Welcome to the Early Bird Brief, edited by Anne-Marie Bissada. Please email news tips and suggestions to tips@militarytimes.com |
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(The Associated Press) Personnel from a U.S. warship boarded a Venezuelan tuna boat with nine fishermen while it was sailing in Venezuelan waters, Venezuela’s foreign minister said on Saturday, underlining strained relations with the United States. Read More |
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(Military Times) The U.S. Air Force has modified its plans to relocate the 492nd Special Operations Wing to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, the service announced Friday. Read More |
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(Military Times) A Utah Air National Guard base will receive two new squadrons for cyber operations airmen, while losing a tactical air control party squadron, as the service continues to shift away from its Global War on Terror posture. Read More |
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(Military Times) A senior U.S. Navy officer has pleaded guilty to killing his wife, nearly a year after her body was found in a Japanese hotel, and now faces decades in prison. Read More |
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(Military Times) Walking around the National Mall or nearby Washington Union Station, passersby are sure to see some of the more than 2,300 National Guard members deployed to the nation’s capital. Read More |
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(TechCrunch) From seed to IPO, find innovation at every stage at Disrupt. See what's next in tech and make connections. Oct 27-29 in SF. Read More |
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(Breaking Defense) Both machine learning algorithms and other, more deterministic forms of automation have a major role to play in streamlining often cumbersome cybersecurity processes, especially getting software a formal Authority to Operate on Pentagon networks, defense officials said this week. Read More |
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(Defense One) It’s been less than a week since President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating the Department of Defense as the Department of War. And while Congress has blocked debate of the change for now, officials for the Pentagon’s IT agency have seemingly already renamed the networks and infrastructure used for missions worldwide. Read More |
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(The Pentagon spent more than $100 million on a nine-year global household goods moving contract that was terminated after less than four years because of the company’s ineptitude, a government watchdo) The Pentagon spent more than $100 million on a nine-year global household goods moving contract that was terminated after less than four years because of the company’s ineptitude, a government watchdog agency found. Read More |
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(Task & Purpose) Once again, lawmakers are trying to claw back their responsibility under the Constitution to declare war. On Wednesday, the House passed legislation that would repeal two authorizations for use of military force from 1991 and 2002 passed prior to the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars. Read More |
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(Breaking Defense) Once again, the Republican senator from Alaska is leading the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, which is given responsibility for military readiness across the DoD. Read More |
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(USNI News) The following is the Sept. 11, 2025, Congressional Research Service report to Congress, Defense Primer: Navy Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) Concept. Read More |
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(GovExec) Federal employees are facing warnings from agency leaders to refrain from criticizing or mocking Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer who was assassinated this week. Read More |
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(SpaceNews) A new report estimates the Golden Dome missile defense program could cost anywhere from $252 billion to $3.6 trillion over 20 years — depending on which threats it counters and where it provides coverage. The vast range underscores how many questions remain unanswered eight months after Trump announced the initiative, according to a study published Sept. 12 by the American Enterprise Institute. Read More |
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(The Associated Press) A post on an anonymous chat platform triggered a lockdown at the U.S. Naval Academy this week, and authorities investigating what turned out to be a false report of a gunman then shot and injured a midshipman who had mistaken them as a threat, a military official said Friday. Read More |
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(Task & Purpose) The U.S. military has sent at least two MQ-9 Reaper drones to the Caribbean in recent weeks, the latest bit of air power deployed to the region since August. Read More |
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(Air & Space Forces Magazine) The combatant command charged with managing military personnel moves failed to adequately oversee the performance of a contractor it hired to handle tens of thousands of shipments of service members’ household goods, which contributed to the failure of the contract and a miserable moving experience for many troops and their families, a government watchdog found. Read More |
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(USNI News) Wrapped in plastic and welded to a barge, a chunk of the future USS Thad Cochran (DDG-135) slowly sailed by tug from Eastern Shipbuilding in the Florida panhandle, 170 miles across the Gulf Coast to HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi last month. Read More |
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(The War Zone) A flight of six F-35B stealth fighters landed in Puerto Rico Saturday afternoon to take part in the Trump Administration’s enhanced operation against narcotraffickers, also aimed at Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. They will join one of the largest U.S. military deployments to the Caribbean in years. Read More |
