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5/3/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University wpDiscuzInsert

01:23 2.5.2026 US ⁠President Donald Trump on May 1 said the US would not quit its confrontation with Iran “early” only to face renewed difficulties in the future, hours after he said he was “not satisfied” with the latest peace proposal offered by Tehran through Pakistani mediators. “We’re not going to leave early and have the problem arise in three more years,” Trump told a gathering at a retirement community in Florida, adding that Tehran was “not coming through with the kind of deal we have to have.” Earlier, Trump insisted that Tehran was seeking a peace deal but that…

The annual Best Sapper Competition gathers the U.S. Army’s elite engineers to compete in tests of skill, endurance, and creativity in leveraging advanced technologies. That’s why the Army’s ENFIRE reconnaissance system played a role in this year’s competition held at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., from April 20 to 23. Cory Baron, who manages Product Director Combat Terrain Information Systems (PD CTIS) which fields ENFIRE, explained why the system was included in the competition for the third year in a row. “Being invited to participate in the Best Sapper competition is an incredible honor,” said Baron. “To be asked to come…

The security situation in Mali is becoming critical in the wake of a large-scale, coordinated series of attacks across multiple cities on April 25. The attacks were primarily the work of the jihadist group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate led by Iyad Ag Ghali, a defector from the Tuareg rebellion. JNIM, which was formed in 2017 out of several al-Qaeda–aligned groups, has been fighting the Malian state for almost a decade, and the junta since it came to power in 2020. Before the latest offensive, it already controlled or contested large swaths of central and northern Mali…

Ukrainian armored vehicle maker Inguar Defence has developed a medevac variant of its Inguar-3 in a short development timeline. The medevac version keeps the Inguar-3’s proven armored shell but departs significantly from the baseline configuration inside. The new vehicle features specialized medical equipment, a redesigned floor layout, different mounting points, and a ramp for fast […]

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. Shield AI revealed a revised planform configuration and new details about its extremely ambitious X-BAT jet-powered autonomous stealth ‘fighter’ drone at April’s Sea-Air-Space 2026 convention, as detailed by TWZ. At the event, I was able to speak at length with Armor Harris, the chief designer of X-BAT, who was keen to discuss the status of the project. You can read TWZ’s original deep dive exclusive interview with Harris that was published when X-BAT first emerged from the shadows last October here. The tail-sitting…

Kid Yamamoto is one of the biggest combat sports stars to ever come out of Japan, and he continues to inspire his combative compatriots to this day. This is embodied by Kate Lotus, who is a surging star in the Japanese MMA scene today, and she takes on Katie Perez at Rizin 53 on May 10th. Lotus showcases a set of striking proclivities where she is clearly quite sharp, but where there’s also that demonstrable growth in her anti-grappling on a fight-to-fight basis. When asked how much pride she takes from the clearly evident levelling up in her submission grappling…

Proponents for the use of ibogaine to treat severe mental illness, including veterans, received promising news recently with President Trump’s executive order opening the door for treatments through psychedelics. The measure prompts the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow more access to psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine, which is derived from plants found in Central Africa that can carry a hallucinogenic effect. The drug interacts with multiple neurotransmitters inside the brain. The president’s executive order comes on the heels of a new study released in March in the scientific journal, Cell, reporting that Special Operations veterans with traumatic brain injuries…

Listen to the article 4 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The software-defined vehicle will expose the automotive supply chain to potentially higher cost pressures. That’s the view expressed in a Moody’s blog article, which pointed out that as cars start to behave more like updatable software platforms, supplier failures, outages or vulnerabilities can have immediate operational, regulatory and reputational consequences for manufacturers. To find out more, WardsAuto talked to Moody’s Andrei Quinn‑Barabanov, supply chain industry practice lead, who said the SDV poses a structural change to the automotive supply base. One key…

Global Times By Global Times Published: May 02, 2026 12:54 PM The newly upgraded Y-20B transport aircraft of the Y-20 fleet, which has recently carried out a mission to repatriate the remains of the 13th batch of Chinese People’s Volunteers martyrs from South Korea, features its major core upgrade in the full installation of the larger-diameter domestically developed WS-20 turbofan engines, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Saturday. Equipped with four domestically built high-bypass turbofan engines, the Y-20B has solved the problem of relying on imported core power systems. This results in lower fuel consumption, longer range, greater payload…