Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Summary and Key Points: As of February 2026, the M1A1 Abrams has transitioned from a struggling prestige asset to a specialized drone-age warrior in...
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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...
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,...
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...
Every week the strait stays restricted, Washington's cushion shrinks — the emergency reserve is down to its lowest level since 1983. Tehran can afford...
Iran’s three Russian-built Kilo submarines brought a quiet, ocean-going threat to the Strait of Hormuz. Their public combat record remained empty, maintenance consumed years,...
Sixteen refineries in five months, against eight in the same stretch last year. At the peak this spring, more than a million barrels a...
The Shah bought the F-14 to stop Soviet MiG-25 overflights, giving Iran the AWG-9 and Phoenix system no other foreign air force possessed. Iran...
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...
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...
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...
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: As of February 2026, the M1A1 Abrams has transitioned from a struggling prestige asset to a specialized drone-age warrior in...
Summary and Key Points: Ukraine has achieved its fastest territorial gains in over two years, recapturing 201 square kilometers in southeastern Zaporizhzhia between February...
Summary and Key Points: Winston Churchill’s transition from a WWI infantry officer to WWII’s indomitable Prime Minister was defined by a shift from effort...
Summary and Key Points: Critics often cite the strained U.S. submarine industrial base—currently prioritized for Columbia-class SSBNs—as proof that AUKUS will fail. -However, AUKUS...
Summary and Key Points: In February 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Budapest to herald a “new golden age” of relations, signing a...