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(DefenseScoop) The Marine Corps put out new guidance Thursday about the availability and integration of AI-powered Maven Smart System capabilities across the force. Read More |
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(Task & Purpose) An Air Force recruiter has joined the service’s hall of fame for helping a staggering number of civilians decide they wanted to wake up early every day, wear the same clothes all the time, and do other genuinely important things, like selflessly serve their country. Read More |
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(The War Zone) We now have our first look at the U.S. Air Force’s two flying B-21 Raider stealth bombers together at Edwards Air Force Base. The second pre-production B-21 arrived at Edwards yesterday after making its maiden flight from the Air Force’s Plant 42, which TWZ was first to report. Read More |
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(Task & Purpose) One of the Air Force’s most powerful bombers recently flew to the Arctic to test out its ship killing bomb earlier this month. A B-2 Spirit bomber flew with planes from the Norwegian Air Force in a test of the military’s “Quicksink” munition, taking out a floating target. Read More |
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(Air & Space Forces Magazine) The Air Force’s plans to replace retiring A-10s at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., with a new special operations wing are changing. Read More |
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(Breaking Defense) The head of Davie Defense, a new American sister company of the well-known Canadian shipbuilder Davie, says he’s “bullish” on the company’s ability to capitalize on the skilled workforce in Texas to eventually build American icebreakers. Read More |
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(The Associated Press) President Donald Trump said Friday he’ll send the National Guard to address crime concerns in Memphis with support from the mayor and Tennessee’s governor, making it his latest expansion of military forces into American cities that has tested the limits of presidential power and drawn sharp criticism from local leaders. Read More |
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(Stars & Stripes) The Trump administration has drafted a proposal to activate 1,000 Louisiana National Guard troops to serve in a law enforcement mission focused on the state’s “urban centers,” according to Pentagon planning documents outlining what would be a significant expansion of the military’s role in policing American citizens. Read More |
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(The War Zone) For many years, I have highlighted in detail the threat posed by lower-end drones, ranging from off-the-shelf and standard remote-controlled types to short-range First Person View (FPV) types to much longer-range, but comparatively inexpensive one-way attack munitions that blur the lines between cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems. Read More |
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(Seapower) HII (NYSE: HII), America’s largest military shipbuilder, and a leader in advanced unmanned autonomous technology solutions, today announced the completion of production of the 750th REMUS unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) for a customer. Read More |
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(UK Defence Journal) At DSEI this week, Thales says it is exploring ways to expand the capabilities of its Peregrine rotary-wing uncrewed system already in service with the Royal Navy. Read More |
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(Defense News) Denmark plans to buy the French-Italian SAMP/T system to cover the long-range component of the integrated ground-based air defenses the country is building, picking the only European alternative to the U.S. Patriot. Read More |
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(Breaking Defense) The Pentagon says that inflation, an ever-rising cost of raw materials and supply chain woes are to blame for a “significant price increase” of Lot 18 F-35 fighter jets, including those currently under negotiation with the Swiss military. Read More |
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(The War Zone) The Eurofighter Typhoon could become the next aircraft to add the air-to-air optimized variant of the laser-guided 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rocket to its armament options. Read More |
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(Breaking Defense) The Air Force’s F-16-based electronic warfare suite is being rushed to the field to support an urgent requirement in the Middle East, according to industry officials. Read More |
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(Seapower) Serco, the international provider of critical services to governments, has won a new indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract to continue supporting the US Navy’s Submarine High Data Rate (SubHDR) antenna systems. Read More |
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(The Hill) Boeing could receive a $3.1 million fine from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over a series of safety violations. Read More |
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(The Hill) Secretary of State Marco Rubio was greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, shortly after he arrived in Israel to discuss diplomacy in the region and the war in Gaza. Read More |
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(CNN) The Israeli military struck multiple high-rise buildings in Gaza City on Sunday, after warning people to leave several neighborhoods, in the latest round of destruction since Israel ordered a complete evacuation of the city earlier this week. Read More |
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(Al Jazeera) Foreign doctors who have volunteered in Gaza say they have treated more than 100 children shot in the head or chest, clear evidence, they argue, that Israel is deliberately targeting minors. Read More |
