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This past weekend, President Donald Trump attended the commissioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier in Virginia. This ship is notable for many things, two in particular: it represents the future of America’s naval defense, and it is burdened with $2.4 billion in cost overruns. Now, today, Trump announced that our military cannot—simply cannot!—afford the hypothetical extra medical costs of troops who happen to be transgender.
The U.S. Navy fired warning shots at a patrol boat this morning reportedly belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Persian Gulf. U.S Defense Department officials said the boat came within 150 yards of the USS Thunderbolt, a Navy patrol ship.
The U.S. has been in the habit of sanctioning the hell out of Russia as of late, and U.S. House Democrats and Republicans are set to do it again—this time over something President Donald Trump swears didn’t happen at all, which was meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But regardless of how he feels, Trump has little choice but to sign it.
It took President Donald Trump 55 minutes of a one-hour meeting last week to argue with aides that he didn’t want to re-certify America’s nuclear deal with Iran—an Obama-era deal he roundly condemned on the campaign trail—only to capitulate in the last five, The New York Times is reporting. Problem for Trump is that the nuclear deal is actually working.
The Cold War is over. And so is the need for America’s land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Not only are the costs of maintaining 450 Minuteman-III missiles unsustainable, keeping them in the nuclear arsenal is hardly practical. Maintaining hundreds of outdated, budget-draining Minuteman-IIIs when the Pentagon has the more accurate, multi-dimensional Trident II that can be shot from Ohio-class submarines that are virtually undetectable makes little sense.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense element of America’s missile defense system successfully shot down an Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile target from Alaska this morning, according to a statement by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. It’s good news, but it’s not a full safeguard against an increasingly belligerent North Korea.
Amid an ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, this weekend it was reported that Donald Trump Jr. and others met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer last summer to discuss, among other things, a 2012 law designed to punish Russian officials after the death of an accountant investigating government officials for fraud. This law is the Magnitsky Act, and this is why Russian President Vladimir Putin is so incensed about it.
As tensions with an ever-belligerent North Korea continue to escalate, the United States is now expected to test its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile-defense system against an intermediate-range ballistic missile in the coming days.
Hackers have been targeting computer networks of companies managing nuclear power plants across the United States since May, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI obtained by the New York Times. But, supposedly, everything should be OK?
The Israeli military is taking drone warfare to a new level with its procurement of small multi-rotor drones that can carry machine guns and other kinds of weapons. A former Israeli Special Forces veteran and another ex-Israeli military friend are making the drones through their Florida startup, Duke Robotics.
Apparently, former President Barack Obama’s strategy to take out ISIS leaders is working so well that U.S. Special Forces are running out of targets to kill. And President Donald Trump, who claimed during the campaign to have a secret plan to defeat ISIS, still isn’t happy.
Yesterday’s North Korean missile launch, confirmed as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), was the culmination of 70-plus years of unresolved conflict between Pyongyang and Washington. But despite tough talk and tougher tweets from the current presidential administration, the U.S. feels like it has fewer options than ever—and that includes with China.
The size of Canada’s military force is minuscule compared to the United States, but one thing our northern neighbors do have is a damn good sniper corps. We found out just how deadly their shooters are last week when a member of the Joint Task Force 2 shot an ISIS fighter in Iraq from more than two miles away, shattering the previous world record.
You’re probably thinking about BBQ and hanging out at the beach instead of the nuclear apocalypse, and why would you? It’s Fourth of July, for God’s sake. But, for fun, let’s take a quick nuclear weapons quiz. Do you live near any nuclear weapons?
A former intelligence officer who now owns a consumer drone company fears it’s a matter of time before ordinary, increasingly common drones become a weaponized threat to the public unless the federal government acts fast. He knows how consumers are modifying them to work beyond their intended capabilities, potentially making them lethal.
The United States Air Force will keep the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor in service until 2060, extending the life of the aircraft for another 43 years.
Availability of spare parts is getting worse. Repairs are delayed. Jets aren’t available when needed and pilots can’t get enough training hours. Surprise, everyone. The F-35 is still a spectacularly inefficient, super expensive shitshow that continues be the national leader in military procurement mismanagement.
In the midst of investigations into Russian interference in the United States presidential election, obstruction of justice, and fighter jet shootdowns, the White House suddenly announced last night that Syrian President Bashar Assad would “pay a heavy price” if it used chemical weapons again in Syria. And it’s been reported that the Pentagon and the State department had no idea about it.
As dangerous as nuclear weapons are, you’d think the management running them would prioritize safety. This is not the case at all.
After years of delays and cost overruns, the British Royal Navy’s HMS Queen Elizabeth is set to begin a series of critical sea trails that will help determine if the billions of pounds it took to build her were really worth it.
A Canadian sniper shot and killed an ISIS operative 3,540 meters away, shattering the old record by more than 1,000 meters. The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed the kill Thursday, saying a member of its Joint Task Force 2 made the shot in Iraq within the last month.
Russia’s T-14 Armata tank has already made waves for its armor that can reportedly stand up against NATO’s current anti-tank missile systems. Now it’s making news again because it can reportedly destroy targets more than seven miles away, which is more than twice the range of America’s vaunted M1 Abrams tank. The real question, though, is whether any of this will be a game changer in an actual war.
A NATO F-16 fighter jet approached an aircraft carrying Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu as it traveled in international airspace over the Baltic Sea in northeast Europe Wednesday, escalating already heightened tensions in the region. Here’s how that went down.
South Korean President President Moon Jae-in has long voiced a conciliatory tone with North Korea and gone on record saying it is time for Seoul to start saying “no” to Washington. For this reason and more, Seoul has said it will consider scaling back its military exercises with the U.S. in exchange for Pyongyang suspending its nuclear weapons program.
On Sunday a U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet took out a Syrian Su-22 after it attacked an area near U.S.-backed fighters, the first such shootdown since America began fighting ISIS there in 2014. Yet Russia, which backs Assad’s Syrian government, has now warned the United States that it would treat any U.S. coalition planes and drones flying west of the Euphrates River as targets.
Just one week after President Donald Trump accused the country of funding terrorism, the United States has agreed to sell Qatar $12 billion worth of F-15s.