Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
A video of a Ukrainian assault unit engaged in an attack on a Russian trench circulated on social media. The horrific conditions of mud,...
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For all the talk of spending targets, the Ankara NATO summit's real work happened elsewhere. Europe is being handed responsibility for NATO's conventional defense...
Western analysts fixate on North Korea's missiles. The real danger is speed — a mass artillery-and-missile salvo in the war's first hours, backed by...
The second Trump administration is reviewing America's military footprint in Europe, and the worst-case outcome is a full withdrawal. Andrew Michta argues that would...
The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding is being judged on whether it cools tensions in the Persian Gulf. Strategic-studies scholar Andrew Michta argues that's the...
China is no longer experimenting with aircraft carriers. With Fujian now in service and more carriers expected, Beijing is building the foundation for a...
China's J-15 'Flying Shark' — the fighter that made its carriers viable — exists because Beijing bought an unfinished Su-33 prototype left in Ukraine...
Russia has modified its ballistic missiles to dive and maneuver in the terminal phase, evading Ukraine's interceptors, Reuben Johnson reports — a shift one...
As Russia runs at a record pace of ballistic missile attacks, the NYT reports Ukrainian firm Fire Point is stockpiling home-built interceptors — a...
Social Security’s funding gap is not a forecast — it is arithmetic. The size of the shortfall is known, the levers that can close...
The Memorandum of Understanding that paused the fighting has collapsed, Farley writes, because it never settled the status of the Strait of Hormuz or...
U.S. gas prices rose for the first time in eight weeks — 'Iran is the reason why,' per GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan — while...
Washington and Tehran can't agree whether the Strait of Hormuz is open — Trump declared it open under a new U.S. 'guardian' regime, while...
A New York Times analysis warns the US-Iran war sits on a 'knife's edge,' with experts urging a diplomatic off-ramp before it spirals beyond...
Iraq's new prime minister spent a week in Washington; Syria's president met Trump at the NATO summit. Frantzman reads the pattern: one envoy for...
Mediators have passed Iran a proposal for a ten-day ceasefire, Reuters reports, and Tehran's foreign ministry confirms diplomacy is moving — even as strikes...
Berlin is positioning to become Kyiv's chief postwar patron. Andrew Michta on the German-Polish competition for Ukraine — and why the strained Warsaw-Kyiv partnership...
Xi's first Pyongyang visit in seven years, a ratified Russia pact, and a declaration that the arsenal is permanent: Andrew Latham on why the...
Last year North Korea's newest destroyer rolled over at its own launch, and the world assumed the program was finished for years. Instead Pyongyang...
The KN-23, North Korea's version the Russian Iskander missile, showed up to fight in the Ukraine war. And it isn't the same platform as...
On May 21, 2025, a brand-new North Korean destroyer rolled over and partially capsized at its own launch ceremony — with Kim Jong Un...
A video of a Ukrainian assault unit engaged in an attack on a Russian trench circulated on social media. The horrific conditions of mud,...
With this history, and the initial progress with ARRW, the Air Force likely plans to surge forward quickly with additional hypersonic weapons development. There...
In January, the Russian forces launched a large-scale offensive in the Donbas. More than two-and-half months into the offensive and the Russian military has...
Some of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top donors and backers privately want him to bow out of the 2024 presidential election and wait until...
Moscow might have some mobile reserves ready to throw against the Ukrainian forces once the attack has begun, but their training, equipment, and morale...
