Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
As of March 3, 2026, the strategic fallout of Operation Epic Fury has reached a critical inflection point. While U.S. and Israeli forces have...
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The curious, on-again-off-again US-Iran war of 2026 is a remarkable geopolitical outcome. For all its hard power, the US has been unable to force...
Since Khamenei took over in March, Iran's Supreme National Security Council has had three secretaries. Ali Larijani was killed in an airstrike a few...
Iran's strategy is to drag the war out. James Jay Carafano argues that protraction is the only card the IRGC holds, and that Trump...
More than 42 US military aircraft have been damaged or destroyed during the war with Iran, including aircraft caught on the ground at air...
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...
Iran’s Zulfiqar tank blended Patton-derived running gear with a T-72-style 125mm gun. Its exact fleet size and combat readiness remain unverified.
A 13 November 1991 agreement between Iran and Russia called for licensed production of 1,000 T-72S tanks, along with 1,500 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles,...
Iran's air defenses are old and obsolete. They had no chance to defeat US Air Force or Israeli warplanes flying overhead.
A fleet of Russian-build Su-35 Flanker fighters could make the United States work harder and force the acceptance of somewhat greater risk — but...
Washington redirected 55 commercial vessels away from Iranian ports as of Sunday, up from 35 a week earlier, while the Kpler intelligence firm counted...
Supply boats bring food and water. Wages arrive late or not at all. A union leader likens it to imprisonment, and one Indian sailor...
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...
Trump calls the strait "sort of open." Iran calls the arrangement "a new and different model." Last June, vague wording in a similar deal...
The war began on 28 February with little public explanation. The administration did not make a full case to Congress or to the country,...
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...
Iran's Shahab-1 came from the Scud-B and reached 300km. The Khorramshahr, derived from North Korea's Musudan, reaches 2,000km — a 6.7-fold increase in reach.
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...
As of March 3, 2026, the strategic fallout of Operation Epic Fury has reached a critical inflection point. While U.S. and Israeli forces have...
The transition of the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II from simulated "opponents" over Norway to lethal partners in Operation Epic Fury represents the...
The F-15 Strike Eagle remains a centerpiece of the 2026 air campaign over Iran, even as a tragic friendly fire incident over Kuwait on...
The "Shock and Anger" phase of Operation Epic Fury has achieved its tactical objectives against Iranian Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS), but at a...
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) entered Operation Epic Fury on March 1, 2026, not as a secondary partner, but as the primary regional "surgical"...
