“You cannot be at mental peace always. You will be worried. So even my family — they are scared all the time, and they were anxiously praying [for] the vessel [to] come out of this area safely.

The first U.S. Air Force F-15EX Eagle II long range fighter intended for permanent basing at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, has been unveiled, marking a significant milestone in the Air Force’s efforts to significantly strength its presence on one of its most strategically important facilities worldwide. The aircraft, serial 22-0022, has now appeared in the markings of the 18th Wing, providing the first visible indication that the long-delayed transition from obsolete Cold War era F-15C/D fighters, to the much more capable F-15EX, is making progress.

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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 1914. Photo: Achille Beltrame / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo, the world did not immediately understand that it was standing on the edge of a war that would become a kind of pestilence. The assassination did not create World War I by itself. It exposed a system already loaded with alliance commitments, imperial insecurity, military timetables, elite arrogance, and leaders who believed escalation could be managed. That is the part of history worth remembering now.

The United States appears to have found a way to move millions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz despite Iran’s best efforts to control the strategic waterway.

But the latest shipping data shows just how far Washington is from actually restoring normal commercial traffic and saving the global economy.

A U.S. Sailor inspects an aircraft catapult launch track on the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Nov. 25, 2025. U.S. military forces are deployed to the U.S.

Russia launched one of its heaviest attacks on Kyiv in months on Thursday, killing at least 17 people as waves of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones struck the Ukrainian capital.

Ukraine’s neighbors were also affected, with drones entering Romanian and Moldovan territory and Romania scrambling fighter jets against an explosives-laden unmanned vessel close to a major Black Sea gas project.

Lancet Drone. Image Credit: Russian State Media.

Lancet Drone from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Ukraine’s military recruitment system is a critical part of its defensive efforts, but recent reports have shown that it is generating a substantial number of allegations of abuse and corruption. There are even reports of violent resistance from civilians.

More than four years since Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv is still fighting to recruit sufficient numbers of soldiers required to defend a front that stretches hundreds of miles.

SCALP Missile Ukraine Military Photo

FP-5 Flamingo Cruise Missile.

Sochi has long been Vladimir Putin’s favorite resort on the Black Sea. In 2014, it hosted the Winter Olympics, largely seen around the world as a crowning moment for Putin’s Russian premiership.

But now, over a decade later, Sochi has been regularly bombarded by Ukraine.

Putin in 2018 Russian Federation Photo

Putin Back in 2016 Image Credit Russian Federation

The Financial Times wrote about this this week, noting that a Moscow hairdresser recently posted an Instagram video from the resort town before an air raid siren interrupted it.

The Defense Innovation Unit has a new, specialized team that’s hustling to clear major constraints associated with transitioning proven commercial technologies directly into the military services.
“Within one year, we will open co-use classified facilities nationwide, slash cyber authorization timelines by half, and enable agile, end-to-end testing capabilities for young companies desperate to demonstrate,” DIU’s Director Owen West wrote in a memorandum unveiling the Bridge Program this week.

The war with Iran has been underway for almost half a year, and its impact on global energy is obvious. Still, the focus is no longer only on crude oil prices, but also on how fuel is refined, transported, and traded worldwide.

On Thursday, Brent crude soared to $93.81 a barrel, the highest level in more than three weeks.

Generic Oil Tanker Image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Oil Platform. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Refined fuels, however, are facing even bigger problems. European diesel prices have surged by upwards of 70% since the U.S.

Meet the British Commodore deterring Russian su

What’s the best way to launch a jet from

President Donald Trump is promising what he calls an “Economic D-Day” against Iran, but the details of Washington’s next move are still to come.

“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump told a White House press conference on Thursday.

The Iran War Could Start Again Next Week 

President Donald Trump addresses members of the media in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, Tuesday, January 20, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

He also suggested that if a deal was not reached by 8 p.m.

The Department of War’s decision to suspend Phase 2 of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program creates an opportunity to strengthen — not weaken — how we protect the defense industrial base (DIB). Many small and mid-sized defense contractors struggle to absorb the cost, complexity, and administrative burden of the current compliance model, while defense programs that depend on a supplier base are already under significant pressure to maintain readiness.   
Before this announcement, I was a CMMC skeptic.

Ukraine announced another successful long-term attack on Russian infrastructure on Wednesday, hitting the Taneco oil refinery in Russia’s Tatarstan region, Bloomberg News reported.

The facility is 900 kilometers (560 miles) east of Moscow, according to a map posted to Telegram by the General Staff in Kyiv.

M109 Artillery Creative Commons Photo.

In another strike the same night closer to home, Ukraine struck the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal on the Russian side of the Black Sea.

