Trench warfare is a true test of a soldier’s grit. The thing is, there’s no escaping the danger. You could die just as easily while walking to the toilet as you could while holding the line under artillery fire. You never know when the shelling will ...
Ukraine’s Unconventional Warfare Plan to Resist a Russian Invasion
KYIV, Ukraine — Should Russia invade, a national network of Ukrainian irregular military units is prepared to wage a protracted, guerrilla resistance campaign. Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces comprise about 100,000 reservists and civilian ...
Russian Military Builds Field Camps Near Ukraine Border, Intel Groups Report
KYIV, Ukraine — Several open-source intelligence groups have identified what they allege to be new Russian military field camps — comprising artillery, rocket systems, a field hospital, and hundreds of vehicles — within a day’s drive of the Ukrainian ...
Russia Tensions Escalate After Clashes Kill 4 Ukrainian Soldiers in 2 Days
KYIV, Ukraine — Four Ukrainian soldiers have died in combat against Russian-backed forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region during the past two days. The deaths come amid heightened military tensions between Kyiv and Moscow following a recent uptick ...
A ‘Shield for Europe’ — Ukraine Courts NATO Ties While Russian Military Masses on Its Borders
KYIV, Ukraine — On the Soviet Union’s battlefield maps, red icons symbolized friendly forces and blue symbols denoted the NATO enemy. After Russia seized Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014, Ukrainian forces flipped the colors of their ...
Russia Masses Troops, Armor on Ukraine’s Borders; Fears Mount of Wider War
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia has deployed troops and armor near Ukraine’s eastern border and in Crimea, sparking fears of a wider war after years of stalemated trench combat in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Amid the mounting crisis, US President Joe ...
Local Opposition Stalls $1.9 Billion Hawaii-Based Homeland Defense Radar
Defending the US homeland from the threat of ballistic missiles is among the American military’s top priorities in the great power competition era. Both China and Russia wield arsenals of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking ...
US Green Berets in Mozambique as ‘Brutal’ ISIS Siege Unfolds in the North, Spurring ‘Dunkirk-Style’ Evacuation
Sunday marked the fifth day of heavy fighting between militants affiliated with the Islamic State group, or ISIS, and government forces in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado, underscoring a rapidly worsening security situation less than ...
Putin Has a ‘Nuclear Football,’ Too
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin is always accompanied by a military aide carrying a briefcase that contains the required communications equipment and authorization codes to launch Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal within ...
Amid Migrant Surge, HHS Taps Pentagon to House Children at Texas Military Bases
The Department of Health and Human Services has asked the Department of Defense to review the possibility of housing unaccompanied migrant children at two military bases in Texas, underscoring a mounting crisis at the US-Mexico border that has left ...
US-Led Coalition Hits ISIS With 151 Airstrikes in 2 Weeks
The war against ISIS may no longer top the headlines, but it’s far from over. The US-led, multinational airpower coalition against ISIS carried out at least 151 airstrikes in Iraq over the past two weeks, marking the most significant bombing ...
US Green Berets Support Mozambique’s ISIS Fight
About a dozen Army Special Forces soldiers have deployed to Mozambique to help train the country’s Marines to combat an ongoing and brutal ISIS insurgency. The mission underscores the growing importance of Africa for America’s global fight against ...
18 Years After the US Invasion of Iraq, the War Drags On
Eighteen years ago today, the US invaded Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein. A generation later, US military personnel remain in the country, actively participating in ongoing military operations to root out remnants of the ISIS terrorist ...
US Airstrikes Pound Taliban, Casting Doubts Over May 1 Afghanistan Withdrawal Deadline
Is this what victory looks like? Less than three months prior to the May 1 deadline for all US troops to leave Afghanistan, US warplanes conducted multiple airstrikes this week against Taliban forces massing to attack Afghan government troops in ...
How Two Special Operations Veterans Found Each Other — and Healing — in the Himalayas
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.” After I left the military in 2011, I wandered for months, crisscrossing India and Nepal. I studied Buddhism in the misty mountain village of ...
Air Force Offers Pilots $420K Bonus To Stay in the Cockpit
When the Air Force tells its pilots to “aim high,” they sure as heck mean it. In a bid to offset its persistent pilot retention woes, the Air Force is reportedly offering its aviators a bonus of up to $420,000 to stay in uniform. The payments are ...
