Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Summary and Key Points: China’s aircraft carrier program is advancing with the Type 003 Fujian, its first vessel utilizing Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS)....
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The B-52 Stratofortress has flown for about seventy years. With Iranian air defenses destroyed, it flew overland strike missions rather than standoff attacks.
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's Ghadir min-submarine is roughly 29 meters long, displaces about 125 tons submerged and carries a crew of seven. Two bow-mounted 533mm tubes are...
Defence Minister David McGuinty has confirmed that Canada's F-35 purchase is now part of what he called an extremely complex negotiation with Washington covering...
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper says US forces have destroyed more than 100 Iranian naval vessels, pledging to "continue to rapidly deplete Iran's ability...
Coverage of Chinese support for Russia focuses on what one retired US intelligence official calls MDO — missiles, drones and oil. What Moscow is...
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...
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...
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...
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: China’s aircraft carrier program is advancing with the Type 003 Fujian, its first vessel utilizing Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS)....
Synopsis: As of February 2026, the Tu-22M3 “Backfire” has transitioned from a Cold War supersonic penetrator to a long-range standoff platform, mirroring the U.S....
Synopsis: As of February 2026, the Pentagon faces a systemic acquisition crisis defined by “requirements creep” and industrial fragility. -Major programs like the M10...
Synopsis: As of February 2026, the U.S. Air Force is finalizing the deployment of 48 F-35A Lightning IIs to Misawa Air Base, Japan—a strategic...
Summary and Key Points: The Eurofighter Typhoon has evolved from a Cold War interceptor into a sophisticated multi-role platform capable of operating through the...
