In June 2025, F-22 Raptors from the 1st Fighter Wing deployed from Langley AFB to the Middle East as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, joining a strike package of 125 U.S. aircraft including B-2 bombers dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz, marking the Raptor’s first direct strikes against a nation-state. On July…
Read more
March–May 2025: six B-2 Spirit bombers deployed to Diego Garcia to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, marking the bomber’s first combat employment in years. June 21–22, 2025: seven B-2s launched from Whiteman AFB for Operation Midnight Hammer, striking Iran’s Fordow and Natanz facilities after an 18-hour flight with multiple refuelings and dropping 14 GBU-57A/B Massive…
Read more
The Pentagon’s Project Maven, now managed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, uses AI to identify objects in surveillance imagery and speeds target identification timelines from hours to minutes. In 2024, the U.S. tested Scylla AI at Blue Grass Army Depot, which autonomously detected intruders and flagged a guard in seconds, achieving over 96% accuracy distinguishing…
Read more
At Bletchley Park in the 1940s, Alan Turing and colleagues decrypted Enigma messages, providing ULTRA intelligence that aided Allied victory. The United States began launching military communications satellites in the 1960s, and by 1982 the second- and third-generation DSCS satellites offered nuclear-hardened, anti-jamming, high-data-rate links worldwide. In 1976, Diffie–Hellman introduced public-key cryptography, and DES was…
Read more
China formally unveiled a stealth aircraft carrier program in 2025, highlighted by CCTV footage showing two J-35 prototypes in a Shenyang hangar and Fujian sea-trial progress. The Type 003 Fujian is the first Chinese carrier with electromagnetic catapults (EMALS), configured with three EMALS launchers, displacing about 80,000–85,000 tons and measuring roughly 318 meters. The J-35…
Read more
FCAS/SCAF aims to field a “system of systems” including a Next-Generation Fighter (NGF) with remote carrier drones and a combat cloud, targeting 2040 in-service and costs exceeding €100 billion. The United States’ NGAD is a “family of systems” with a manned core fighter plus loyal wingman drones, potentially costing around $300 million per fighter and…
Read more
Shortly after 02:00 local time on 22 June, seven U.S. B‑2 Spirit bombers dropped 14 MOPs on Fordow with Tomahawks suppressing Iranian SAM sites. Maxar/Planet imagery shows six precisely spaced entry craters along the ridge above the centrifuge halls, forming a textbook double‑tap pattern consistent with the MOP fuse sequence. Damage signatures include collapsed tunnel…
Read more
Fordow sits 80–100 m inside a mountain 30 km north of Qom and houses about 3,000 centrifuges, later upgraded with IR-6 machines capable of 60% enrichment. In 2023, IAEA inspectors detected particles enriched to 83.7% at Fordow, signaling near-weapons-grade material. On a June weekend, the United States used a dozen 30,000-pound MOPs in Operation Midnight…
Read more
SpaceX deployed 5,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine within days of the 2022 invasion, rising to about 15,000 active terminals by June 2022, with Ukraine at one point accounting for roughly 58% of global Starlink traffic. Russia attempted to jam Starlink signals on the battlefield, SpaceX rolled a software update to bypass the jamming, and by…
Read more
In February 2023 Parliament exempted UAVs from import duty and VAT, with the exemption extended through 2025 and renewed to cover defense goods until at least January 1, 2026; by early 2025, 98% of drones imported entered duty-free. A late-2022 Cabinet resolution allowed drones to clear customs with simplified procedures and no required bonds, and…
Read more
