The Spanish Defence Ministry has become the latest European customer for South Korea’s K9 Thunder 155 mm self-propelled howitzer, with Hanwha Aerospace signing an export contract with Spanish defence company Indra Sistemas on August 31. The agreement expands South Korea’s position Europe’s leading suppliers of modern artillery systems. The contract is linked to a major Spanish artillery modernisation effort reportedly valued at approximately €4.55 billion ($5.3 billion).

Finland’s defence market will register steady through through the next decade as Helsinki continues its rearmament programme.

This video describes the military situation in

This video describes the military situation in

As the war in Ukraine progressed, Russian strikes increasingly degraded Ukraine’s terrestrial communications infrastructure, steadily deepening Kyiv’s dependence on SpaceX’s Starlink. The satellite constellation became indispensable for crucial military functions, including command and control, drone operations, and artillery fire coordination, with no readily available European alternative should access be withdrawn.This reality exemplifies the idea that today, governments rely on critical infrastructure that is privately owned and globally embedded.

In August 2024, special forces from five Ukrainian military intelligence units crossed the Black Sea to raid Russian-held Kinburn Spit. The commandos of these units — Chimera, Aratta, Stuhna, Paragon, Terror, and the Siberian Battalion — landed, fought, destroyed equipment, and withdrew. Two years later, in July 2026, Ukraine returned, but left the soldiers behind. Instead, an uncrewed surface vessel carried a ground robot across the water and released it onto the shore. The robot, equipped with a Wolly 7.

The summer of 2026 has raised questions once again among politicians, diplomats, and academics about whether Germany might be about to dither on Russia. Last month, a drone attack on German soil seemed designed to coerce Germany back into business as usual. Earlier, there had been rumblings about two German ex-chancellors brokering a peace treaty between Kyiv and Moscow. Both Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schröder are living embodiments of the ill-reputed Ostpolitik, Germany’s tradition of pragmatic cooperation with the Kremlin over the heads of other Eastern European countries.

This video describes the military situation in

A French assessment has highlighted the significant struggles faced by Rafale lightweight fourth generation fighters in an era where aerial warfare is increasingly dominated by fifth generation capabilities, reflecting on feedback from pilots at a time when the future of France’s air power is increasingly uncertain. The Future of Air Superiority: Mastering the Sky in High-Intensity Warfare was unusually candid about the limitations of current European fourth generation fighters.

Reports from multiple Indian sources indicate that the Indian Defence Ministry is continuing to consider acquiring Russia’s S-500 Prometheus strategic air and missile defence system, which will add a new tier to its air defences over its fast expanding arsenal of S-400 systems. The reported interest in the S-500 emerged during discussions between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday evening that he’s nominating Hung Cao to serve as secretary of the Navy on a permanent basis.
Cao has been acting SECNAV since April when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced out then-Navy Secretary John Phelan. Cao was serving as the Senate-confirmed undersecretary of the Navy prior to Phelan’s ouster. In the undersecretary role he was tasked as the chief management officer with leading and synchronizing the modernization of the Navy’s unclassified IT systems and critical defense business systems.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit is taking place this week in Kyrgyzstan, and in an awkward moment, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit.

And at that moment, Modi appeared to embarrass his Russian counterpart by calling for an end to the long war in Ukraine.

The Army awarded Palantir and Anduril a combined $192 million in delivery orders for the service’s Tactical intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program, officials announced Tuesday, pushing the targeting platform into a production phase.
Having been in development for several years, officials have touted TITAN as a “game changing” mobile ground station capable of using artificial intelligence to ingest data from a variety of sensors and package it into target recommendations, specifically for long-range fires.
The Army awarded Palantir a $178.

The United States launched another wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday following a series of strikes over the weekend that ended a roughly month-long period of relative calm.

Washington evidently still has the firepower to keep hitting Tehran hard, but the latest round of attacks raises a difficult question that President Trump undoubtedly plays over in his head every minute of every day: exactly how long can the U.S. keep doing this?

DAYTON, Oh.–An F-22A Raptor from the 1st Fighter Wing conducts flying operations during a solar eclipse, April 8, 2024.

For over six months, the U.S. and Iran have been at war. As a result, global oil markets continue to fluctuate.

Oil-exporting nations in the region are now making serious plans to build more ports and pipelines that can bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Oman and conflict-ridden Iran, as traffic there remains severely constrained.

An F-35B Lightening II with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing out of Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., stopped at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska en route to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan.

An official Pentagon memorandum viewed by DefenseScoop on Tuesday provides U.S. military families who were instructed to flee Bahrain for safety six months ago with planning, logistics and relocation options, new timelines, and other details about the near-term support they may receive from the government. 
The memo — issued Aug.