That terminal, per Bloomberg, has a loading capacity of 20 million tons a year.

Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile strike campaign against Russia is still expanding, even as Moscow seeks to take advantage of Kyiv’s shortage of Patriot interceptors with its own long-range ballistic missile campaign.

Ukraine’s devastating strikes against Russian infrastructure are beginning to create problems that the Kremlin is being forced to address at the national level.

The Russian Aerospace Forces on August 19-20 deployed its most heavily armed aircraft, the Tu-160 and Tu-95MSM strategic bombers, to support a large-scale strike against targets in the Kiev region, as the country’s combat aviation has played an increasingly central role in its air campaign. The two bomber types between them are reported to have launched over 40 cruise missiles. The strikes targeted a series of facilities in Kiev involved in the production, assembly and storage of unmanned systems.

The Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday flagging a lack of schedule and cost data for the Army’s network modernization efforts, warning that it creates uncertainty about the service’s ability to scale new capabilities and puts soldiers at risk of not having reliable access to communication tools on modern battlefields.

Watch the moment HMS Duncan departed Portsmouth

A small number of gamblers have made $8 million placing military and defense-related bets on the Polymarket prediction site, most placed by about 150 accounts that almost always bet correctly. The researchers say they suspect the accounts are linked to military insiders who could be flagged for law enforcement as “the most likely potential insiders,” researchers said in a new report.
When the most successful of those accounts bet on unlikely military events, researchers found, they won virtually every single time.

Russia Pounds Ukraine: Devastation caused by ongoing Russian missile strikes and Ukraine’s shortage of interceptors continues, with at least 16 people left dead in the Ukrainian capital and surrounding region overnight. The overnight strikes, which took place over a roughly nine-hour period, involved dozens of Russian cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles that were launched alongside 168 drones.

Ukrainian air defenses destroyed nearly 90% of the drones and most of the cruise missiles, but Kyiv’s defenses were considerably less effective against the faster ballistic weapons.

It’s not just Russia’s threat of “consequ

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that Israel struck an air base in Northwestern Syria, reportedly to prevent Turkey from deploying there. It was seen, the report said, as part of a struggle between Israel and Turkey over influence in Syria.

The base is the Abu Duhur air base in Idlib, which was hit eight times, per the AP story. There were no casualties. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani denounced “Israeli aggression,” which he called “an unjustified provocation, a violation of Syria’s sovereignty, and a direct threat to regional and global stability.

This video describes the military situation in

Vladimir Putin could order the mobilisation of

The U.S. Navy is investigating a serious engineering failure that left the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold without power for four days while operating in the South China Sea. The destroyer suffered what the Navy described as an “engineering casualty involving its generators” on July 24, forcing the ship to remain without normal electrical power, forcing it to be towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force has deployed its J-16 heavyweight fighters outside Asia for the first time with at least six of the aircraft having been identified as part of the deployment for the Eagles of Civilisation 2026 China-Egypt air exercise, which is scheduled to run from mid-August into early September. The deployment represents an important step up from last year’s China-Egypt exercise.

U.S. ‘Stealthily’ Moves Oil in War-Torn Strait of Hormuz – The United States military is quietly moving millions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz every day, despite Iran’s bid to strangle shipping in the strategic waterway.

Axios said the U.S. military has established a protected shipping corridor along the southern side of the strait, close to Oman. Two U.S. officials said between 15 and 20 tankers have been entering and leaving the Gulf through the route each night in recent weeks, moving close to 10 million barrels of oil per day.

The Secret U.S. Hormuz Route That Appears To Be Working – Two unnamed American officials told Axios this week that the U.S. military has established a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz that is successfully challenging Tehran’s claim over the waterway and moving millions of barrels of oil each day. The claim comes as reports suggest that Iran is losing control over the strategic waterway, but amid ongoing traffic disruptions that are causing global economic pain.

What Axios Claims

Littoral Combat Ship. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Think about the World War II shows and films that stuck with you, like “Band of Brothers,” “The Pacific,” or “Saving Private Ryan.” Now consider that not one of them is about the division that spent more days in combat than any other American unit in the war.
It’s hard to deny the long-term effects World War II had on the United States. We are sitting close to the 100th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and are still making movies about the events that took place.

The crew of a malfunctioning MQ-9A drone worked for more than 7 minutes last August to keep their stricken aircraft aloft, but a damaged wire in the fuel system had irreversibly killed its newly installed engine, dooming the $23 million drone after a day-long mission in the Middle East.
Flying from a base in South Dakota, the Predator’s pilot guided the powerless drone for nearly 10 minutes before making a “forced landing” that buckled the landing gear. Rather than recover the drone inside the undisclosed country in which it landed, U.S. forces destroyed it.

