Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Army identifies 19th US service member to die amid Iran war

 

at 9/23/26 4:36pm

The U.S. Army identified the 19th U.S. service member to die while deployed in support of the war with Iran, adding another death to the Pentagon’s official public casualty accounting.Capt. Bianca C. Wilkerson, 37, of Norfolk, Virginia, died Sept. 18 “as a result of a non-combat-related incident,” the Army said Wednesday. A defense official confirmed she was posthumously promoted to major.Wilkerson was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Central & Third Army at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, and was deployed to Doha, Qatar, where she was supporting overseas operations, according to the Army.A defense official previously told Task & Purpose that Wilkerson suffered a medical incident while aboard a military flight en route to Saudi Arabia. Her death was added to the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, on Sept. 21, before the Army publicly identified her on Sept. 23.The DCAS entry lists Wilkerson’s death as “pending” under the category “Overseas Operations,” rather than under Operation Epic Fury, the Defense Department’s name for the initial U.S. military operation against Iran.A defense official said the classification reflects the Defense Department’s treatment of casualties in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility after Operation Epic Fury, which the Pentagon said ended May 5.“Since Operation Epic Fury concluded, the Department classifies casualties as having occurred in Overseas Operations in the [U.S. Central Command] area of responsibility,” the official said.Wilkerson is the fifth service member listed under the Overseas Operations category. Four other service members who died in July are also listed in that category. Combined with the 14 deaths listed under Operation Epic Fury, Wilkerson’s death brings the public DCAS tally to 19 since the start of the Iran war.The Defense Casualty Analysis System is the Defense Department’s public casualty database. The Defense Manpower Data Center maintains the system, while the military services provide the underlying casualty information.A defense official said the classification used in DCAS is separate from determinations concerning a service member’s pay and benefits.DCAS lists Wilkerson’s death as non-hostile, with the cause listed as “undetermined.” The Army has separately described her death as non-combat-related, while the defense official said she died following a medical incident.The incident remains under investigation, and an autopsy is pending, according to the Army.Wilkerson graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve as a transportation officer in 2013, according to the Army.She served as an executive officer with the 678th Transportation Company in Newport News, Virginia, before moving into active-duty assignments that included logistics and transportation positions with units in the 1st Armored Division and 25th Infantry Division. She later commanded a forward-support company with the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.In 2023, Wilkerson became company commander of the Huntington Beach Recruiting Company with the Southern California Recruiting Battalion. In 2025, she was reassigned as the G4 supply and services chief for Headquarters, U.S. Army Central & Third Army at Shaw Air Force Base.Her military awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal (1 Oak Leaf Cluster), Army Superior Unit Award, Army Reserve Component Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon, according to the Army.Bianca Wilkerson loved animals and was a longtime volunteer at her local animal shelter, continuing to help out wherever the Army took her next. Those who served alongside Wilkerson remember her as a demanding leader who took responsibility for the people and missions entrusted to her. Lt. Col. Markus Hopkins, who served with her, said she understood the weight that came with that responsibility.“She understood what it meant to be accountable for something bigger than herself,” Hopkins said. “She carried that weight with pride and seriousness.”

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— Greenland welcomes US military pact but trust still shaky

 

at 9/23/26 9:25am

Greenland’s government and residents expressed relief that a military pact with the United States and Denmark may end anxiety over President Donald Trump’s threats to seize their Arctic island, but many remain distrustful of Washington.“I am incredibly relieved and think the outcome is very sensible. We can be satisfied,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic MP in the Danish parliament, told Reuters.Parliament speaker Kim Kielsen urged households to raise the Greenlandic flag on Wednesday. Activist and influencer Orla Joelsen encouraged residents in the capital, Nuuk, to show up at the airport to welcome the prime minister and foreign minister back from New York, where they struck the deal. New US basesThe agreement allows the U.S. to expand its military presence on Greenland, reopening Cold War-era bases in the settlements of Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig, with a prospect of renewed spending and employment potential. But it stopped short of Trump’s unsettling previous demand that the U.S. annex Greenland to head off the growing Arctic presence of Russia and China.“There has previously been a significant American presence in Greenland, so this is nothing new,” added Nathanielsen. “However, in light of the unrest over the past few years, there is likely greater scepticism in Greenland, and consequently, work needs to be done to reassure the local population.” The U.S. first built military bases in Greenland during World War II. During the Cold War, it maintained 17 military installations and more than 10,000 personnel to monitor Soviet forces. Today, only Pituffik Space Base remains, with some 150 U.S. military personnel. Residents dividedPitanguaq Mikissen, 69, a retired ship assistant, said the potential reopening of some old U.S. bases gave greater security to the territory’s 57,000 people.But not all residents were happy. “I think that Trump is really good at creating a lot of worry and a lot of fear,” said Jensia Dam-Davidsen, 40, a voice and choir teacher. “It (the deal) seems wrong in every way — especially now that Denmark has expanded their military presence here.”Denmark has significantly increased its own military footprint in Greenland since Trump’s threats peaked in January, deploying additional troops, boosting Arctic defence spending and hosting allies under military exercises. Malene Vahl Rasmussen, mayor of Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland, where the U.S. is looking to reopen the Narsasuaq military base, said that under the agreement, U.S. military expansion must respect the Greenlandic way of life to protect hunting and fishing.“You can’t simply say, ‘OK, we’ve signed this, so now we trust you again’. Trust really needs to be rebuilt within that partnership,” she told Reuters. Some Greenlanders worry that expanded military activity — including increased aircraft and vessel movement — could disrupt hunting and fishing grounds that communities rely on for a living, though the agreement states such activity must respect Greenlandic society and traditional ways of life.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— Pentagon adds new ‘warfighter’ evaluation for officers seeking first star

