Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security
Key Points and Summary – The F-14 Tomcat was designed first as a fleet-defense interceptor—built to spot Soviet bombers early, fire AIM-54 Phoenix missiles...
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An executive order issued on 13 August 2026 directs the Navy to replace the electromagnetic launch system on the fourth Ford-class carrier with steam...
Canada's Army modernization strategy, Inflection Point 2025, states that the Army's sole remaining armoured regiment has a single squadron of tanks that are both...
In April 1997, President Roman Herzog told Germany it needed a Ruck — a jolt — to break out of national lethargy and undertake...
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...
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...
The SR-71 set a 2,193.167 mph record, gathered intelligence above 80,000 feet and was retired over cost and changing priorities.
The strange aircraft hanging above an F-22 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force was never an operational fighter. The $67 million...
The F-16XL doubled payload, extended range and lost to the F-15E before NASA used two prototypes for decades of supersonic research.
Northrop built two YA-9A prototypes for the Air Force's A-X competition. Between them they flew 123 times, totaling 307.6 flight hours, before the service...
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...
Dr. Michael Rubin argues that Israel's targeted killing campaign against Palestinian militants a quarter of a century ago ultimately produced two decades of relative...
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...
Trump calls the strait "sort of open." Iran calls the arrangement "a new and different model." Last June, vague wording in a similar deal...
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...
Key Points and Summary – The F-14 Tomcat was designed first as a fleet-defense interceptor—built to spot Soviet bombers early, fire AIM-54 Phoenix missiles...
Key Points and Summary – Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge has enabled it to field uniquely customized American aircraft like the F-35I, F-16I, and F-15I—systems...
Key Points and Synopsis: China’s visible flight testing of at least two next-generation fighter designs—often labeled the J-36 and a Shenyang “J-50/J-XDS”—is fueling the...
Key Points and Synopsis: Israel may be small on the map, but its defense industry is anything but—and the Merkava tank is a signature...
Key Points and Summary – Israel’s F-15IA purchase is framed as a confident, low-risk bet on proven virtues: range, payload, toughness, and a platform...
