Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
As of March 3, 2026, the strategic fallout of Operation Epic Fury has reached a critical inflection point. While U.S. and Israeli forces have...
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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...
Germany hadn’t spent 1.5 percent of GDP on defense since 1996. Then came the Zeitenwende: €100 billion for the Bundeswehr and a 4,800-strong brigade...
A former US Navy ASW operator says the Kilo-class ‘black hole’ hype was a joke. Quiet only at 3 knots, it has to snorkel...
Tehran's strategy was to wait out the midterms. Instead the US kept the war going past Memorial Day, cleared the strait, tightened the maritime...
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...
German Foreign Minister Wadephul's fourth Kyiv visit — two days before Ukraine's Independence Day — capped an accelerating shift: Berlin is becoming Ukraine's principal...
The Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative emerged from US Army Europe and Africa and NATO's Allied Land Command as a concept for restoring deterrence by...
The ‘Sea Raptor’ never existed. In 1990 the Navy priced its carrier-based F-22 derivative, the Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter, at $66.1 billion for 618...
In late June 2026 every one of the Royal Navy’s five in-service Astute-class attack submarines was tied up alongside: HMS Astute waiting at Devonport...
The US Navy built the F-14 Tomcat and the AIM-54 Phoenix to kill Soviet bombers, fired three Phoenixes in anger and scored zero kills....
Pitched to Congress in 1972 as a $20-million-a-flight space truck, the Space Shuttle flew 135 missions over 30 years at about $1.5 billion each,...
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...
The rial has hit 2.5 million to the dollar, inflation is projected near 69 percent, and Iranian oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz...
Twenty-five years on, 9/11's lessons are still contested, except the simplest: the US mistook quiet for peace. A RAND strategist argues it is doing...
The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Policy, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies have all warned of an escalating Russian gray...
Surely there is reluctance among a part of the Russian population – especially those living in major cities – to see their sons dragged...
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...
As President Trump downsizes the Ulchi Freedom Shield war games after South Korea declined to help with Iran, one uncomfortable fact goes almost completely...
As of March 3, 2026, the strategic fallout of Operation Epic Fury has reached a critical inflection point. While U.S. and Israeli forces have...
The transition of the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II from simulated "opponents" over Norway to lethal partners in Operation Epic Fury represents the...
The F-15 Strike Eagle remains a centerpiece of the 2026 air campaign over Iran, even as a tragic friendly fire incident over Kuwait on...
The "Shock and Anger" phase of Operation Epic Fury has achieved its tactical objectives against Iranian Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS), but at a...
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) entered Operation Epic Fury on March 1, 2026, not as a secondary partner, but as the primary regional "surgical"...