 

at 9/22/26 3:25pm

For decades, military officers seeking promotion to general or flag officer have been evaluated through their career records, including performance reports, command assignments, education and operational experience.Now, the Pentagon is adding a new measure for advancement: how officers perform when presented with a military problem and required to make decisions under pressure.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that eligible Army, Air Force and Marine Corps colonels and Navy captains screening for promotion to one-star will undergo a new Joint Warfighter Evaluation, or JWE. The assessment is intended to measure officers’ operational planning, decision-making and leadership under simulated combat conditions. It will supplement, rather than replace, existing service promotion processes.The JWE grew out of Hegseth’s broader effort to change how the military evaluates and promotes senior leaders. In announcing the evaluation, Hegseth said the effort had been in development for about a year and that the assessment is intended to measure officers’ ability to “fight, adapt, and win” in a chaotic battlespace.Hegseth says a new process is intended to elevate leaders who show the ability to "fight, adapt and win."Internal service plans obtained and reviewed by Fox News show that the JWE consists of six versions, one for each of the five military services and another through the Joint Staff. The assessments vary considerably, ranging from remote written assessments and digital simulations to hours-long, in-person wargames, Fox News reported. In some versions, officers will be presented with a military problem and make decisions as an AI-powered adversary responds to their moves; another brings officers to a war college for an in-person wargame in which evaluators observe their responses as an opposing force counters their decisions.Service-specific figures and formats were made available by Fox News, which reported that it reviewed internal documents. The reporting had not been independently confirmed by the Pentagon as of Tuesday evening.According to the news outlet, Army plans to assess roughly 900 eligible colonels through a remote written assessment, followed by a digital wargame. The Air Force intends to give a two-hour online analysis followed by a one-hour interactive simulation for roughly 1,330 colonels. The Space Force will follow a similar format for roughly 125 officers.The Navy is planning an in-person assessment for roughly 308 captains in the unrestricted line and information warfare communities. Those officers are expected to travel to the Naval War College for a three-hour written assessment followed by a two- to three-hour wargame.Meanwhile, the Marine Corps plans to use an eight-hour remote evaluation for up to 175 colonels using an AI-enabled platform that combines written assessments with situational-judgment tests. Comparable details about the format of the Joint Staff version have not been revealed.The Pentagon has not established how heavily the results will influence promotion decisions. Stuart Scheller, the senior Pentagon adviser leading the effort, told Fox News that existing performance reports will remain the “bedrock” of promotion decisions, with the JWE providing an additional data point.“The secretary still has judgment based on how it will be weighted in the board, so we haven’t determined. We’re kind of waiting to see how well this thing is rolled out,” Scheller said.The first assessments are expected to take place from February through June 2027, ahead of O-7 promotion boards scheduled for July through September. The Pentagon plans to study the results from that first cycle before determining how the assessment should evolve and how much influence it should have on future promotion boards.Scheller also acknowledged that no exercise can perfectly recreate the pressures of combat and said the Pentagon expects to change the assessments as it learns from the first cycle.“Right now in our current system, we have people that are very good at navigating their careers,” Scheller said. “We have very good — I want to be clear, very good — military personnel and leaders across the military, but there isn’t a stand-alone function that can truly assess the best military commanders on the battlefield.”

