Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Summary and Key Points: The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is currently navigating a record-breaking, multi-theater deployment that underscores both its unmatched power and...
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On 8 July at the NATO summit in Ankara, Mark Carney confirmed Canada as the sixth nation to buy Kongsberg's Joint Strike Missile, a...
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...
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 took delivery of about 460 American M60s and 894 British Chieftains before the 1979 revolution. It had also ordered 125 Shir Iran 1...
The F-4 Phantom set 16 world speed and altitude records between 1959 and 1962, which prompted the Vietnam veteran Dick Anderegg's line that it...
Iran signed contracts for three Kilo-class submarines in 1988, while the Soviet Union still existed. The USSR dissolved three years later. The Russian Federation...
US Navy aircraft carriers have been out to sea longer and longer over the last year. USS Gerald R. Ford broke records and now...
The Houthis have no warships. It doesn't need any. A blockade holds if shipowners and insurers decide the passage is not worth the risk,...
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...
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...
Summary and Key Points: The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is currently navigating a record-breaking, multi-theater deployment that underscores both its unmatched power and...
Summary and Key Points: As of February 2026, the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet has been effectively neutralized as a dominant regional power. -Despite...
Summary and Key Points: USS George Washington’s midlife Refueling and Complex Overhaul ballooned into a nearly six-year, 2,117-day stretch in port, driven by stoppages,...
Summary and Key Points: Germany is reportedly considering acquiring at least 35 additional F-35A fighters, potentially doubling its planned stealth fleet to 70+ units....
Summary and Key Points: The J-20 “Mighty Dragon” is no longer just a stealth fighter; it is the cornerstone of China’s strategy to achieve...