Global Journalist Killings Increase By One-Third in 2020, New Report Finds
In 2020, some 65 journalists in 16 countries were killed by assassinations, bombings, or while caught in the crossfire while covering conflicts, the International Federation of Journalists found in a report released March 11. That number represents a ...
Lessons in Winter Warfare From the Ukrainian War Zone — A Case Study for America’s Arctic Pivot
KYIV, Ukraine — To reach the Ukrainian fighting positions outside the village of Novomykhailivka, you must travel along a snow-covered road that precariously weaves through a minefield. Along the road, shrapnel has carved concrete power line poles ...
Moscow Grudgingly Grants US Astronaut Last-Minute Rocket Ride to Space Station
Space is supposed to be the last bastion of untrammeled cooperation between the US and Russia. That stellar relationship got a little stress test this week after Russia booted one of its cosmonauts from an upcoming spaceflight to the International ...
Terrorist Violence Sweeps Somalia Following US Military Departure and Airstrike Pause
With US forces gone and American airstrikes on pause, a wave of terrorist violence has swept Somalia, killing dozens of civilians. A contingent of some 700 US military personnel departed Somalia in the final days of the Trump administration. ...
7 Years After ISIS Pledged To ‘Conquer’ Rome, Pope Holds Mass in Liberated Mosul
During a speech at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul in July 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on his terrorist acolytes to continue the so-called ISIS caliphate’s campaign of nihilistic violence all the way to the conquest of Rome. “You will ...
Averting Cat-aclysm, Thai Navy Sailor Saves 4 Felines Stranded on Capsized Boat
Cat lovers around the world, meet your new hero: a 23-year-old Thai navy sailor named Thatsaphon Saii. Demonstrating the sort of “grace under pressure” that would have earned him a slow tip of the rum glass and a nod of approval from Ernest ...
Russia Scrambles Fighter Jet to ‘Shadow’ US B-1B Bombers Over the Baltic Sea
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian Su-27 "Flanker" fighter scrambled to intercept a pair of US Air Force B-1B Lancer supersonic bombers on a training mission over the Baltic Sea on Wednesday, underscoring Moscow’s discontent with a more assertive American ...
US Destroyer and Submarine Join French Carrier Group for Sub-Hunting War Games in the Mediterranean
With both China and Russia increasing their so-called “malign” influence in North Africa, NATO’s maritime forces have refocused their attentions on the Mediterranean Sea. To that end, NATO recently kicked off an anti-submarine warfare and ...
Multiple Rockets Strike Iraqi Air Base Housing US Military Personnel
A barrage of some 10 rockets hit an Iraqi air base housing US troops on Wednesday morning, US officials said. It was the first attack of its kind since a Feb. 25 US airstrike on Iran-backed militants on the Iraq-Syria border. As of this article’s ...
Double-Whammy for Moscow: US Delivers Sanctions for Navalny and More Military Aid for Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — The Pentagon announced a $125 million aid package for Ukraine on Monday, including a commitment to continue lethal weapons deliveries to enable the embattled post-Soviet country “to more effectively defend itself against Russian ...
Tom Cruise ‘Deepfake’ Videos Foretell the Future of Warfare
The Greek tragedian Aeschylus famously wrote: “In war, truth is the first casualty.” Well, in this new era of so-called “hybrid” or “gray zone” warfare, truth is not only a casualty of war — it has also become the weapon of choice for some of ...
After US Airstrikes Hit Iran-Backed Militias in Syria, Will Tehran Back Off on Attacks Against US Troops in Iraq?
US airstrikes targeted Iranian-backed militias in Syria on Thursday, marking a retaliatory escalation following a series of rocket potshots by pro-Iranian groups at bases in Iraq housing American military personnel. The strikes mark the first ...
Russia Remains an ‘Existential Threat’ to the US and NATO, Top American General in Europe Warns
KYIV, Ukraine — With US Air Force B-1B supersonic bombers in Norway for combat exercises, America’s top general in Europe has warned about the threat posed by Russia to the US and its Western allies — a threat spanning from the Arctic to the Black ...
No Longer a ‘State Sponsor of Terror,’ Sudan Welcomes US Navy Ship in Same Port as Russia’s New Naval Base
What a difference a few months make. The US Navy expeditionary fast transport ship USNS Carson City pulled into Port Sudan on Wednesday, marking the first port visit by a US Navy ship after Washington officially rescinded Sudan’s status as a state ...