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— US Army awards Lockheed Martin $1.2B PrSM contract

 

at 9/22/26 9:04am

The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.2 billion contract for its short-range ballistic missiles.The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract covers initial production and future orders of Increment 2 of the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, according to a Lockheed Martin announcement.“This award marks an important step in delivering PrSM Increment 2 to the warfighter,” Dave Griser, Lockheed Martin vice president for precision fires, said in the announcement. “We’re ready to move from flight testing into production and provide the Army with an expanded long-range precision fires capability.”PrSM is intended to replace the Army Tactical Missile System, first fielded in the early 1990s. It has a range of about 500 kilometers, versus about 300 kilometers for the ATACMS. PrSM can be launched from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System.PrSM Increment 2 features a multimode seeker that can lock on to moving targets on land. It can also hit ships moving at sea, giving land-based launchers a maritime strike capability.Lockheed Martin is currently conducting flight testing of the new PrSM version.“PrSM Increment 2 completed its first flight test in March and its second flight test in August — obtaining critical data during flight, launching from a HIMARS, deploying protective covers and engaging the target,” the manufacturer said.More PrSM Increment 2 flight tests are scheduled for 2027.PrSM recently made its controversial combat debut in the Iran war. Analysts believe a PrSM missile, which sprays a cloud of pellets, killed dozens of civilians in the Iranian city of Lamerd on Feb. 28, the first day of U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran. U.S. Central Command has denied the accusation.The U.S. military faces a desperate shortage of strike and air defense missiles after expending vast numbers in Iran. This reportedly includes a lack of PrSM weapons.The new contract builds on the Department of Defense’s broader investment in ballistic missiles, according to Lockheed Martin.“Lockheed Martin is expanding capacity to quadruple PrSM production while continuing to develop additional PrSM increments,” the company said.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

— US to open two new military bases in Greenland, sources say

 

at 9/22/26 7:03am

COPENHAGEN/WASHINGTON — The U.S. plans to re-establish a Cold War-era military base in southern Greenland and set up another on the east coast, now used by the Danish dog sled patrol, under a deal to be signed with Denmark and Greenland on Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the matter.The sites are Narsarsuaq, whose population has dwindled to a few dozen people since the U.S. closed its Bluie West One military base in the 1950s, and Mestersvig, a military outpost used by the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, a Danish special forces unit, said two of the people.Denmark, Greenland and the United States are expected to sign their new agreement at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) on Tuesday.The text of the agreement has not been made public and the three people familiar with the deal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said its details will not be finalized until it is signed.The governments of Denmark and Greenland did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment.A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the details of the agreement, repeating an earlier statement that its signing on Tuesday would “secure and defend the security of Greenland and the United States.”Denmark says the agreement puts Arctic security under the watch of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military defense alliance, rather than leaving it solely to the U.S. and Denmark.The deal follows months of pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has long said he wants the U.S. to control Greenland and has at times refused to rule out military or economic force to acquire the semi-autonomous Danish territory. The idea has been rejected by an overwhelming majority of Greenlanders, polling shows.Trump’s threats, which peaked in January, triggered a diplomatic crisis within NATO and pushed Denmark and Greenland into negotiations with Washington aimed at defusing the pressure.During the Cold War, the US maintained 17 military installations and more than 10,000 personnel in Greenland. Today only Pituffik Space Base remains, with some 150 U.S. military personnel.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— Poll: Trump approval falls to record low of 32% as war continues

 

