Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

The Baseline and the Questions It Leaves Open A recent War on the Rocks article by Jude Blanchette and Richard McGregor captures what Chinese internal scholarship has quietly acknowledged for some time: Governing Taiwan after forcible seizure would be far harder than anything Beijing faced in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. Post-unification administration is now seen in PRC policy circles as a major regime security challenge that would require decades of political control and efforts to reshape Taiwan’s institutions and identity. That diagnosis is persuasive. Yet the analysis stops short of asking what happens to Taiwan’s legal and commercial order in the…

Multinational personnel prepare for the ‘Sea Breeze’ naval mine warfare exercise. The activity is practising interoperability and combat capability. In an exercise underway off the UK, 15 countries – NATO allies, plus partners – are concentrating on enhancing combat capability in naval mine warfare (NMW) operations. Exercise ‘Sea Breeze’, taking place in mid-July, unites NATO allies—especially Black Sea member states—and other partners to train on mine counter-measures (MCM) and other NMW tasks to enhance interoperability and operational capabilities. This second edition of ‘Sea Breeze’ in 2026, co-hosted by the United States and Ukraine and organised through US Sixth Fleet and…

In January, Robson Henry died at the age of 66. Chances are, you have never heard of Henry. He was not famous, rich, or powerful. In many ways, Henry was no different from the thousands of young men and women who, at the age of 18, chose to serve by enlisting in the U.S. Army. Nor does the fact that he stayed in the Army for the next 26 years, serving multiple tours of duty in the Middle East, meaningfully distinguish him. And yet, Henry was special: Unlike the vast majority of his fellow soldiers, he was not from the…

The Pentagon is moving to buy thousands of affordable cruise missiles, reaching framework agreements with three companies on Wednesday. The deals fall under the U.S. Air Force’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles program, or FAMM. The Defense Department said it reached agreements with Anduril for its Barracuda-500, CoAspire for its Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile and Zone 5 Technologies for its Rusty Dagger. The move boils down to cost-effectiveness. The Air Force is betting that low-cost weapons can do the work the service once reserved for far more expensive munitions.Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, designed to be fired at heavily defended…

London, 15 July 2026: New analysis from global law firm White & Case LLP shows that global defence mergers and acquisitions reached a record high during the first half of 2026 as countries rearm at a pace not seen in a generation and prioritise building digital and technological sovereignty. The data shows that 42 transactions were completed in H1 2026, a 56% increase from the 27 deals completed during H1 2025. Meanwhile, aggregate deal values remained broadly steady at £2.7bn, compared with £2.8bn in H1 2025. These figures reflect the unprecedented scale of investment flowing into the defence sector, with…

Cody Garbrandt has given his first thoughts since getting knocked out at UFC 329.The former bantamweight champion was stopped by Adrian Yanez in a wild one-round bout at this past Saturday’s numbered event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.Following the third loss in his past four fights, Garbrandt took off his gloves in the middle of the octagon, but nothing was made of it. On Tuesday evening, “No Love” released his first statement following the loss, and seemed to insinuate he’ll continue competing.“There are moments in life when hope fades, and the weight of endless problems makes the path unclear,”…

Impa Kasanganay vies for interim middleweight gold on July 18th against a familiar foe. A sequel clash with Johnny Eblen is set for PFL Austin as the Smart Cage touches down in Texas this weekend. Since Costello Van Steenis got injured and the middleweight champ had to pull out of a rematch with Eblen, another rematch was locked in with Impa Kasanganay and Johnny Eblen initially fighting on the PFL vs. Bellator card when the former initially acquired the latter organization. The two combatants here both secured notable victories at PFL Pittsburgh with Johnny Eblen besting Bryan Battle and Impa…

LONDON—The U.S. Space Force’s soon-to-be retired top officer urged support for his service’s programs, the same day as House lawmakers said they would approve only a fraction of the funds the Trump administration requested for major space effortsSpace Force Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, told international military leaders  at the Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference here on Tuesday that space is, undoubtedly, a warfighting domain. Invoking American poet Robert Frost, he said, “We must frame our choices around how to have military advantage, and for better or worse, the path we choose will make all the…

More than 50 congressional Democrats on Wednesday called on President Trump to produce more detailed information about last month’s conversion of roughly 8,000 federal jobs into Schedule Policy/Career, a new job category in which career employees serve on an at-will basis.The group, which is led by Rep. James Walkinshaw and Tim Kaine, both D-Va., oppose the policy, formerly known as Schedule F, by which career positions in purportedly “policy-related” areas are removed from the federal government’s competitive service and the employees filling them stripped of most civil service protections.“These federal employees are best able to fulfill [their] duties without fear…

The Trump administration’s latest nominee to lead the nation’ top public health agency drew frustrated reactions from some U.S. senators on Wednesday when they pressed her on whether she would protect the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from political meddling. Dr. Erica Schwartz told the Senate health committee she “will never betray the science” and pledged to use “radical transparency” in a bid to rebuild public trust in the agency. But several senators questioned how she might handle pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly moved to alter U.S. vaccine and CDC policies. Schwartz repeatedly…