Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Summary and Key Points: Russian officials pitch the MiG-41 as a revolutionary successor to the MiG-31—Mach 4–5 speed, near-space altitudes, and even hypersonic-missile interception....
Hi, what are you looking for?
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...
Canada's 2023 agreement to buy 88 F-35As is valued at C$27.7 billion. Washington has threatened 50 percent tariffs on roughly US$20 billion of Canadian...
The US Navy has confirmed that one Virginia-class Block V nuclear submarine will receive a specialized configuration, although it has not publicly identified which...
USS John C. Stennis entered Newport News Shipbuilding on 6 May 2021 under a $3 billion execution contract, and the fiscal 2026 budget requested...
There are legitimate concerns to be had as to whether Ukraine has the technical know-how to produce ballistic missile interceptors, especially when its industrial...
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...
Summary and Key Points: Russian officials pitch the MiG-41 as a revolutionary successor to the MiG-31—Mach 4–5 speed, near-space altitudes, and even hypersonic-missile interception....
Summary and Key Points: Napoleon’s line about strength through defeat lands because his career delivered both brilliance and calamity. -Trafalgar shattered any realistic path...
Summary and Key Points: The B-21 Raider is positioned to replace aging B-2s and B-1Bs, but the planned buy of 100 bombers may be...
Summary and Key Points: USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) is meant to be the next major step in the Ford-class transition, bringing EMALS, Advanced...
Summary and Key Points: “Make no little plans” is most strongly tied to architect Daniel Burnham and the 1909 Plan of Chicago, a Progressive-era...