at 9/21/26 3:33pm

President Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to 32% — the lowest of his political career — as his fellow Republicans soured on his handling of the cost of living amid the unpopular Iran war, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.The poll, completed on Sunday, was conducted over a four-day period that saw Trump throw three major news organizations out of the White House and muse that Washington’s iconic Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — named after slain President John F. Kennedy — could be torn down if Trump’s own name could not be added to it.It found voters leaning away from supporting Trump’s fellow Republicans in the Nov. 3 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.Trump’s overall approval was down from a reading of 35% in last week’s Reuters/Ipsos poll, with support among his own Republicans down to 73% from 82% a week earlier.Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 on promises to tame inflation and end foreign wars. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the hours after he was sworn in, he enjoyed a 47% approval rating.Just 17% of respondents in the new poll approved of his handling of the cost of living — the top issue Americans say will determine how they vote in November. Iran takes a tollDissatisfaction among Republicans on inflation has been growing since Trump launched the war on Iran in February that has pushed gasoline and diesel prices sharply higher. Now for the first time, Republicans who disapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of living outnumber those who give him a thumbs up — 51% to 44%.Trump’s approval rating is lower than any recorded for his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, whose presidency was also marked by surging inflation and who ultimately ended his reelection bid after a poor debate performance heightened concerns about his age. Biden’s low was 35%, reached in late October 2024.Only 34% of the most recent poll respondents approve of the strikes on Iran. The conflict has cut the world off from a significant slice of the oil and gas produced in the Middle East, and threatens to stoke higher inflation in the US and elsewhere as businesses pass on higher fuel costs to consumers.Trump initially said the conflict would last a few weeks and that Iran needed to be bombed to stop it from developing nuclear weapons. Earlier this month, the Republican leader pledged the war would end “immediately after” the election. But Iran has shown no sign of giving up, and in recent weeks Tehran and its allies have threatened further disruptions to oil markets. Some 82% of poll respondents — including nine in ten Democrats and three-quarters of Republicans — said the conflict would likely go on for an “extended period of time.” The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed registered voters in the poll picked Democrats over Republicans — 43% to 35% — when asked how they would vote in the midterms. The eight-point gap was the biggest lead for Democrats in Reuters/Ipsos polling this year. For Republicans, losing control of either chamber could complicate Trump’s agenda in the last two years of his term.The poll results on congressional voting plans provide an overall view of which party Americans nationwide want to see ​in charge in Congress, though the results don’t capture all the nuances of the state-by-state and district-by-district contests that determine control of the ​Senate and House of Representatives.Trump remains popular among Republicans on the issue of immigration — with 79% of his party backing him — but only 36% of Americans overall support his approach to the matter and 55% disapprove. Some Republican allies in Congress have warned that his aggressive campaign to deport people in the country illegally risks alienating voters with family who recently immigrated to America, like some Hispanics.Some 35% of poll respondents approve of Trump’s approach to fighting crime, compared to 50% who disapprove. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online and gathered 1,277 responses from US adults nationwide. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— The Pentagon asked industry how fast it could make more weapons. The numbers remain private.

 

at 9/21/26 8:22am

Twenty-six days after the Pentagon’s deadline for defense companies to propose faster weapons production, the Defense Department has not publicly disclosed how many companies responded or what production timelines they offered.Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg gave industry leaders until Aug. 26 to submit plans for “significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities,” according to his Aug. 5 memo.Feinberg directed companies to identify ways to accelerate production and delivery, propose capital investments and facility expansions and explain how the Pentagon could enable higher production. The memo identified 16 critical programs under consideration for accelerated production or increased procurement. The responses were intended to inform the department’s fiscal 2028 budget request. The request came as the use of U.S. weapons during the Iran war put pressure on stocks of air-defense interceptors and other precision munitions. U.S. inventories of Patriot interceptors had fallen from about 2,330 before the war to between 759 and 827 by the end of July, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis. THAAD stocks had fallen from 452 to between 234 and 278. CSIS estimated production timelines of about 42 months for PAC-3 MSE interceptors and 53 months for THAAD interceptors.The Pentagon did not respond to questions about how many companies responded to Feinberg’s request or whether the department had accepted or funded any of the proposals.General Dynamics also declined to discuss its communications with the department.“We are not able to comment on our communications with the Department of War,” a General Dynamics spokesman said.Lockheed Martin, a major supplier of U.S. missile-defense systems, did not provide a specific production timeline in response to questions from Military Times.“We continue to have dialogue with the U.S. government to deliver what the department is asking of us and our team is pushing to do even more, faster,” a Lockheed Martin spokesman said. “We’re making significant investments in our workforce, infrastructure and production capacity and working with key suppliers to accelerate delivery of the critical capabilities that strengthen America’s Arsenal of Freedom.”Lockheed separately announced Thursday that it had received its first PAC-3 MSE housing components from GM Defense, 22 days after the companies signed a production contract. The company said the components, which can traditionally take months or years to produce, were manufactured using GM’s casting and machining capabilities.Lockheed said it is investing $8 billion to $9 billion to expand munitions production, including new buildings, facility expansions and thousands of jobs at more than 20 U.S. sites. The company also said planned expansions will increase its munitions production and warehousing space by nearly 50%.The company did not say whether those investments were submitted as part of Feinberg’s Aug. 5 request.New agreementsThe Pentagon was already using framework agreements and contracts to accelerate production before Feinberg’s deadline. On July 27, the department announced seven-year framework agreements intended to boost production of propulsion components for PAC-3 MSE and THAAD interceptors. L3Harris said its PAC-3 agreement would nearly triple production of certain propulsion products, while its THAAD agreement was intended to quadruple production of key propulsion components.On Aug. 3, the defense department, in cooperation with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, announced two framework agreements to expand production capacity for critical PAC-3 and THAAD interceptor components. The agreements were intended to support the department’s goals of tripling PAC-3 production capacity and quadrupling THAAD production capacity.On Aug. 14, DoD announced two separate framework agreements with Boeing and RTX to increase production of components for SM-3 Block IB and SM-3 Block IIA interceptors. On Aug. 17, the Pentagon announced a $22.9 billion Navy contract with RTX to accelerate production of Tomahawk missiles.On Aug. 31, five days after the industry deadline, the Pentagon announced additional seven-year multiyear procurement agreements with Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics designed to increase production quantities and accelerate delivery schedules for critical missile subcomponents supporting PAC-3 MSE and THAAD. The Pentagon separately identified production goals of tripling PAC-3 MSE production capacity and quadrupling THAAD production capacity, with funding subject to annual appropriations from Congress.The public announcements did not identify those agreements as resulting from companies’ responses to Feinberg’s Aug. 5 request.What remains unclear is whether the 21-day exercise changed what the Pentagon plans to buy, how quickly it expects industry to deliver it or what additional funding and infrastructure the department will seek in its fiscal 2028 budget request.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— Hegseth to chair Pentagon’s new Homeland Defense advisory board

