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Real-time aggregation — ISW • Bellingcat • The Warzone • War on the Rocks • Reuters • Google News

Updated: September 06, 2026 • 03:30 UTC  •  196 articles

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The Warzone 1d ago

U.S. Air Force Seeks Anti-Aircraft Guns To Protect Its Overseas Bases

The request for anti-drone and anti-cruise missile guns comes as the Air Force is pushing to take on more air defense responsibilities at its forward bases. The post U.S. Air Force Seeks Anti-Aircraft Guns To Protect Its Overseas Bases appeared first on TWZ .

The Warzone 1d ago

How Russian Drones Forced Ukraine To Park Its M1 Abrams Tanks

After two costly operations, Ukraine's 425th “Skala” Regiment stopped deploying its M1A1s, but they have not lost all faith in the main battle tank. The post How Russian Drones Forced Ukraine To Park Its M1 Abrams Tanks appeared first on TWZ .

War on the Rocks 1d ago

The Fruit of Patience: How Regional Shifts Ripened Turkey’s Path to Kurdish Reconciliation

On Aug. 25, at the People’s Palace in Damascus, Mazloum Abdi announced the dissolution of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which he had commanded for a decade. Speaking first in Arabic and then in Kurdish, he said the force had joined the Syrian army and would no longer operate independently. 15 days earlier, Turkey’s parliament had passed a framework law for the disarmament of the Kurdistan Workers’

War on the Rocks 2d ago

The Future of Combat Medicine

War has always been a brutal engine of medical innovation, running on a feedback loop: Civilian breakthroughs are adapted for the battlefield, while battlefield necessity pushes advances back into civilian care. We asked three experts to identify the innovations from the last five years most likely to shape the future of combat medicine.Read more below.John Quinn Adjunct Lecturer, College of Remot

War on the Rocks 2d ago

Where Does AI Escalation Come From? We Don’t Know. We Should Find Out.

We played a wargame using AI players. Two nuclear-armed nations — Red and Blue — with a long-standing, fierce border dispute were placed into a militarized crisis. Over the course of several turns, the states managed to avoid escalation to war, though there were non-operational nuclear demonstrations. Surprised by the lack of escalation we’d been primed to find by Juan-Pablo Rivera, Gabriel Mukobi

War on the Rocks 2d ago

Russia’s Road to El Dorado

As a new convoy of Russian armored vehicles arrives from the port of Lomé to support Russia’s Africa Corps deployment in Mali, that mission has entered its fifth year. Russia’s investment of blood and treasure urgently demands a return, but what could this return be? What is the Russian end goal in Mali?When the Wagner Group, Africa Corps’ predecessor, entered Mali in December 2021, it was pursuin

The Warzone 3d ago

Missile Shortage Has Now Hit Ukrainian F-16 Force

The shortage is so acute that the air force frantically tracks incoming missile shipments and waits to see whether they arrive before Russia’s next aerial barrage. The post Missile Shortage Has Now Hit Ukrainian F-16 Force appeared first on TWZ .

The Warzone 3d ago

Site Expansions Underpin Lockheed Martin’s Munitions Production Ramp

Branded Content: Bigger sites, advanced manufacturing techniques, and boosting the workforce are key industry commitments to increased munitions production. The post Site Expansions Underpin Lockheed Martin’s Munitions Production Ramp appeared first on TWZ .

War on the Rocks 3d ago

Is Taiwanese Society Prepared for a China Contingency?

In 2025, Michael Hunzeker and Yuster Yu wrote, “Taiwan’s Biggest Problem in Steeling Itself for War With China is Cultural,” where they argued major cultural changes were needed in both Taiwan’s military and civilian society if it were to be competitive in a conflict with China. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments.Image: Taiwan Presidential Office via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 20

The Warzone 3d ago

USS Abraham Lincoln Looks Like It’s Been Through Hell After 286 Days At Sea

We got our first good look at the Lincoln as it pulled into port in Thailand for its only liberty call of its entire cruise and after sustaining high-tempo combat ops for months. The post USS Abraham Lincoln Looks Like It’s Been Through Hell After 286 Days At Sea appeared first on TWZ .

War on the Rocks 3d ago

European Resilience in Digital Infrastructure: The Changing Nature of State-Business Relations

As the war in Ukraine progressed, Russian strikes increasingly degraded Ukraine’s terrestrial communications infrastructure, steadily deepening Kyiv’s dependence on SpaceX’s Starlink. The satellite constellation became indispensable for crucial military functions, including command and control, drone operations, and artillery fire coordination, with no readily available European alternative should

War on the Rocks 3d ago

Ukraine’s Ground Robots and the Economics of Survival

In August 2024, special forces from five Ukrainian military intelligence units crossed the Black Sea to raid Russian-held Kinburn Spit. The commandos of these units — Chimera, Aratta, Stuhna, Paragon, Terror, and the Siberian Battalion — landed, fought, destroyed equipment, and withdrew. Two years later, in July 2026, Ukraine returned, but left the soldiers behind. Instead, an uncrewed surface ves

War on the Rocks 3d ago

Why Are People Talking About a German Reset with Russia?

