PIÑON CANYON, Colo. — It was hard for the naked eye to tell the difference between the Strykers, shrouded by deep-green camo nets, and the clusters of one-seed Junipers that turned dark emerald when dusk threw shadows across the high plains of southeastern Colorado.  
The eight-wheeled troop carriers, soldiers and trees alike cast dark, irregular shapes for miles, though they often cloistered in dusty draws or behind gold-grass hills that cut across all quarter million acres of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site.

Keeping the beautiful game safe on and off the

Russian authorities in Crimea declared a state of emergency on Friday, June 26, following weeks of Ukrainian strikes that have disrupted the peninsula’s power grid and crippled its fuel supply network.

The announcement also comes after the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that 660 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight, with Crimea targeted alongside roughly a dozen other Russian or Russian-controlled regions.

NATO Artillery Test. Image Credit: NATO.

The United States is sending hundreds of personnel, two warships, fixed and rotary-winged aircraft, and search and rescue teams to Venezuela in the wake of Wednesday’s earthquake that killed more than 500 people. The first arrivals, with a Marine Corps general leading them, reached Caracas Thursday night.
“[U.S. Southern Command] is surging available assigned U.S. military forces in our region to support U.S. government relief operations in Venezuela, following the devastating earthquakes that struck the nation June 24, 2026,” the command announced in a statement Thursday.

Two new emergency response helicopters have arr

Thomas Wigle was a concert violinist and teacher when the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He was 32 years old. He was a skilled marksman, shooting on rifle ranges, but he disliked hunting and hated war. That wouldn’t change , but he decided to fight anyway after spending three days in Washington, D.C., looking at monuments and buildings and reviewing our nation’s historic documents.
He joined the Army in Detroit in May 1942. He later wrote a friend, “I’ve decided that this government is worth fighting for.

Growing Ukrainian Drone Strikes Overwhelm Russian Air Defenses: Ukraine is overwhelming Russia’s air defenses with a growing fleet of long-range drones that target oil and gas refineries, port infrastructure, military industries, and Russian air defense systems.

This growing campaign, which Ukrainian President Zelenskyy refers to as “Ukraine’s long-range sanctions,”  is leading to shortages of fuel in Russia, rationing in gas stations, surging gas prices, and the now common images of black smoke clouds over parts of the country that thought the war in Ukraine was far away.

Ukraine launched one of its largest long-range drone attacks of the war overnight into June 26, reportedly sending more than 660 drones against targets across Russia and occupied Crimea. Russian officials claimed more than 700 drones were intercepted across multiple regions, while Ukrainian officials highlighted successful strikes against industrial and military targets. Beyond the immediate damage, the operation illustrates how inexpensive, mass-produced drones are reshaping strategic calculations—even against sophisticated air defense networks.

The Army announced Thursday that it has officially created a branch for soldiers specializing in space operations.
The new Space Operations Branch will consolidate the service’s space professionals — including Army Space Operations Officers and enlisted Tactical Space Operations Specialists under the military occupational specialty (MOS) 40D created in 2025. The decision elevates space ops from a functional area to basic branch, formalizing the career within the service.
“Establishing the Space Operations Branch is an important step in the Army’s continuous transformation,” Lt. Gen.

Everyone knows about George Washington’s famous Crossing of the Delaware River, where the Continental Army surprised the Hessians in the darkness of late Christmas Day. But who were the infamous Hessians that Washington and his men killed and wounded that Christmas? And what happened to the ones who didn’t get killed by the Continental Army?
Also Read: Daniel Morgan’s riflemen were America’s original scout snipers
As it turns out, Hessian mercenaries liked freedom as much as any other colonial immigrant, because many Hessians just stuck around after the war ended.

A Wall Street Journal report published this week revealed some new details about Iran’s missile and drone campaign against one of America’s most important military headquarters. The revelations include suggestions that Washington may not have been entirely honest about the scale of the damage done by Iranian strikes.

According to the report, repeated Iranian strikes damaged the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, as well as more than a dozen other buildings and two satellite communications systems.

According to a bombshell report by the Wall Street Journal, Iranian missiles and drones targeting the nerve center of America’s naval operations in the Middle East did extensive damage.

The U.S. Navy’s sprawling base in Bahrain, and the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet, is located only 150 miles south of the coast of Iran, and it was targeted numerous times between late February and June.

Zumwalt-Class U.S. Navy. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Crimea feels the pressure from Ukraine as drone

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has received a separate assessment from Major General Oleh Luhovskyi, the acting head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, regarding what appears to be a rising threat of Belarus’s invasion of his country.

Luhovskyi was appointed by President Volodymyr Zelensky on 4 February 2026.