The Navy’s top officer said sailors and their families should prepare for longer deployments until the service has a larger force and fleet.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle fielded questions from sailors during a livestreamed Q&A session at Fort Meade, Maryland, on Monday, which covered deployments to quality-of-life issues for shoreside personnel and Pentagon-directed policies like stricter grooming standards.
“In the short term, until I can grow the Navy we need,” Daryl said, “I hate to admit it, but longer deployments are going to be probably part of that.

U.S. President Donald Trump has declared that Iran is “dead.” In a Truth Social post on Monday, 31st August, Trump described Iran as a “failed nation”, adding: “They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police.”

He also claimed that Iranian inflation had reached 300%, and Tehran was “in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country”.

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Marydith Stidham, a 125th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, marshals Capt.

An A400M has delivered Royal Marines, US forces

Ukraine struck Russia’s largest Baltic Sea port early Tuesday during an overnight drone assault that Moscow claimed involved more than 500 aircraft.

The attack damaged the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad region and started a fire, according to regional authorities.

HIMARS Rocket. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Tennessee Army National Guard Soldiers with Alpha Battery, 1-181st Field Artillery Regiment conduct a training exercise using the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, June 9.

The Navy is finally moving forward with its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, asking industry to submit ideas for carrier-capable loyal wingman prototypes that can fly alongside the service’s manned platforms.
A request for information posted Monday by Naval Air Systems Command calls for two “fully functional, unmanned autonomous prototype air vehicle(s)” that can operate from both Ford- and Nimitz-class carriers.

Iran’s President Wants Peace – But Will Hardliners Listen? – Hardliners in Tehran want to extend the war to the November midterm elections or even until after U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office, but others, like the country’s president, are calling for peace instead. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian now says Tehran is prepared to immediately return to the terms of the June memorandum of understanding that briefly halted the war with the United States, offering Washington a potential path out of the six-month-long conflict just as direct fighting appears to be reigniting.

From WWII Shermans to modern Strykers, military

President Donald Trump, earlier this week, posted an AI-generated video to Truth Social, purporting to depict an attack on Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub.

Per The Independent, the Pentagon was put in the unprecedented position of confirming that the video was fake and that the U.S. had not, in fact, attacked that facility, which had not been, in Trump’s words, “blown to smithereens!!!”

HIMARS Attack. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The U.S.

Date: Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026Time: 12:00-1:00 PM ETThe second joint webinar by RUSI and War on the Rocks: Two leading defense publications from both sides of the Atlantic present their expert panel. OverviewFor this edition of The Atlantic Brief, the Royal United Services Institute and War on the Rocks will present a dialogue on U.S. and European Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence. Participating experts from the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and the United States bring decades of first-hand experience in the armed forces, diplomacy, and foreign policy.

The U.S.

Two Supertankers Struck in Strait of Hormuz – The war in Iran, and specifically the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, took a new turn on Monday, 31st August, after two supertankers were struck within minutes of each other.

The Saudi-flagged Sidr and the Liberian-flagged Senegal Prosperity were attacked by unidentified projectiles while transiting through the key shipping route. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Generic Oil Tanker Image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

It marks the latest incident in the Strait of Hormuz, following U.S.

Russia Strikes Kyiv for Sixth Day in a Row as NATO Spillover Concerns Grow – Russia has struck Kyiv for the sixth consecutive day, killing a dozen people.

Moscow has bombarded Ukraine’s capital over the past week, with more than 2,000 drones fired westwards.

T-14 Armata Tank Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

T-14 Armata Tank Russian Army. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

T-14 Armata Tank from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The attacks form part of an ongoing campaign by Russia to strike the heart of Ukraine in the four-and-a-half-year war.

From discovering a passion for table tennis to

Back on August 19, Axios reported that the U.S. had been running a clandestine effort to get oil shipments through the “closed” Strait of Hormuz.

Published during the weeks-long lull in military action between the U.S. and Iran, the Axios report stated that the U.S., with help from regional partners, had “ quietly established a shipping corridor” over the course of several weeks, which allowed 15-20 tankers to get through the contested waterway through a Southern channel closer to Oman.

Does Putin Know How Badly the War Is Going? Russia appears to be preparing to put hundreds of thousands more troops on the front in Ukraine, even as analysts warn that President Vladimir Putin may be detached from the realities on the battlefield — and as Russia faces a major economic crisis that could severely hurt the country not just now, but in the long term.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its August 31 assessment that Putin appears to favor continuing a covert mobilization campaign after Russia’s September parliamentary elections.

Portugal’s leading UAS builder, Tekever, has acquired Scotland’s Flowcopter according to a 1 September press release.