The summer of 2026 has raised questions once again among politicians, diplomats, and academics about whether Germany might be about to dither on Russia. Last month, a drone attack on German soil seemed designed to coerce Germany back into business as usual. Earlier, there had been rumblings about two German ex-chancellors brokering a peace treaty between Kyiv and Moscow. Both Angela Merkel and Ger

War on the Rocks 4d ago

The Atlantic Brief: U.S. and European Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence

Date: Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026Time: 12:00-1:00 PM ETThe second joint webinar by RUSI and War on the Rocks: Two leading defense publications from both sides of the Atlantic present their expert panel. OverviewFor this edition of The Atlantic Brief, the Royal United Services Institute and War on the Rocks will present a dialogue on U.S. and European Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence. Participating

War on the Rocks 4d ago

A Rulebook for Surprises: Commanding Autonomous Aircraft

My greatest challenge while flight testing collaborative combat aircraft was not troubleshooting errors at high speed in the cockpit. It was when, in a single keystroke, my job shifted from pilot to something like a dog handler — a supervisor of an autonomous agent. As a test pilot, my instinct is to stop for surprise machine behavior, but that met a system where such unexpected behavior could be

War on the Rocks 4d ago

The Educated Operator: Rethinking Lethality in Special Operations

Editor’s Note: While War on the Rocks has a high standard for allowing pseudonyms, this is an unusual case: U.S. Army Special Operations Command requires its uniformed personnel to use pseudonyms when writing for public consumption (Policy 23-16). Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cice

War on the Rocks 4d ago

The Political Constraint on America’s Data-Center Power Buildout

In April, President Donald Trump issued two Defense Production Act determinations covering grid infrastructure and large-scale energy infrastructure. One found that the country’s constrained electric grid posed an increasing threat to national defense and made grid infrastructure and its supply chains essential to national defense. The other found that financing risks, regulatory delays, and marke

War on the Rocks 5d ago

The Divine Calculus of the Ukraine War’s End

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum, only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection of articles from Ukrainian media offering insight into how Ukrainians themselves debate the issues shaping their country.American coverage often narrows the view to the battlefield — these pieces wi

Bellingcat 5d ago

Investigating a Murder: Public Records Uncover New Clues in Chinatown Cold Case

Sign up here to receive Bellingcat’s biggest investigations by email as soon as they are published. On a June night in 1996, in a basement apartment in Boston’s Chinatown, a killer put a pistol to the back of a young man’s head and pulled the trigger. The victim’s body was wrapped in quilts, lowered into the trunk of […] The post Investigating a Murder: Public Records Uncover New Clues in Chinatow

War on the Rocks 5d ago

The Quantum Stack and the Countdown to Q-Day

Quantum’s hype obscures a reality with real geopolitical stakes: the technology works and is advancing every day. Cameron Chehreh (IonQ), JD Dulny (Booz Allen), and Ben Gianni (GDIT) join Jonathan to discuss the race to Q-Day. They cover the shift to post-quantum cryptography, competing hardware modalities, emerging use cases, and why talent gaps and fragile supply chains mean the United States co

War on the Rocks 5d ago

Stop Using AI. Start Commanding It

Walk into the Pentagon, climb the escalator, and an Uncle Sam-style poster points at you: “I want YOU to use AI.” It worked. GenAI.mil hit 1.5 million users in six months, and I have heard enough OpenAI-in-disguise pitches to last a lifetime. The adoption really is great, but the poster contains a problem. “Use” is the verb of tools, and the Department of Defense does not win by using tools. It wi

War on the Rocks 8d ago

The (Un)importance of the Battle of Tours

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a new occasional series featuring battles that just didn’t matter, may look important, but in fact had negligible strategic or political effects or were absurd, anticlimactic, or structurally irrelevant to the wars they were part of.Some battles never end. Their impact is debated endlessly, sometimes for centuries, as they take on new life with new gener

War on the Rocks 9d ago

Beneath the Surface: Overlooked Cyber Security Threats

Cyber security remains a persistent concern for public and private sector organizations alike. Given the potential impact of cyber threats from criminal groups, adversarial states, and extremists, the topic draws substantial attention. Yet, in a field that evolves so quickly, some risks slip through the cracks. We asked four experts to identify and assess a key cyber security threat to U.S. nation

War on the Rocks 9d ago

The Goldilocks Fallacy: The Undefined Limits of Korea’s Nuclear Role

“Unthreatening and respectful.” That is how the president of the United States described North Korea on Aug. 16, 2026, in his social media post ordering his secretary of defense to scale back joint exercises with South Korea. Two years earlier in Seoul, the U.S.-South Korean alliance agreed that South Korea’s role in an American nuclear operation would involve exercises and training, formalizing t

