Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

Mauricio Ruffy almost didn’t make it to fight night for UFC 325. Ruffy ultimately showed up and showed out for his Saturday night scrap against Rafael Fiziev in Sydney. Not only did Ruffy score a second-round TKO finish over Fiziev, but he also snagged a “Performance of the Night” bonus. It was a great night at the office for Ruffy, which is impressive considering what he had to go through pre-fight. Alexander Volkanovski trained with Ruffy ahead of UFC 325, and he told reporters that “One Shot” was quite ill prior to the bout. “Put it this way, we’re lucky…

General Dynamics is progressing with the development of MEDUSA: An unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) that is set to equip U.S. Navy submarines with a long-range offensive mine warfare capability.  Known as the Mining Expendable Delivery Unmanned Submarine Asset (MEDUSA), work on this expendable drone was highlighted by the American defense firm earlier this month. The prototype system was revealed to have completed test trials off Massachusetts during recent testing, according to a company press release.  General Dynamics was contracted to design and produce MEDUSA prototypes in 2024 following the U.S. Navy’s demand for a maritime system capable of conducting long-range…

The increasing importance of air defence assets led Leonardo to launch the Michelangelo Dome modular, open, scalable and multidomain advanced integrated defence system, which was unveiled in late November 2025. Based on a strong C5 system and multiple sensors and effectors, creating a first modular defensive barrier defined as the “Dead Zone” where the enemy threat is neutralised by point defence effectors. During a presentation at its facility in Brescia, northern Italy, Leonardo unveiled how it intends exploiting its naval artillery systems to generate land-based effectors, which can be static, relocatable, or mobile, this new family of systems being named…

Over the last two years, the Georgia Dream party has turned decisively away from the West, embracing illiberalism, despite the pro-European aspirations of the majority of Georgia’s people. In this perspective, we trace the origins and trajectory of this turn and offer options for increased Western support, which will be crucial if the country is to avoid a future of Russia-style autocracy. This publication is part of the RAND expert insights series. The expert insights series presents perspectives on timely policy issues.This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for…

The Senate on Friday evening approved a spending package that ensures nearly all agencies are funding through fiscal 2026, but the agreement came too late to stave off an appropriations lapse. Parts of the government are poised to shut down at midnight and the White House said it must go through the formal procedures that accompany that outcome, despite a resolution appearing imminent. The House is still in recess and will not return until Monday, meaning funding cannot be restored until that afternoon at the earliest. “We have been sending guidance to agencies this week, including today, on the likely lapse in funding,” an…

The January 24 purge of Zhang Youxia, China’s top general, was a Shakespearean moment in Chinese politics. Even after a decade of high drama in the People’s Liberation Army, the decision by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to remove Zhang from the PLA’s top governing body, the Central Military Commission (CMC), suggests a new level of intrigue. Xi and Zhang have known each other for decades: Xi’s father and Zhang’s father were comrades-in-arms during China’s ferocious civil war, and Zhang was widely seen as Xi’s closest ally in the army’s high command. As recently as 2022, after a flurry of purges…

One of the Trump administration’s top tech leaders says overhauling how the federal government delivers benefits and services to the public requires the same level of mission discipline instilled in Marines. “’Your job is to kill people.’ That is the first thing drilled into new recruits at the United States Marine Corps boot camp. It’s blunt by design — not to glorify violence, but to create absolute clarity,” Federal Chief Information Officer Greg Barbaccia, an Army veteran, said in his opening remarks at an industry conference Friday. As the Office of Management and Budget’s lead on improving customer service governmentwide, Barbaccia…

Russian Influence and the Russian Orthodox Church: A Connection to Think About | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University wpDiscuzInsert

This Spend Matters Vendor Analysis gives an overview of Aera Technology, a solution built to improve procurement and supply chain decision-making processes.  Decision-making has quietly become one of procurement’s most persistent bottlenecks. The challenge is not a lack of data, systems or analytics. Instead, decisions now sit at the intersection of fragmented information, competing objectives and compressed timelines. Procurement teams are asked to weigh cost, risk, service, resilience and compliance — often across volatile supply environments — yet they still operate within transactional systems that were never designed to reason, prioritize or act autonomously.  Over the past several years, this tension has driven a renewed interest in ‘decision intelligence.’ Much of the market response, though, has remained incremental: better dashboards, more predictive models or embedded…

The French Armament General Directorate (DGA, Direction générale de l’armement) has just notified the GME consortium comprising CNIM Systèmes Industriels, CEFA and SOFRAME of the SYFRALL (Heavy-Light Crossing System) contract. This contract is part of a framework agreement allowing orders on behalf of and for the account of other Nations, particularly under the European SAFE instrument (Security for Action For Europe). This equipment will provide engineering regiments with unrivalled ferry and bridge crossing capabilities for the MLC 85T and MLC 100W classes. The latest version of the PFM has cutting-edge tactical capabilities: it can be crossed by the heaviest vehicles…