admittedly ate poorly and didn’t exercise much. That combination of factors, among others, caused him to put on excess weight—lots of it.
He realized something had to change in late 2020 and early 2021.

This video describes the military situation in

A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer transits the Persian Gulf. Photo: U.S. Navy / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
U.S. Central Command confirmed Tuesday that American forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers in the latest round of retaliatory strikes in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman – the most significant single naval engagement of the ongoing conflict with Tehran.
CENTCOM confirmed the four tankers destroyed in the Gulf of Oman were M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, and M/T Riesco.

Marine Corps Compass Points
In theory, among all the many missions the F-35 is supposed to accomplish, the F-35 will provide Marines on the ground with Close Air Support

Stars&Str.

WM
Equipped with the nuclear-armed LRSO cruise missile and B61-13 gravity bombs, the Raider leverages broadband stealth and standoff range

The Aviationist
A new Congressional Research Service report highlights the growing gap between the U.S.

GD
The Scorpion, also known as the Alakran, primarily reduces the time between vehicle movement, mortar firing, and displacement rather than changing the M253’s ballistic performance

Ukrainian Air Force F-16 pilots are increasingly being forced to engage aerial targets using their aircraft’s onboard cannon because of an acute shortage of air-to-air missiles, highlighting the severe ammunition constraints facing Ukraine’s Western-supplied fighter fleet. Reports point to a significant limitation for a force whose effectiveness depends heavily on access to modern air-to-air weapons.

As a naval shipyard commander, my mandate from Navy leadership is straightforward: return warships to the fleet as quickly as possible. Neither my shipyard nor many other public and private shipyards are consistently fulfilling that mission.Public shipyard availabilities — the scheduled periods during which nuclear-powered warships are taken out of operational service for maintenance, repair, or modernization — are often delayed well beyond their original timelines.

On Jan. 5, 2025, my volunteer platoon attached to the 23rd Special Purpose Battalion of the Presidential Brigade entered a 1-kilometer-long tree line called CHAI, on the outskirts of Kotlyne, a few kilometers west of Pokrovsk, Ukraine. Our task was to occupy a position whose status on DeepState, an open-source map tracking military operations in the Russo-Ukrainian war, had been shifting out of gray for five days.

Collective-defense pacts are meant to make war less likely. Poorly designed ones can do the opposite. If allies make sweeping promises without the military integration, decision-making mechanisms, and escalation controls needed to carry them out, they may invite adversaries to test the boundaries of these promises.The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, signed on Aug. 7 amid intensifying regional conflict, represents a significant but uncertain development in the region.

The Air Force look for revenge after losing twi

Can the RAF stop the dominant Army team from wi

This video describes the military situation in

New footage has shown the Russian Aerospace Forces’ two most capable attack helicopter types the Mi-28N/NM and Ka-52 being used to intercept Ukrainian FP-1 and MICH-2000 drones, following weeks of reports that they are serving as specialised air defence platforms. The Mi-28 was seen using its 2A42 30mm cannon for close-range engagements, supported by the OPS-28M multispectral electro-optical system and N025 mast-mounted radar. These sensors can detect low-RCS targets at ranges of up to 5 kilometres.

L Todd Wood and Pete Blaber lay out the infighting between rival gangs of the Ukrainian regime.
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The Republic of China Air Force is planning a major expansion of its hardened aircraft shelter infrastructure on the east coast on Taiwan Island, with 26 new shelters planned in Hualien and Taitung as the service prepares to receive 66 newly built F-16C/D Block 70 fighters from the United States. The project, valued at approximately NT$6.88 billion (U.S.$218 million), is intended to improve the survivability of the fighter fleet against potential missile and air attacks.

Two Russian Aerospace Forces Su-35S air superiority fighters collided in mid-air over Russia’s Kursk Region on September 7, killing one pilot, after the aircraft were reportedly supporting combat operations in the Ukrainian theatre. The collision highlights an often-overlooked vulnerability of advanced combat aircraft, namely that even highly sophisticated fighters remain dependent upon pilots maintaining precise positional awareness when operating together.

With the war in the Middle East now in its sixth consecutive month, a new reality is beginning to set in among the once-peaceful Gulf states, one in which this war continues indefinitely.

Nations like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman have borne the brunt of America’s war with Iran, as traffic to many Gulf ports near Hormuz has slowed to a crawl.

The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) sails in the Philippine Sea Aug. 26, 2018 during a Passing Exercise (PASSEX) with the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force.

