Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Summary and Key Points: In the waters off Florida in early 2015, a French nuclear attack submarine named Saphir — a 1970s-era Rubis-class boat,...
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The war began on 28 February with little public explanation. The administration did not make a full case to Congress or to the country,...
A modern Arleigh Burke Flight III destroyer costs about $3 billion. At $23.4 billion, USS Defiant represents nearly eight of them. Pursuing the battleship...
The maximalists wanted regime change, the minimalists wanted nothing, and the doubters see only waffling. Carafano's answer: the victor gets to define victory —...
Reports indicate that American short-range ballistic missile inventories have been nearly exhausted and Tomahawk stockpiles badly depleted during the war with Iran. Patriot interceptors...
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...
On 12 July 2026, during RIMPAC, HMCS Corner Brook fired an Mk 48 heavyweight torpedo and delivered the final strike that sank the decommissioned...
The trials ended in late November 1963 with 29 touch-and-goes, 21 full-stop landings and 21 unassisted takeoffs recorded. No aircraft larger or heavier has...
A five-day 2013 Gulf of Oman exercise put USS Dallas against HMS Illustrious, escorts and anti-submarine helicopters. The official Royal Navy record confirms simulated...
Japan’s Yamato-class battleships were larger, carried heavier guns and wore thicker armor. The Iowa class still offered the stronger overall combat system through superior...
No vessel entered any of the three Ukrainian ports in the Odesa region on Wednesday, the first such day since the grain corridor opened...
Oil futures are signaling that traders expect prices to fall over the coming months, despite the war and the disruption around Hormuz. The bet...
Ukraine's long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries have spread the fuel crisis into the countryside just as harvest begins, one analyst argues, with farmers...
Two tankers loaded with Saudi crude reversed course in the Red Sea — without being fired on — after the Houthis threatened any ship...
Trump calls the strait "sort of open." Iran calls the arrangement "a new and different model." Last June, vague wording in a similar deal...
A peace settlement would have to resolve occupied territory, Ukraine's relationship with the West and sanctions, and neither government is close enough to the...
Ukraine on Tuesday executed a series of drone strikes on an industrial zone near Moscow, and across the whole country, strikes on three warehouses...
On July 20, a China Coast Guard team in a small boat closed on Philippine sailors near Second Thomas Shoal and repeatedly struck one...
North Korea has roughly 60 nuclear weapons and Kim Jong-un keeps demanding an exponential increase. Bruce Bennett works the problem backward, from Kim's objectives...
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...
Summary and Key Points: In the waters off Florida in early 2015, a French nuclear attack submarine named Saphir — a 1970s-era Rubis-class boat,...
Summary and Key Points: The USS Gerald R. Ford is the most expensive warship ever built — a $13 billion supercarrier and the most...
Summary and Key Points on the X-20: Years before the Space Shuttle, the US Air Force had designed a reusable, piloted spaceplane that launched...
Summary and Key Points: On November 16, 2004, a twelve-foot unmanned NASA aircraft lit a scramjet with no moving parts and rode it to...
Summary and Key Points: The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was built to cruise at three times the speed of sound — so high and...
