Defense Policy

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense expects its first nuclear-powered submarine to enter service in the mid-2030s.

The Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion program is now projected to complete prototyping work in 2031, a cumulative delay of three years compared to earlier projections.

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection of articles from Ukrainian media offering insight into how Ukrainians themselves debate the issues shaping their country.American coverage often narrows the view to the battlefield — these pieces widen it, revealing the texture of daily life, politics, and public argument in a nation at war. The perspectives gathered here are varied, candid, and often surprising, together forming a more complete picture of Ukraine as it really is.Frontline and StrategyЦензор.НЕТ — The post Understanding the Value of Ukrainian Railways appeared first on War on the Rocks.

This week on The Break Out, we travel to eastern Europe for drone testing with NATO troops before briefly reviewing the history of unmanned systems.

The number of U.S. fighter jets is set to fall by a third, Spiegel cited U.S. envoy Alexander Velez-Green as saying during the closed-door meeting.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has issued a damning verdict on Department of Defence planning for the life-extension program.

Ballistic protection from overhead dangers come as modern militaries learn to cope with FPV killers.

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Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Egypt, Poland, Vietnam, Portugal and Syria were first-time participants.

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh called the successful development trials a “strategic milestone” toward self-reliance in defense.

One expert summed up the defense market viewpoint of AI data centers in space as: “If they build it, we might come.”

In 2019, the Missouri River flooded at historically high levels and damaged 137 facilities, destroyed 1.2 million square feet of workspace, and flooded 3,000 feet of runway at Offutt Air Force Base. Repairing the installation cost $1.2 billion. The Trump administration and Department of Defense justified $1.2 billion in budget reductions to the U.S. Geological Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Defense Department climate programs as cuts to “woke” climate or environmental initiatives, but a singular event caused sufficient damage to erase those savings.The lethality of American presence in the Pacific depends upon the resilience of bases, ports, and The post An Inconvenient Reality: Climate-Preparedness Cuts Are Lethality Cuts appeared first on War on the Rocks.

In 2004, I was a boot (translation: brand new) first lieutenant in 1st Battalion, 7th Marines at a retransmission site in the middle of nowhere, al-Qa’im, Iraq. I heard a sudden explosion and small-arms fire two kilometers away. The battalion radio net burst with chatter, with someone saying there were three casualties: two urgent surgicals (send help quickly!) and one routine (no rush to provide aid). Someone in the operating center asked about the status of the routine casualty, and the radio crackled with the kind of transmission that changes everything. “It’s Whiskey Six, he’s KIA [killed in action].” I The post The U.S. Military Lacks an Ethics Doctrine. Combat Effectiveness Suffers appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Editor’s note: This is the ninth article in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. The special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.In September 2010, after a Chinese fishing trawler captain was detained near the Senkaku Islands, Beijing halted rare-earth exports to Japan. The embargo lasted weeks. China showed, on a U.S. treaty ally, how a supply chain could be The post Rebuilding American Manufacturing: A Keystone for Economic Statecraft appeared first on War on the Rocks.

On this Memorial Day, American servicemembers remain deployed across the world. Many are in harm’s way. This simple fact makes the day less abstract, more real. Memorial Day is not only about wars filed away in history, but also about lives lost in service to the nation and the obligations those losses place on the living.For those who served in combat, the day is intensely personal. It is a day of names, missions, and memories that never fade away entirely. Three of the fallen return to me every year: Cpl. Andrew J. Kemple, 2nd Lt. Tracy Lynn Alger, and Sgt. The post The Lessons of Sacrifice appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The U.S. took “significant action” in 2025 to withdraw from, defund or challenge various UN bodies, think tank analysts wrote in the report.

The Navy did not reveal which companies’ designs were selected to advance.

The itinerary is set to include briefings at Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on Arctic defense and strategic competition in the region.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is casting new doubt on NATO's relevance after key allies recoiled from backing Washington’s “Operation Epic Fury.”

During the test, troops launched a Neros Archer FPV drone from the ground before transferring control to operators aboard a helicopter orbiting miles away.

“The [Rogue 1] Block 2 upgrade leverages user feedback to greatly enhance performance, resilience, and operational capability, all while maintaining existing form-factor,” a Teledyne FLIR statement read.

Drones took the heaviest hit, accounting for 25 of the 42 aircraft losses listed in the report.

The plan involves different defensive systems dispersed across small satellite ships, which can be connected to a mother ship in a disaggregated model.

Special Operations Command’s fleet of MH-60Ms and MH-47Gs — operated by the 160th Nightstalkers Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) — could benefit from technology injections coming from the MV-75 Cheyenne, said PEO Rotary Wing Steve Smith.

Ankara framed both nations’ attendance as part of its broader military-restructuring and advisory programs in each country.

“These aren’t just ideas or papers going back and forth,” Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said of the Pentagon’s munitions ramp. “We know it’s going to be good, and we know it’s going to happen.”

North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd explains why he recently introduced three bills intended to boost US fighter inventory and improve pilot retention.

Air Force Col. Timothy Helfrich said the response to the drone’s April 6 crash “validates our approach to accept acquisition/test risk instead of operational risk allowing us to accelerate the program towards fielding.”

The first flight milestone comes four years later than originally planned, after an initial delay caused by technical troubles.

U.S. President Donald Trump said following a summit with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing last week that he was undecided on whether to approve it.