Not long after airplanes were first used in war, armies realized that close air support required specialists on the ground to coordinate with the pilots. Hence the advent of forward air controllers, and later the U.S. military’s Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, or JTACs.
But if you need JTACs to call in air strikes, and space-based weapons are becoming a reality, then don’t you also need…
BERLIN — A Russian transport aircraft of a type linked to the country’s military and former Wagner mercenary group has landed in the Venezuelan capital over the weekend, signaling heightened Russian interest in the Latin American country.
The Ilyushin Il-76 transport…
US to deploy USS Gerald R. Ford to Latin America
October 28, 2025
The U.S. military is sending an aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, in the latest escalation and buildup of military forces in the region, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to…
CANJUERS, France — KNDS, the French-German maker of land armaments, considers its Caesar howitzer has “excellent chances” to win a U.S. Army artillery competition to replace the M777, according to the executive in charge of marketing the truck-mounted 155 millimeter cannon.
The Caesar enjoys a strong reputation among American artillery crews, who saw the gun in action in Iraq and…
Since 1945, the U.S. Army has been designed to defend Europe. Despite detours into counterinsurgency in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, the core of the Army remains a large force of heavy mechanized brigades.
But the times are changing. The Obama administration shifted…
MILAN — The Lithuanian Army has tested heavy machine guns and Swedish-designed surface-to-air missiles against high-speed drones, as more militaries are exploring the potential of firearms as drone countermeasures of last resort.
In a video released this week by the…
The Russia-Ukraine war has been a drone operator’s dream and a quartermaster’s nightmare. Supply trucks and depots have been pounded by a nearly endless stream of drones and long-range munitions. Resupply of front-line units means running a gauntlet of fire.
For the first time since World War II, U.S. Army logisticians must contemplate a grim future where supply units no longer have the luxury…
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — When Singapore’s defense minister, Chan Chun Sing, spoke at the launch ceremony of a novel class of warship for his country’s navy this week, he likened the vessel to the fictitious spaceship Battlestar Galactica.
“It isn’t just a ship…
Greenland radars vulnerable to hypersonic missiles, critics warn
October 24, 2025
Since the early days of the Cold War, the early warning radars on Greenland have been a linchpin for defending North America against nuclear attack by intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But the radars themselves are vulnerable to attack by hypersonic missiles, critics…
How the Army could customize tanks for future urban warfare
October 24, 2025
For steel beasts, the most dangerous habitat is urban. Tall buildings and narrow city streets are unfriendly territory for a 12-foot-wide tank that weighs 70 tons.
Yet, as the world becomes increasingly urbanized, and combat in cities and villages has become the norm, armor will have to prepare for more combat in built-up areas. But if the terrain can’t be changed, then how about changing the…