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(CNN) For decades, wealthy Gulf Arab states cast themselves as oases of stability in a region mired in conflict, building gleaming capitals with fast-growing economies powered by millions of foreign workers drawn to economic opportunity and a tax-free lifestyle. Read More |
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(The Guardian) A growing number of universities, academic institutions and scholarly bodies around the world are cutting links with Israeli academia amid claims that it is complicit in the Israeli government’s actions towards Palestinians. Read More |
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(Al Jazeera) Here are the key events on day 1,299 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Read More |
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(The Associated Press) Ukrainian drones have struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, sparking a fire, Russian officials and Ukraine’s military said Sunday. Read More |
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(New York Times) When Russia introduced self-destructing drones from Iran into its war against Ukraine three years ago, Moscow made headlines around the world by launching 43 of them into Ukraine in a single strike. Read More |
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(Al Jazeera) United States President Donald Trump has said he is ready to sanction Russia, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow and impose their own sanctions on Russia to pressure it to end its more than three-year war in Ukraine. Read More |
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(UK Defence Journal) Romanian air defences tracked a Russian Shahed drone that crossed into the country on Saturday, the latest incident underscoring how Moscow’s war continues to spill across NATO borders. Read More |
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(Breaking Defense) British, Danish, French and German “assets” will be deployed to NATO’s eastern flank imminently, under a newly announced Eastern Sentry mission by the alliance to bolster its defenses in the wake of Russia’s drone incursion in Poland. Read More |
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(USNI News) More than two dozen aircraft from the U.S., Japan and U.K. conducted tactical air exercises Thursday over waters east of Okinawa, Japan, as the security environment in the region grows “increasingly severe,” military officials said. Read More |
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(Stars & Stripes) China’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier passed through the Taiwan Strait on its way to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions in the South China Sea,” China’s Ministry of National Defense said in a news release Friday. Read More |
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(The Africa Report) By accusing the UAE of bankrolling atrocities through Colombian fighters, Sudan has recast its conflict as a transcontinental proxy war with consequences for Gulf power struggles, Red Sea security and the fragile Sahel. Read More |
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Military Culture & History |
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(Military Times) Almost no Marine of the U.S. 1st Marine Division stationed on Guadalcanal — an island 90 miles long and 25 miles wide in the Solomons Archipelago of the South Pacific Ocean — had experienced combat before stepping onto the island. The struggle, which had settled into a repetitive daily pattern since Aug. 10, 1942, had set the Marines on edge. Read More |
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(The War Horse) Growing up in the Philippines on the island of Mindanao, Ben Hagans and his friends climbed coconut trees on his family’s plantation, fished for tuna and mahi-mahi, and raced homemade boats in the ocean—all without a stitch of clothing. When Ben was 9, his father took him on a six-month sailing adventure to Australia, India, and Vietnam. Read More |
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(Military Times) Marines down drones with shotguns. Read More |
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(Military Times) See service members parachute over the Egyptian Pyramids during Bright Star 25. Read More |
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(The Guardian) It is too easy to blame Donald Trump for everything that goes wrong in the world. The ability of any US president to fundamentally change or control the behaviour of other major powers is frequently overestimated. Yet by posing as a sort of uncrowned global monarch and grand arbiter of war and peace, Trump perpetuates fantasies of US hegemony, omnipotence and divine right. Intoxicated by such ego-inflating delusions, he pledged before taking office to swiftly end the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Perhaps, in his vanity and hubris, he truly believed he could. Read More |
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(The Africa Report) Accra will take in people expelled from the US as part of a wave of deportations ordered by the Trump administration, though President John Mahama stresses that most are West Africans. Read More |
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(New York Times) China and the United States are closer than they’ve ever been to a war over Taiwan. A dangerous feedback loop has set in over the past decade: Taiwanese defiance toward China provokes aggressive bluster from Beijing, leading to stronger rhetorical support for Taiwan in Washington. The self-reinforcing pattern repeats itself. Each time, it moves Taiwan more to the center of the U.S.-China relationship, increases the risk of conflict and provokes fretful analysis over what to do about this seemingly intractable situation. Read More |
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(War On The Rocks) The Battle of the Yalu on September 17, 1894, set the conditions for Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The region — if not the world — has been dealing with the ramifications ever since. Strategically, Japanese success guaranteed sea control for an expeditionary assault on Korea and China. Geopolitically, the battle upset assumptions about hierarchies of prestige in East Asia and, more tangibly, led to the Japanese annexation of Taiwan. Read More |
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