Su-34 Fullback Fighter-Bomber. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Prior to this assignment change, he was the service’s first deputy head and had served as a negotiator in international peace talks.

HMS Middleton enters dry dock in Cornwall for a

Following tensions over a United Nations-backed alternative route through the Strait of Hormuz, established on the Omani side of the waterway, Tehran sought to reassert its right to restrict shipping on Friday. In a statement, Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi threatened vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz with “ambiguous arrangements.”

“Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz cannot be guaranteed under ambiguous arrangements, parallel routes or decision-making that does not take Iran’s role as a coastal state into account,” Gharibabadi said.

The IRGC fired on and hit a cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday near the Oman coast, according to a U.S. official. The vessel suffered damage to its bridge, but no one was injured, the  U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center said.

Iran is trying to control shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and warned Gulf states against siding with the U.S., a day after an attack on the ship.

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sept. 21, 2024) The world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R.

This video describes the military situation in

Warsaw, Poland – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has written a long message on his X account detailing just how successful his military’s campaign of drone and missile strikes has been in Crimea.

His security services have provided him with reports that paint an overall picture of the situation there, which is becoming more dire by the day. Russians who relocated to the peninsula after the March 2104 invasion are now beginning to return to Mainland Russia while they still can.

T-84 Tank from the Ukraine War. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Oracle has announced the inclusion of ten additional defence technology companies into the third cohort of its Oracle Defense Ecosystem at the Oracle Defence Tech Summit 2026.

Ukrainian forces launched one of their largest drone attacks on Russian territory and illegally annexed and occupied Crimea since the Russians invaded in 2022.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that they intercepted 660 unmanned aerial vehicles across the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, Kaluga, Lipetsk, Rostov, Voronezh, Tula, Ryazan, and Astrakhan regions of the Russian Federation, the Moscow region, occupied Crimea, and the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Putin with a Rifle. Image Credit: Russian State Media.

Every motor pool, every smoke pit, every chow-hall table has hosted the same argument at least once. Somebody swears the 5.56mm is a glorified BB gun that couldn’t stop a determined house mouse. Somebody else, usually an old senior NCO with a severe flat top, long-gone gray, insists that nothing ever beats the 7.62mm and that the Army has been wrong since Vietnam. Then some E-4 brings up the new 6.8mm, and the whole table groans into its coffee.

More than 600 military family members and civilians who were sickened by contaminated water following a fuel leak in Hawaii will get $17 million in a federal settlement announced this week.
In 2021, more than 20,000 gallons of jet fuel from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility at Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, Hawaii, contaminated the local aquifer, which supported the drinking water for thousands of military families. Those impacted by the spill brought cases forward under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which is the law that allows people to sue the government for harm caused.

Moscow’s Ministry of Defense said on Friday that Ukraine launched a major overnight attack on a dozen regions across Russia. The strikes are once again among the largest launched throughout the entire campaign and brought Kyiv closer to its goal of isolating Crimea from the Russian mainland.

What Just Happened

Image Credit: Office the the President, Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that it had intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones.

Nuclear policy debates are at their best when they force hard questions about risk, deterrence, and military necessity. They are at their worst when disagreement is recast as bad faith. In 2018, as an outgrowth of a rigorous policy review process, the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review identified a need for supplemental low-yield nuclear capabilities to augment the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Military organisations are incorporating AI into every aspect of warfare, including targeting, training simulations and autonomous drones.

No One Is Coming To Save You | Build The Soldie

The traditional chain of command is facing a qu

Warsaw, Poland – In a gambit to gain advantage in the PR and psychological war campaign, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced his counterpart in Moscow is leaving huge areas of Russia defenseless against Kyiv’s drone and missile attacks.

“The Russian leadership is now pulling more air defense assets to Moscow, Valdai (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s palatial estate in the St. Petersburg region), and the bridge across the Kerch Strait – at the expense of air defense elsewhere.

The Finnish Border Guard has launched a project to develop patrol vehicles and boats equipped to counter drones.

As the Army retools many of its top-tier infantry units around the buggy-like Infantry Squad Vehicle, or ISV, it’s already looking for a new, beefier version of the truck, dubbed the ISV-Heavy.
Despite the “Heavy” name, that variant won’t be inherently more rugged or armored than its open-sided predecessor. Instead, the trucks will carry a suite of batteries and generators to produce power for electricity-hungry drones, communications equipment, and even a “Directed Energy Weapon Systems,” according to Army contracting requirements released in late March.

