Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

The acquisition of air defence frigates will revive a measure of blue water capability for the Royal Swedish Navy (RSwN) and allow it to better contribute to NATO maritime tasks, the service’s most senior officer has said. Speaking at the Navy Tech 2026 conference in Gothenburg on 3 February, Chief of the Navy Rear Admiral Johan Norlén said the four new Luleå-class ships, planned to enter service from 2030, reflected a shift in operational mindset “from denying an adversity freedom of action to establishing and sustaining control across the Baltic Sea region”. Sweden’s Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) has evaluated rival…

In just under two weeks’ time, combat sports fans will be in for another UFC event. On March 7, 2026, at the iconic T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, UFC 326, dubbed Holloway vs. Oliveira 2, will take place. After a few Fight Nights in a row, this is the first numbered event since 325: Bautista vs. Oliveira took place on February 7, and the fan favorite MMA happening has some high stakes on the line. Featuring two veterans in the headline fight, the lightweight bout between former featherweight champion Max Holloway and former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira is going to…

Over the past few days, complaints have stacked up from people who say months of conversations with Google’s AI chatbot have simply vanished, with Reg readers noting the disappearances seemed to coincide with the rollout of Gemini 3.1. These complaints are echoed on Google’s support forums, where one Gemini Pro user said that all their history had gone AWOL on both phone and desktop despite autodelete being set to keep chats for up to 18 months. They added that prompts still show up in activity logs – suggesting the data exists somewhere, just not where they need it.  Another user…

Terry Gerton We have a great topic to talk about, and it may not have gotten a lot of attention. At the end of January, the president signed an executive order announcing the Great American Recovery Initiative, focused on substance use disorder and recovery. From your perspective, what is the core shift that this executive order is trying to make in how the federal government is thinking about substance addiction and recovery? Melissa Sosinski Yeah, I think coordination was a really key part and it felt really familiar based on conversations I’ve had with other people in this field. A…

Introduction What a week it has been, and what a week we are going to have! This has to be the biggest piece of news compilation I have written in the last couple of years. Certainly, the biggest one since I remember starting this format. There’s the Steam Next Fest 2026 starting in a couple of days, the release of Burden of Command Three Nations DLC, a release date for Slay the Spire 2, and even a new real-time strategy game with dinosaurs from MicroProse. If you want to keep up to date with what’s going on with Strategy and…

Iran Press TV Sunday, 22 February 2026 3:29 PM A Somaliland official has revealed that the country’s leadership is prepared to give the United States access to its mineral resources and military bases in exchange for recognition of the breakaway entity as an independent state. “We are willing to give exclusive access to our minerals to the United States. Also, we are open to offer military bases to the United States,” Minister of the Presidency of the Republic of Somaliland, Khadar Hussein Abdi, told AFP in an interview on Saturday. He added, “We believe that we will agree on something…

Iran Press TV Sunday, 22 February 2026 3:59 PM The Israeli regime has granted only 66 building permits to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over an 11-year period, Israeli media reports say. Israel’s Haaretz daily, quoting sources, reported on Sunday that only 66 building permits were issued to Palestinians between 2009 and 2020. This is while 22,000 permits were granted to illegal Israeli settlers during the same period, it said. The report cited widespread demolitions carried out by the Israeli authorities since January in the Taawun neighborhood, south of Nablus in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.…

Editor’s note: This article is the second 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. This 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. Who actually runs America’s economic statecraft?The answer matters because in today’s great power competition, national security increasingly hinges on economic decisions made across a sprawling federal system — and often outside government altogether.At its core, economic statecraft refers to the deliberate…

In the fall of 1791, Gen. Arthur St. Clair pushed an unready, ill-trained, and poorly supplied American army of militia and regulars into the woods of central Ohio where it would experience the worst defeat in U.S. military history against Native Americans. The battle belongs to the broader Northwest Indian War, often dated 1785–1795, a conflict in which the United States sought to secure territory north of the Ohio River from the Natives, suppress their outraged raids, and more generally establish federal authority over western expansion. For their part, Native nations sought to preserve their autonomy, land, and security. Undermined…

Federal employees in the Washington, D.C. metro area can start their day two hours later on Monday to give the local transportation departments time to clear the… Jason Miller@jmillerWFED February 22, 2026 6:11 pm 2 min read Federal employees in the Washington, D.C. metro area can start their day two hours later on Monday to give the local transportation departments time to clear the roads of snow. Employees also have the option for unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework on Monday. The Office of Personnel Management initiated the two-hour delay Sunday afternoon as snow started to fall and stick to the…