Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Iran Opened the Strait to Make Payroll. Not to Make Peace.
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Conventional wisdom says Americans vote on domestic concerns and ignore the world abroad. Robert Kelly argues the 2026 midterms are breaking that rule: an...
Germany is studying whether to join GCAP, the sixth-generation fighter Britain, Japan and Italy launched in December 2022 for service by 2035, after its...
The Soviet Victor III attack submarine, introduced in 1979, was the first Soviet boat quiet enough to hide in the ocean’s background noise. As...
The Pentagon’s China Military Power Report says the People’s Liberation Army Navy plans to operate nine aircraft carriers by 2035. China has three today,...
Putin’s proposal for a U.S.-China-Russia trilateral in China — with Ukraine and Europe excluded — has revived Beltway enthusiasm for a “Kissinger-in-reverse” bid to...
The Trump administration’s deal to allow Russian diesel into the United States blindsided Kyiv and Europe alike — halting peace talks, triggering threats to...
Sabotage at Leipzig, Swindon, and Skarżysko-Kamienna. A curfew across the river from Narva. New garrisons at Petrozavodsk, Lupche-Savino, and Pechenga pointing at Finland's 830-mile...
The Witkoff-Kushner shuttle between Moscow and Kyiv ended, predictably, without a breakthrough — and Andrew Michta argues the failure reveals something deeper than bad...
Russia commissioned Severodvinsk on June 14, 2014, the first Yasen-class attack submarine and the first new-generation SSN completed since the Soviet collapse.
The Soviets built the Project 971 Akula to find the US Navy’s Ohio-class missile submarines and sit on their tails. Moscow planned 25 boats,...
Russia’s Borei-class submarine has one job: hide under the Arctic and Pacific and fire back if Russia’s other nuclear forces have been struck. Each...
Russia’s Project 545 Laika-class, once code-named Husky, is the fifth-generation submarine meant to replace the Yasen-class and the Soviet-era Akula, Sierra II and Victor...
Four ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz Thursday against a 10-day average of 16. Iran said it hit tanker Trend on Friday. Brent is...
Jobs dropped out of Reed College and stayed on as what he called a "drop-in," sitting in on classes that interested him. One was...
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has,...
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has unveiled Operation Economic Outcast: secondary sanctions across five sectors and more than sixty targets, with no relief attached. Iran's...
Dr. Robert Kelly, a professor of international relations at Pusan National University, argues the separation of powers in American foreign policy has nearly collapsed,...
Both sides would use a Ukraine war pause to rearm, and a longer pause may mean a bloodier spring. Michael Rubin argues Kyiv should...
For four and a half years the request was essentially a check, and the argument was that a properly supplied David could match Goliath....
Let Trump be Trump—which he will be anyway. Even if his peace efforts fail (which is entirely possible), American interests will be protected, and...
President Trump says he gets along with Kim Jong Un and wants a new summit before the end of 2026, along with smaller US-South...
Trump is reportedly considering another meeting with Kim Jong Un. The last round produced Singapore, Hanoi, and the DMZ, and by 2020 the status...
American doctrine promises that any North Korean nuclear attack will end the Kim regime. The Iran war has just tested that assumption. The United...
Trump ordered Ulchi Freedom Shield cut from eleven days to five before Kim Jong-un had agreed to anything in return. Kim Yo-jong dismissed the...
Iran Opened the Strait to Make Payroll. Not to Make Peace.
A Swedish diesel submarine costing a fraction of an American supercarrier repeatedly penetrated a carrier strike group’s defenses and ‘sank’ the carrier during exercises...
China is the only country besides America with two operational stealth fighters. The J-20 entered service in 2017. The J-35 joined in 2025. Neither...
Oil crashed 13% on Friday after Iran announced the Strait of Hormuz was ‘open for business.’ But ships still need Iranian permission to transit,...
450 F-35s in Europe by 2030. 300 J-20s in China and Growing. The Race Is On.
