Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

Carl von Clausewitz has been vindicated by the U.S.–Iran war. Pick your insight. War is politics by other means. Friction and fog persist regardless of technology. The defense is structurally stronger than the offense. Morale and political will matter as much as firepower. All confirmed. All on display. Case closed? Not quite. The conventional reading gets the vindication right but the emphasis badly wrong. Clausewitz isn’t most useful in this conflict as a catalog of war’s enduring features. He’s most useful as a diagnostician of failure. His deepest insights aren’t the ones that explain what happened. They’re the ones that…

A former college All-American football player who played pro is headed to prison. On May 7, a federal judge sentenced Joel Rufus French, a former tight end at Ole Miss who later signed and played with two NFL teams, to more than 16 years in prison. Authorities said that French orchestrated a health care fraud scheme that stole nearly $197 million from Medicare and a Department of Veterans Affairs program that covers the families of disabled and deceased veterans. French, 47, must also pay back more than $110 million and give up roughly $17 million the government already seized from…

Rome, 14 May 2026 – The Peruvian Air Force (Fuerza Aérea del Perú – FAP) has placed an order for an additional C-27J Spartan multirole tactical airlifter, as part of its air mobility enhancement programme aimed at addressing the country’s complex geography, challenging terrain and the need to reach remote areas. The contract brings the total number of C-27Js acquired by Peru to five, with delivery to FAP’s Grupo 8 expected in 2027. The programme has a number of offset benefits, such as localized support capabilities, generating a valuable return on the investment. This latest order marks a major milestone…

The first indigenous submarine project to be certified by Türk Loydu is the ÇAMD (Çok Amaçlı Mini Denizaltı, multi-purpose mini-submarine) successfully completed its initial dive tests on April 14, 2026 off the coast of Karamürsel, some 40 km south-west of Istanbul. It is the precursor of a series of manned and unmanned boats that will give the Turkish Navy the capability to carry out several different missions using indigenous systems, thus freeing it from foreign products, autonomy in defence equipment being one of the targets of the Turkish government The ÇAMD click on image to enlarge Designing manned and unmanned…

The Defense Department’s $26.8 billion military construction request for fiscal 2027 is needed to build unaccompanied housing and protect installations to ensure the security of U.S. troops and their families in the short- and long-term, military logistics leaders said Thursday. The budget proposal, which includes $21.5 billion for barracks across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, represents a “generational investment” that addresses a backlog of construction and repair priorities, according to Dale Marks, assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and the environment. Marks said that the department in the past has prioritized operations over facilities…

What if fielding more nuclear weapons makes the United States less secure, not more? That question is now at the center of a growing debate as the United States confronts a nuclear landscape shaped by two major nuclear rivals.China is rapidly expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, while the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the last remaining nuclear arms control deal between the United States and Russia, has expired. In what appears as the beginning of a new, more dangerous nuclear age, some analysts believe the United States should increase the size of its deployed nuclear arsenal. Others believe…

The GM Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) Utility. (David Oliver) The UK Ministry of Defence’s Land Mobility Programme (LMP) aims to deliver modern mobility vehicles for the British Army and Joint Force. The programme is structured around three main vehicle classes: the Light Mobility Vehicle (LMV), which will replace Land Rover and Pinzgauer; the Light Protected Mobility (LPM), designed for transporting light loads; and the Medium Protected Mobility (MPM), intended to replace legacy platforms such as the Mastiff, Ridgeback, and Wolfhound, with an Initial Operational Capability (IOC) planned between 2029 and 2030. The budget for the LMP is £2.2 billion over…

A Japanese 6×6 launcher fires a Type 88 anti-ship missile at a target vessel floating 75km away. The first of two missiles hit and sank the target. This was part of a maritime strike event that occurred on 6 May. (Gordon Arthur)Asian Military Review attended the 41st iteration of Exercise Balikatan 2026 in the Philippines, drills that were conducted from 20 April till 8 May. Importantly, this was the largest and most expansive ever iteration of the long-running exercise.The name Balikatan means “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog. This year’s event involved more than 17,000 troops from Australia, the Philippines and…

By Reid Standish May 14, 2026 US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping opened high-stakes talks in Beijing on May 14 after a lavish welcome ceremony, with both men emphasizing their personal relationship and the need for closer cooperation despite growing tensions between the world’s two largest economies. “It’s an honor to be with you,” Trump said in the Great Hall of the People after a red-carpet welcome featuring a military band, a cannon salute, and children waving flags and flowers. “It’s an honor to be your friend, and the relationship between China and the USA is going…

Ronda Rousey doesn’t have a bad word to say about Gina Carano ahead of their fight on Saturday but that’s certainly not true when it comes to other fighters who have name dropped her lately.As she prepares for her first fight in 10 years, Rousey has faced criticism from several high profile fighters including former UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev. As he prepared for his recent matchup against Sean Strickland at UFC 328, Chimaev took exception to Rousey insulting the UFC and how the organization treats its athletes as part of her promotional push leading to the Carano fight.“There never…