HMS Tamar’s visit marks the third UK warship

Ukraine has created TrophyLab, a digital catalogue of captured Russian equipment, offering schematics and datasets to the defence sector.

After about six weeks of relative calm, the United States and Iran traded salvos earlier this week, with the U.S. striking Iran’s Larak Island, and Iran then attacking military bases where U.S. troops are stationed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

With President Donald Trump posting an AI-generated video of a U.S. plane destroying Iran’s energy export hub Kharg Island, things looked a lot like the war was about to escalate again.

President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at the 450th mile of the new border wall Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, near the Texas Mexico border.

The US Department of State has approved a possible $800m Foreign Military Sale to Iraq for helicopters and other associated equipment.

When a drone lands somewhere unexpected, its op

This video describes the military situation in

Pentagon Pushes Back After Military Chiefs Object to Continued Troop Deployment – The Pentagon is dismissing claims that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth regularly ignores formal objections from senior commanders.

The Washington Post published a story on Sunday, 30th August, on Hegseth’s decision to keep more than 50,000 troops stationed in the Middle East. It’s based on an assessment released in the Thursday, 14th August edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB) – a bi-monthly report on the availability of U.S. military assets across the world.

U.S.

Russia struck Kyiv and the surrounding region for a sixth consecutive day Tuesday, killing at least 12 people as Moscow increasingly relies on fast, jet-powered drones that Ukraine says are significantly harder to intercept.

8 Killed in Kyiv

Putin with Military in 2018 Creative Commons Image

Putin Back in 2018 Creative Commons Image

Eight people were killed in Kyiv and another four in Boryspil, a city just outside the capital, according to Ukrainian officials cited by Reuters.

Most of those killed in Kyiv were railway workers.

The US Army has selected the university-affiliated Georgia Tech Research Institute as the weapons integrator for the CAML programme.

Donald Trump’s Next Big Decision on Iran – President Donald Trump faces a major decision.

A war that he claimed would be completed in a matter of weeks is now entering its seventh month. Iran, battered militarily, shows no sign of giving in to U.S. demands. Even though mass bombardment has made way for economic sanctions, the authoritarian regime still holds leverage in the war and has proven it can still reach U.S. military targets in the Middle East despite its weakened position.

Aircraft Carrier USS Nimitz Coming Home. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

A U.S.

How The U.S. Is Running Out Of Strategic Oil Options: With the world on the brink of an oil supply crisis and the fighting over the Strait of Hormuz looking like it won’t end any time soon, the United States is rapidly approaching the limits of its primary method of containing the problem. U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventories fell another 3.1 million barrels last week to 286.6 million barrels, according to Department of Energy data released on Monday, August 31.

The post The Mighty 25 2026: Influence with Impact appeared first on We Are The Mighty.

BUILT THROUGH PAIN | Military Motivation
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Israel and Greece have concluded a €3bn ($3.5bn) government-to-government agreement for a layered Greek air defence network.

Trump Threatens New Iran Strikes As Tehran Offers Peace – President Donald Trump is threatening a new round of strikes against Iran after the two countries exchanged fire again after more than a month of relative calm. U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, August 30, with U.S. Central Command claiming that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were preparing to launch rockets carrying naval mines into the waterway. The attacks were described as being “limited,” and intended only to stop an imminent threat.

On July 20, 1966, U.S. Air Force Col. Norm McDaniel was shot down in North Vietnam. For a year and a half, his wife and two children had no idea if he was alive or dead. He was held as a prisoner of war for 2,399 days before he finally came home. Now, the story of his strength and perseverance—and that of his family, who never gave up hope—will be told in the powerful new film “Love Brought Me Home.”
Also Read: 5 Seldom-told tales about Air Force legends
“The North Vietnamese wanted to break us. They wanted to take away our hope.

Close to 50,000 soldiers around the U.S. and overseas spent a weekend night sweating out a 12-mile march after a small change in an Army regulation allowed soldiers to earn a unique foreign decoration for the march.
The soldiers at dozens of major Army bases took part in the Royal Danish Air Force March, also known as the Danish Flyver March, which ends in participants getting a patch and the ribbon. The event involves rucking 20 kilometers, or just over 12 miles, with a 10-kilogram (or 23-pound) rucksack.

WARSAW, POLAND – Over the past weekend, I received no small number of calls from Russian-speaking friends and colleagues in Kyiv, Moscow, Warsaw, etc. The subject was the same in each instance. All were laughing hysterically at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest conspiracy theory about Ukraine and its western allies that are “out to get Russia.”

This time Putin’s statements were more detached from reality than his usual lectures on fabricated and fantasy-inspired versions of Russian history.