The Strait of Hormuz, despite President Donald Trump’s frequent claims to the contrary, remains almost completely closed, and the president has also said that no talks are planned between the U.S. and Iran. The president has even been musing of late about declaring the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory.

However, one new report says the United States has made a clandestine move, with some success, to get oil through.

Libre Aircraft Carrier Naval Group Image

SOUTH CHINA SEA (Jan. 15, 2022) A U.S. Navy aircraft launches from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68).

Thales and Systematic have established a strategic partnership aimed at delivering advanced, interoperable air defence solutions to the Danish Armed Forces.

Defence tech company Castelion has secured $1bn in Series C funding to ramp up production of its Blackbeard hypersonic missile and further develop advanced weapons technology.

Dzirhan Mahadzir, USNI N.

Rempfer & Pomerleau, BrDef
The Army is toying with new ways to deal with communication disruptions on the battlefield

Global Defense News
U.S. Missile Defense Agency awarded X-Bow Systems a $10.

Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews
Company founded by former SpaceX executives aims to produce a low-cost hypersonic weapon and a broader portfolio of longer-range strike and missile defense weapons

Emily Ryan Miller, Defence Blog
The U.S.

Let me start by saying that shooting 55gr .223 out of a 20-inch pencil barrel with a rifle-length gas system, as Eugene Stoner, Bob Fremont, and Jim Sullivan intended, is a very enjoyable firearms experience. That said, since the AR-15 was introduced, shooters and engineers have been trying to figure out just how short an AR’s barrel length can be.
Also Read: Why the Army doesn’t need the Sig Sauer M7 rifle
The AR’s internal pistol design bleeds gas from the barrel and uses it to cycle the bolt carrier group.

This video describes the military situation in

This video describes the military situation in

Military analysts are captivated by how the material nature of war is transforming in Ukraine. Unmanned systems have captured Russian infantry units, battered Russian naval and commercial ships, and even, with the help of on-board AI, conducted autonomous strikes deep into areas where Russian jamming foils remote piloting. These technologies are powering a dramatic democratization of military capability, allowing a country to hold off an invader many times its size.But that democratization is only part of the story, and is in fact driven by an equally dramatic consolidation.

For years, the Chinese military’s own newspaper has been making a promise it may no longer be able to keep. Whenever the People’s Liberation Army Daily (Jiefangjun Bao), the official newspaper of China’s Central Military Commission, discusses artificial intelligence and command, it returns to the same reassurance: Machines may sort sensor data, draft options, and compress the time between observation and action, but the final authority, and the responsibility that comes with it, belong to the human commander.

A new U.S. Air Force EA-37B Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft has flown intensified operations along the borders of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave in Central Europe, operating closely alongside a NATO E-3 AWACS and a U.S. Army ARTEMIS II intelligence aircraft. Kaliningrad is one of the most sensitive areas on NATO’s eastern flank, as it is geographically separated from mainland Russia and lies between Poland and Lithuania, leaving it surrounded by hostile states.

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps considering attacks on U.S. military facilities in Europe if the ongoing war effort further escalations, according to a report by the Financial Times. Two unidentified Iranian sources reportedly told the paper that U.S. bases in countries including Bulgaria have been assessed as potential targets as part of contingency plans for expanding the conflict. The development would represent a major geographical expansion of the conflict and could put U.S. forces across Europe on a higher state of alert.

Russia’s state defence conglomerate Rostec has delivered a new batch of Pantsir-S air defence combat vehicles and stationary Pantsir-SMD air-defence systems to the Russian Ministry of Defence. The systems were produced by Rostec’s High-Precision Systems holding and have reportedly completed the required testing before being accepted into service.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Army’s top cyber officer revealed Wednesday the existence of a new task force dedicated to exploring the use of artificial intelligence in the service’s cyber command, from simple staff processes to agents “hunting” in the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN).
Task Force Lexington was established in April and charged with creating AI agents for different cyber work roles, including developers, data engineers, host analysts and exploitation analysts, according to Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank, head of U.S. Army Cyber Command.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has returned to Moscow following a strange series of trips across Siberia and the far eastern regions of Russia amid speculation that the Kremlin was deliberately keeping him away from areas most likely to be hit by Russian drones.

But Putin’s return changes nothing about the reality of the ongoing Ukrainian strikes, which are crippling Russia’s energy industry and causing major logistical headaches for businesses all over the country.

The Pentagon is considering a major reduction or relocation of American forces in the Persian Gulf after nearly six months of war with Iran exposed just how vulnerable some of the United States’ largest military bases in the region are.

The discussions could ultimately result in U.S.