War on the Rocks 10d ago

“Zero Problems” Abroad, Plenty at Home: Reassessing al Sharaa’s Leadership in Syria

In 2025, Rob Geist Pinfold wrote, “The March Massacres Show That Syria Urgently Needs Solutions, Not Sanctions,” in which he argued that sanctions relief was a major way the West could positively engage with the new Syrian government. A year later, after sanctions relief materialized and the United States removed Syria from its list of terrorism sponsors, we asked him to revisit his arguments and

War on the Rocks 10d ago

The Marine Corps’ Plan for the Future of Ground Combat

The Marine Corps just released its plan to fight against adversaries on land, and Ryan had the two architects of the plan, Ground Combat Element 2040, on the show to talk about it. They discuss drones, resilience, long-range fires, logistics, and what marines will need to survive and fight on an increasingly transparent battlefield while still preserving the critical human element.Image: Khalil Br

Bellingcat 11d ago

Tracking a Sanctioned Russian Vessel’s West African Odyssey

Sign up here to receive Bellingcat’s biggest investigations by email as soon as they are published. A sanctioned vessel that was previously reported to have transported weapons destined for Russian mercenaries has been traversing ports on the west coast of Africa since March, exhibiting what experts told Bellingcat  was an unusual set of movements and behaviours. Patria (IMO: […] The post Tracking

Bellingcat 16d ago

Satellite Imagery Documents New Border Patrol Road Construction in Big Bend National Park

Sign up here to receive Bellingcat’s biggest investigations by email as soon as they are published. Satellite images obtained and analysed by Bellingcat show over five miles of new road constructed in Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas, part of a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “Smart Wall” installation, which includes roads, barriers, […] The post Satellite Imagery Documents New

Bellingcat 35d ago

Welcome to Dubai: Kinahan Cartel’s Visas Revealed

This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here. A key leader of the Kinahan cartel who is wanted by authorities around the world and has been living in hiding in Dubai for a decade has just had his Emirates residence permit renewed. A Bellingcat […] The post Welcome to Dubai: Kinahan Cartel’s Visas Revealed appeared first on belling

Bellingcat 37d ago

Will Ronaldo Cry​? World Cup Fans Bet Billions Through Prediction Markets

Football fans wagered more than US $14 billion on the FIFA World Cup through prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi, a Bellingcat analysis has found. On the crypto-based Polymarket, which provides more information about individual trading accounts than its rival American site Kalshi, we also found that just 1% of users collected the vast majority of […] The post Will Ronaldo Cry​? World Cup Fans

Bellingcat 43d ago

Shahed-Type Drones Filmed During Mali Village Attacks

Bellingcat has geolocated footage showing Shahed-136 type kamikaze drones in operation in Mali. Defence Blog and France 24 previously published reports that these drones were being deployed on the battlefield in northern Mali. But Bellingcat and Jeune Afrique subsequently verified two recent strikes using geolocation, satellite imagery and expert analysis to provide some of the […] The post Shahed

Bellingcat 51d ago

Identifying the Crypto Entrepreneur Linked to Popular Forum Trading in ‘Leaked’ Nudes of Women

This investigation is a collaboration between Bellingcat and New Zealand news site The Press. You can read The Press’ piece here.  Content warning: This article discusses non-consensual sexually explicit content and child sexual abuse material. In 2024, a former track and field coach in Boston, Massachusetts, was sentenced to five years in jail for attempting […] The post Identifying the Crypto En

Bellingcat 61d ago

Between Graves and Uncertainty: The Management of the Dead After Venezuela’s Earthquake

Bellingcat has geolocated footage circulating on social media that appears to show coffins placed in newly dug trenches following the recent deadly earthquakes in Venezuela. The site identified extends over two hectares beside an existing cemetery in La Esperanza, a town near La Guaira on the country’s northern coast. It was visited by a representative of […] The post Between Graves and Uncertaint

Bellingcat 67d ago

Burning Forests: Tools for Tracking and Reporting Wildfire Damage

If you’ve seen reports of a wildfire in your region and you’re looking for open source data, NASA’s fire-tracking tool is often the first place to start. It provides a heat signature and an approximate location. But detection is only the first step in understanding what’s happened. In this guide, we explore ways to analyse […] The post Burning Forests: Tools for Tracking and Reporting Wildfire Dam

Bellingcat 68d ago

Satellite Imagery Shows Scale of Venezuela Earthquake Damage

At least 1,719 people are reported to have died after two devastating earthquakes struck northwestern Venezuela last week. The final casualty count is expected to rise significantly. Some media outlets report resident’s growing frustration with the Venezuelan government and its recovery efforts. Sky News on June 29 reported that the United Nations Coordinator for Humanitarian […] The post Satellit