Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
What is Russia’s Pacific Fleet Designed to Do? – With Nancy Pelosi’s whirlwind trip to Taiwan still making waves, the cross-strait relationship between China...
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In a new analysis, national security expert James Jay Carafano argues President Trump has already achieved America's key objectives against Iran and is de-risking...
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...
Ukraine says it struck thirteen more vessels from Russia's sanctions-dodging shadow fleet across the Azov and Black Seas in forty-eight hours, part of a...
With Iran's foreign minister ruling out concessions or any reopening of Hormuz, one analyst argues the only way to stop Tehran's attacks on shipping...
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...
Moiseyev says the rebuilt Admiral Nakhimov — back at Severomorsk for the first time in 27 years — joins the fleet in 2026. Open-source...
Defense expert Harry J. Kazianis traces the Raptor drawdown: 750 planned, then 648, 442, 339, and finally 187 — the Soviet target collapsed a...
A GAO review of the Navy's Ticonderoga modernization finds $3.7 billion spent on seven cruisers — $1.84 billion of it on four that never...
Decommissioning a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine requires far more than lowering its flag. The Navy removes weapons, extracts the spent reactor fuel, seals and...
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...
Zelensky met Raytheon executives in Kyiv, saying Ukraine is moving to co-produce Patriot missiles under plans he discussed with Trump — though waiting lists...
The Pentagon's official count of American troops killed in the Iran conflict dropped from eighteen to fourteen between Wednesday and Thursday, the New York...
Trump is underwater in all fifteen polls in the RealClearPolling average, and one election analyst traces the slide to Iran. A Washington Post survey...
American forces struck Iran for an eleventh straight night as the Houthis pressed their blockade threat against Saudi shipping. Only three commodity vessels crossed...
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...
What is Russia’s Pacific Fleet Designed to Do? – With Nancy Pelosi’s whirlwind trip to Taiwan still making waves, the cross-strait relationship between China...
The United States Speaker of the House left her one-day visit to Taiwan that went counter to express and committed wishes of the People’s...
Fighting in the Donbas region in Ukraine has become so desperate that President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling it “just hell.” This is a matter...
The northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was hit by multiple Russian strikes on Tuesday night, with people on the ground sharing reports and videos...
![Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in the virtual U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue, from the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. on April 7, 2021. [State Department Photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]](https://www.19fortyfive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Somalia-600x337.jpg)
![Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in the virtual U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue, from the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. on April 7, 2021. [State Department Photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]](https://www.19fortyfive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Somalia-100x100.jpg)
Azerbaijan has renewed its attack on Armenians in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. The Azeri attack comes less than a month after Secretary of State...
