Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Key Points and Summary – The Advanced Tactical Fighter fly-off pitted Northrop’s YF-23 “Black Widow II” against Lockheed’s YF-22, and the decision still sparks...
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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...
Iran: A War at the Wrong Time and Place: As the war in Iran continues and analysts debate how long it will last and...
Strategic expert Andrew A. Michta explores how Russia is capitalizing on the Iran War to consolidate gains in Europe. With U.S. resources drained and...
France gave its next aircraft carrier a name meant to signal independence. The €10 billion ship will launch its fighters using three catapults it...
In 1959, Chinese-built copies of a Soviet tank crossed Tiananmen Square. In 2025, a tank with an empty turret and a smaller gun crossed...
China's aerospace industry did something that looked impossible 20 years ago: it built one of the world's largest stealth-fighter fleets. But the J-20's greatest...
The Trump-class carries no armor belt and no 16-inch rifles, and the CBO prices the first hull above a Ford-class carrier. The battleship's third...
Iran is moving to charge ships for passing through the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway that carries a fifth of the world's oil...
A film celebrating ten years of China's Y-20 transport slipped in something no other country has shown on official camera: a sixth-generation fighter refueling...
A decade after it surfaced, China's H-20 has no flying prototype and no production line. The reasons are industrial, not financial: an intercontinental flying...
A new 1.5-gigawatt project in Utah will use five 300-megawatt Holtec small modular reactors rather than two massive conventional ones, part of a broader...
Trump calling Taiwan a "bargaining chip" is the headline, but Denny Roy argues the deeper story is structural: a Chinese military that makes intervention...
For weeks, an August 18 deadline loomed: the day a U.S.–Iran understanding expired, and, by President Trump's own warning, the day fighting over the...
The diplomatic center of gravity in the Middle East has decisively shifted to Riyadh. On June 23, 2026, talks between Iranian Majlis Speaker Mohammed...
Germany still must address a readiness issue: large portions of the army are not considered fully combat-ready, with some readiness estimates for land forces...
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...
Fake Russian IDs, Orders Never to Be Captured, and 50% Casualties: Inside North Korea’s Secret War in Ukraine The Russian Army has sustained nearly...
Summary and Key Points: Dr. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., a political science professor and proliferation expert, evaluates the strategic partnership between Iran and North...
Key Points and Summary – The Advanced Tactical Fighter fly-off pitted Northrop’s YF-23 “Black Widow II” against Lockheed’s YF-22, and the decision still sparks...
Key Points and Summary – In February 2009, Britain’s HMS Vanguard and France’s Le Triomphant—both ballistic-missile submarines—collided while submerged in the Atlantic during routine...
Key Points and Summary – USS Nimitz (CVN-68), commissioned in 1975, is the world’s oldest serving aircraft carrier and a symbol of U.S. naval...
Key Points and Summary – The F-14 Tomcat began as a Cold War fleet-defense interceptor built to stop Soviet bombers at distance, pairing long-range...
Key Points and Summary – America’s sea-based nuclear deterrent now hinges on the Columbia-class SSBN, a program projected at roughly $348 billion over its...
