Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
China published a study claiming the J-20 defeats the F-22 Raptor 95% of the time. What the headlines didn’t mention: the same study showed...
Hi, what are you looking for?
A US intelligence assessment reported by the Wall Street Journal on 6 August describes a range of ways Putin might test NATO between this...
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 —...
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...
Canada planned to buy 88 F-35As, holds a firm order for 16, and confirmed long-lead payments for 14 more in February 2026 — 30...
The F-22 Raptor entered operational service in 2005, designed to destroy advanced Soviet fighters beyond visual range. It went nearly eighteen years without an...
The Navy commissioned USS Sioux City in November 2018 and decommissioned her in August 2023, four years and nine months later. The $362 million...
Forrestal, Saratoga, Ranger, Kitty Hawk and John F. Kennedy each went to shipbreakers for one cent. Dismantling USS Enterprise, the first nuclear carrier, will...
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...
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...
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...
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...
China published a study claiming the J-20 defeats the F-22 Raptor 95% of the time. What the headlines didn’t mention: the same study showed...
The U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, has enjoyed a successful Iran war. The operational tempo and sortie rate have been high....
So, are aircraft carriers just obsolete battleships that should be turned into museums? The Iran war has given us some keen insight into this...
In March 2026, senior U.S. Army officials confirmed they are preparing a narrower version of “right to repair” legislation after Congress removed broader provisions...
During the Operation Epic Fury in Iran, which now appears to have been temporarily paused with a two-week ceasefire, the U.S. reportedly used a...
