Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
The U.S. military's massive resource expenditure in Iran is creating a dangerous strategic vacuum in the Indo-Pacific. By draining Tomahawk and Patriot missile stockpiles...
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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...
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 US Navy spent $21.5 million to reactivate Iowa-class USS New Jersey for the Vietnam War. During roughly 120 days on the gunline, the...
Earth takes 365 days to orbit the Sun and Mars takes about 687, so the two planets line up for an efficient transfer only...
Russia's military spending from 1 January 2022 through 31 March 2026 came to 53.1 trillion rubles — roughly $625 billion using year-by-year conversion. Net...
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...
The U.S. military's massive resource expenditure in Iran is creating a dangerous strategic vacuum in the Indo-Pacific. By draining Tomahawk and Patriot missile stockpiles...
British defense researcher Jack Buckby analyzes the tactical deployment of the A-10 Thunderbolt II to the Strait of Hormuz. Because the "Warthog" lacks stealth...
The U.S. Air Force is accelerating its nuclear modernization. A B-52H Stratofortress was recently spotted carrying two AGM-181 Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) test...
Defense researcher Jack Buckby breaks down the B-1B Lancer's critical role in the ongoing Iran conflict. While lacking modern stealth, the Lancer's massive 75,000-pound...
Defense columnist Isaac Seitz takes readers inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Originally carved out of solid granite in the 1960s to survive a nuclear...
