Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

In the five years since the Taliban seized power in Kabul on August 15, 2021, Afghan women have become the most persistent source of resistance to the group’s efforts to transform Afghanistan. The exclusion of women and girls from public space is at the center of the Taliban’s extremist state-building project—a project that has also included dismantling institutions, subordinating the judiciary to religious authority, eliminating political opposition and civic activity, silencing independent media, and diverting male and young female students from schools with broad-based formal curricula to madrasahs that instill the Taliban’s ideology.Many Afghan women are refusing to accept this…

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. With one-way attack drones playing an ever larger role in American military operations, U.S. Central Command announced it is creating what it calls “the first multinational attack drone task force.” The move comes as combat between the U.S. and Iran has paused, but tensions in the region remain high, including ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels of Yemen. The task force is also being launched amid growing concerns about the U.S. magazine depth of high-end standoff weapons — a…

What happens when U.S. special operations forces ask for a rifle family that can handle different calibers while sharing as much commonality as possible? The answer became the FN SCAR.Developed by Belgian firearms manufacturer FN Herstal for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the SCAR was designed as a modular family of combat rifles rather than a single weapon.The program centered on two primary configurations: the 5.56×45mm NATO SCAR-L, later designated the MK 16, and the 7.62×51mm NATO SCAR-H, designated the MK 17.FN won the SCAR competition in 2004, beating nine other vendors that submitted a combined 12 designs. Testing followed,…

UFC 330 brings a major welterweight title fight to Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on Saturday, August 15, as Islam Makhachev puts his belt on the line against Ian Machado Garry. With Makhachev seeking to reinforce his standing at 170 pounds and Garry chasing the first UFC championship of his career, the main event has drawn steady betting attention throughout fight week. Islam Makhachev remains a clear favorite to retain the UFC welterweight title against Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330, but the line has moved toward the Irish challenger during fight week. Makhachev is currently around -340 to -350,…

Some days, a full workout fits. Other days, you look at the clock, realize you’ve got 15 minutes, and start talking yourself into skipping the whole thing. Micro workouts give you a way to make that window count. A focused 10- to 20-minute session can provide enough training stimulus to move the needle when time is tight. You might train a major lift, push one muscle group hard, or knock out a conditioning session without filling the time with random exercises. Keeping the session narrow also makes it easier to stay consistent during a crowded week. Give the workout one…

For 10 years, security vendors have sold us the comforting illusion of a perfect risk score. In June, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04 exposed that promise as a dangerous distraction. By retiring the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) as the standalone standard and imposing a strict, three-day remediation clock on high-risk exposures, CISA shifted the goalposts from risk identification to operational execution. Let’s be blunt: handing a perfectly prioritized list of security flaws to an IT operations team that is already drowning doesn’t reduce risk. It just documents your failure. In an era where…

This article challenges the assumption that recent conflicts in Ukraine and Iran will necessarily accelerate global nuclear proliferation by strengthening the perception of nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of sovereignty and regime survival. It argues that Iran’s experience demonstrates the political, economic, reputational, and military costs of pursuing nuclear weapons, while both the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East demonstrate the growing potential of drones as cheaper, faster, and less politically costly instruments for deterrence by punishment. By highlighting drones as a possible alternative to nuclear deterrence by punishment, the article suggests that the emerging security environment may…

“It would be the easiest thing to do, because they have a Supreme Court decision that tells them exactly what their regulation should say,” Andrew Tutt said. Anastasia Obis August 13, 2026 6:55 pm 3 min read A new lawsuit is seeking to force the Office of Personnel Management to update its policy guidance to reflect a Supreme Court decision that clarified how federal employees who are also in the military reserve must be paid when called to active duty.  The lawsuit, filed Thursday by Marcus Colicelli, a major in the Army Reserve and an attorney at the Department of…

A JMSDF P-1 deployed to Japan’s military base in Djibouti for the first time to carry out anti-smuggling patrols off the coast of Somalia. (JMSDF)Tokyo has deployed a Kawasaki P-1 patrol aircraft belonging to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) to Djibouti to participate in an anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia.Japan’s military base in Djibouti is the first and, so far, the only overseas military facility operated by the Japan Self-Defense Force. The base opened in July 2011 near Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport, directly adjacent to the American Camp Lemonnier.The base was established as a result of Japan’s participation…

Thirty live video feeds fill an operator’s Vezha dashboard. More are available, but these are the thirty selected for the current fight. The operator has filtered the larger pool by unit and geography: reconnaissance crews supporting the maneuver, adjacent teams whose sensors overlap the area of operations, and other feeds likely to affect the mission. The operator knows where those crews are working and can watch what they are seeing in real time. An alert flashes beside one of the feeds. The AI-based Avengers platform has detected a probable vehicle in another crew’s video. A human reviews the cue, classifies…