#defense-review

#defense-review

In 2021, when Olga Rudenko and other journalists launched the Kyiv Independent, they were committed to making a publication that wouldn't face political pressure from an owner. A few months later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Independent began reporting breaking news from the front lines.

"War is terrible, war is terrible, war is terrible," he intones, holding my gaze and giving voice to a universal chorus.

When I brought up the drones that Ukraine has used so effectively against Russian tanks, the company's chairman and CEO, Armin Papperger, was withering in his dismissal. 'This is how to play with Legos,' he told me.

Planet Labs stated it will withhold imagery dating back to March 9 and expects the policy to remain in effect until the end of the war, which began on February 28.

The White House is seeking a 10 percent cut to nondefense spending, proposing a reduction of $73 billion from federal programs outside the military, targeting environmental initiatives.

The provocative military activity has led to speculative conversation about what it would take to invade a country twice the population and three times the territory of Iraq.

Hegseth's financial broker inquired about a multimillion-dollar investment in BlackRock's Defense Industrials Active ETF, which invests in global defense and security-related companies.

"To accelerate current weapons development timelines, DARPA is considering an alternative development paradigm to increase the nation's magazine depth and breadth."

The president should have a lot of leeway in which he determines whether or not the nation's going to respond kinetically. This flexibility is crucial in the evolving landscape of cyber warfare.

Our war fighters are leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools. These systems help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so our leaders can cut through the noise and make smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react. Humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot and when to shoot, but advanced AI tools can turn processes that used to take hours and sometimes even days into seconds.

The U.S. military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials.

I have been working in Ukraine since 2019, first as an active Green Beret advising in an official capacity, then after leaving that service, directing special operations on the ground and more recently carrying hard-won lessons back to NATO before they are forgotten or overtaken by the next news cycle.

But logistical consistency, like coherence and gravitas, does not characterize the new NDS. It is a document that supposedly nests within the National Security Strategy, explaining at greater length the implications of overall policy for the armed forces. The 2026 version does not do that. Rather, it restates some of the basic priorities of the Trump administration but for the most part confines itself to flattery of the president, insults, and bombast.