On Friday, June 4, 1948, Air Force test pilot Glen Edwards felt slightly frustrated.
Maj. Daniel Forbes Jr. was perturbed, too. With Forbes as the pilot and Edwards as his co-pilot, they tested a jet-propelled, heavy bomber prototype known as YB-49 No. 2. The YB-49 was a Flying Wing with eight turbojet engines and four vertical stabilizers. It had no fuselage or tails. For all of its sleek design, the YB-49 sometimes proved difficult to control in the air.

Warsaw, Poland – The details are not yet clear, but it appears that the long-awaited internal revolt against Russian President Vladimir Putin could finally be taking shape. In the years since the Ukraine war began, that was the fervent hope of those both inside and outside of Russia who despise his barbaric rule. They deplore how he has destroyed not only huge tracts of territory in Ukraine but also the overall stability and security environment in all of Europe.

The big problem, however, many would have said for years now, is that this is also a vain hope.

China does not have to believe the United States is weak to draw a dangerous conclusion from the Iran war. It only has to believe America’s best weapons run out faster than America can replace them.

That is the part Beijing will study. U.S. bombers, missiles, and air-defense batteries did what they were built to do. Iran paid the price for testing them.

Aircraft Carrier in the Sunset. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The awkward part came after the missiles flew.

MWI
Every generation of military strategists produces its share of prophets, men and women convinced they have finally witnessed the weapon that will end the age-old calculus of land…

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Steve Trimble, Aviation Week
Lockheed Martin on June 24 unveiled a concept for a hypersonic glide body designed for lower costs and high rates of production.

A&SF
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is turning up the heat on Russia, expanding his wildly successful campaign of “long-range sanctions” and promising a brutal 40 days ahead. Yes, the Ukraine war has entered a new, deadlier phase.

Zelenskyy Orders Preemptive Strikes

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

The UK Boxer programme could be set for a mid-2031 finish if production reaches and can be maintained at 100 vehicles per year.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has for several years been procuring KJ-500 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system on a larger scale than all other countries’ procurements of all other land-based AEW&C systems combined, with the KJ-500 fleet now estimated to have reached over to 50 aircraft making it by far the most fielded system of its kind in the world. Although the KJ-500’s primary rival the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail has been ordered by multiple countries, each has acquired only very small numbers typically between three and seven.

The U.S. Air Force has confirmed that it is seeking industry proposals for the Air Force Long Range Weapon (AFLRW) air-to-air missile program, which according to an industry notice released by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center is required to have a minimum range of 1,850 kilometres. The missile is expected to be developed in two variants, namely one for air-to-air combat and another for air-to-surface strikes.

The Russian Aerospace Forces deployed MiG-31BM long range interceptors to escort the country’s most capable strategic bombers, Tu-160 aircraft, on a 16-hour mission over the Barents and Norwegian Seas. The operation included air-to-air refuelling, and demonstrated the endurance of Russia’s long-range aviation and its ability to conduct sustained operations near NATO’s northern flank.

This video describes the military situation in

South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back has announced one of the world’s most ambitious drone force expansion plans, stating that the armed forces intend to train 500,000 “drone warriors” in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps to operate unmanned systems. Rather than treating drones as specialised equipment used by dedicated units, the goal is to make drones a standard battlefield tool, comparable to a soldier’s personal weapon. This plan is considered highly viable due to the particularly high levels of technical education and technology competency in the country.

You can tell a lot about a person from what fiction they keep on their nightstand. Once a year, we make the staff, contributing editors, and show hosts of War on the Rocks tell on themselves.Kerry AndersonThe Midnight Library, Matt Haig (2020).

To understand how close Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance came to victory last year — and how far it has slipped since — there is no sharper microcosm than the story of a Gen Z sniper. In April 2025, a female teenager, Anina, enraptured the world, her youth-driven “Spring Revolution” a vivid foil to the sclerotic forces of military dictator Min Aung Hlaing (officially called the Tatmadaw). When her unit captured the town of Falam, fortune seemed on the resistance’s side. Yet, a year later, regime troops stormed Anina’s hometown, a stunning blow to the resistance.

Following confirmation from the U.S. Department of War that a $1.55 billion spending plan would be financed in Fiscal Year 2027 for the procurement of E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C), it has been confirmed that 42 percent of this financing will be provided by cutting funding for the Navy’s procurement of E-2 AEW&C systems. The Pentagon and the Air Force announced plans to cancel the E-7 program in mid-2025, after it had suffered delays and cost overruns.

Following the first flight of Russia’s long awaited next generation fighter-trainer, the Yak-130M, on June 25, expectations have grown that the aircraft will belatedly provide the country with a viable competitor in the world’s fast growing markets for lightweight tactical combat jets. While the Yak-130’s development revolutionised the combat training capabilities of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the services of multiple clients around the world, the Yak-130M’s design focuses more on enhancing its combat potential, which was previously only a secondary focus of the program.