On September 6, 1976, Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Lieutenant Viktor Belenko stole the world’s fastest combat aircraft, the MiG-25P Foxbat, in the most prominent defection by air of the Cold War era. The pilot, who according to a number of Western sources had been in contact with Western intelligence agencies when stationed in Moscow, had been based in Chuguyevka, east of Vladivostok, and flew the aircraft to Hakodate Airport in Japan.

On Tuesday, following the Houthis’ attack on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the price of oil surged, with Brent Crude going as high as $99 before trading at around $98.5 a barrel as of Tuesday afternoon. It’s the first time oil has reached that mark since July.

This has already been reflected in U.S. gas prices, with GasBuddy stating in its weekly report that while average gas prices had dropped a couple of cents from a week before, they had reached $4.09 per gallon, which represented a 10.6-cent increase from a month earlier and 90.8 cents per gallon from a year ago.

For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off F

Ukraine Needs Patriot Missiles, Fast – Russia resumed its long-range, large-scale missile and drone strikes across Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, September 8, killing at least five people and injuring dozens more just as Kyiv presented allies with a request for hundreds more air defense interceptors intended to counter Russian attacks.

Ukraine: We Need More Patriot Missiles 
The fresh missile and drone bombardment followed a brief, three-day pause in attacks on Kyiv while U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow and the Ukrainian capital.

The American military’s underwater drone that Iran claimed to capture near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday was an older Anduril Dive-LD model that was “defective and malfunctioning well before” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced its so-called seizure, according to a source at U.S. Central Command.
“The drone was essentially dead in the water for more than a day,” Centcom spokesperson Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins told DefenseScoop.

Could THIS be the SA80’s replacement?

The Defense Innovation Unit and its industry partner Honeywell Aerospace recently flight-tested quantum sensing technology as the Pentagon pursues new navigation capabilities that aren’t dependent on GPS.
According to a Sept. 4 announcement, the test involved a magnetic navigation (MagNav) system that was installed on an Embraer 170 jet that made a round-trip journey over the Pacific Ocean between Seattle’s Puget Sound and southern Alaska.

Over the weekend, U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Russia and Ukraine, and their visit to Kyiv on Sunday marked their first trip to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

According to Al Jazeera, Kushner and Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to try to kickstart stalled peace talks.

Vladimir Putin in Murmansk (2025-03-27). Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Putin November 2022. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

“It is very important that the delegation has arrived to see us.

A Navy-Russia standoff. A board game.

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.

Ukraine’s Patriot Problem Eased But Not Solved – Ukraine is still grappling with a shortage of missile interceptors capable of stopping Russian ballistic attacks, but supplies are being replenished — at least at a slow rate. But at least supplies are moving, with new commitments announced on Tuesday, September 8.

Germany announced on Tuesday that it will urgently transfer additional Patriot PAC-2 interceptor missiles directly from its Bundeswehr stock. Britain also pledged an additional £100 million for Ukrainian air defenses, including U.S.-made equipment.

Last week, the U.S. sent special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff to Moscow and Kyiv to try to restart diplomatic talks between Russia and Ukraine.

According to both sides, the meeting with the U.S. representatives went well, with both Zelenskyy and Putin asserting their willingness to bring the war to a diplomatic end.

Russian President Putin. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Putin in 2021. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Despite the positive feelings, however, neither Russia nor Ukraine shows meaningful signs that they are willing to end the war.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed terror proxy, targeted four cities in southern Saudi Arabia with missiles and drones on Tuesday.

73 Injured in Saudi Arabia

U.S. Air Force Capt. Nick “Laz” Le Tourneau, pilot and commander of the F-22 Raptor Aerial Demonstration Team, performs an aerial demonstration during the 52nd Annual SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida, April 18, 2026. Capt. Le Tourneau showcased the unmatched capabilities of the F-22 to the SUN ‘n FUN crowds by performing multiple series of combat maneuvers. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt.

Watch US Marines unleash a barrage from the fli

Since the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and about 40 of his top advisors, and touching off what is now widely called the 2026 Iran conflict, the conflict has cycled through ceasefires, collapses, and renewed strikes rather than settling into either victory or peace.

As of early September 2026, the pattern is maddeningly familiar: U.S. strikes on Iranian tankers and military sites, Iranian missile and drone retaliation against U.S. bases and shipping, and a Strait of Hormuz that remains a live flashpoint.