 

at 9/21/26 7:27am

After overseeing a purge of Pentagon advisory committees last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is adding a new one to the list, focused on homeland security and defense.Announced in the Federal Register Sept. 11, the Homeland Defense Board aims to fill a gap Hegseth sees in providing military guidance to homeland security missions.“The specific, integrated advice required by the SecWar regarding the military’s mission of defense of the Homeland and Homeland security cooperation is not available from any other Federal advisory committee, government agency, or alternative source,” establishing documents state.“Department of war” and “secretary of war” are the Trump administration’s preferred monikers for the Defense Department and its head. Legislation to legally change the agency name is pending in Congress.“While other agencies and departments operate within specific mission or geographic areas, their advisory mechanisms are statutorily constrained to their respective non-military domains,” the panel’s establishing documents add. “Relying solely on internal DoW staff or contracted studies is also insufficient, as it fails to provide the consensus-based, independent, and external peer review required at the highest levels of strategic decision-making.”The board is to consist of up to 20 members, including the secretary of defense, who will serve as chair; the assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs as vice chair; and the deputy assistant secretaries of defense for Homeland Defense and Defense Continuity and Mission Assurance.Also on the board will be one civilian and one field- or mid-grade officer from each military branch and “such other members as the SecWar or the Deputy Secretary of War may appoint or designate,” establishing documents state.Asked for comment, an official said the Pentagon had “nothing to provide” about the new board’s creation.The advisory board is the first of its kind for the Pentagon focused on homeland security, and the announcement argues that no other agency’s board can fill the need that defense leaders now see. The Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Advisory Council cannot fill the role because it focuses on civilian law enforcement and “lacks the mandate to advise on Title 10 or Title 32 [domestic troop] deployments” and military-specific crises, it states.It also finds the Department of State’s International Security Advisory Board, with its focus on diplomacy and arms control, “underequipped” to deliver strategies for military campaign plans in the Americas.“Over the past 10 years, rather than lessening, the threat from peer, near-peer, and rogue-state adversaries, in addition to non-state actors and hostile asymmetric activities, has become more intense and complex,” justifying documents continue. “The DoW provides for the common defense of American citizens and the Homeland by deploying and maintaining the premier warfighting force across the globe to provide a multi-domain, layered defense … In an era where peer and near-peer adversaries are actively projecting economic, cyber, and military power into the Western Hemisphere, the HDB will provide critical, independent assessments of the DoW’s hemispheric defensive posture and domestic security preparedness.”The large-scale deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities to support law enforcement; the ongoing deployment of troops to the southern border; and the aggressive move into drug interdiction missions traditionally executed by the U.S. Coast Guard have all blurred the lines between the mission sets of the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. The establishing memo suggests the new board will create a bridge between the two that didn’t previously exist.“The [Homeland Defense Board] will … provide the SecWar advice and recommendations necessary for strategic oversight for multi-theater security cooperation and multi-domain actions, validating that DoW resource investments and allocations are successfully countering foreign influence, disrupting transnational criminal networks, and building robust partner-nation military capabilities,” it states. “Finally, the HDB’s advice and recommendations will serve an essential function by bridging the gap between the military and domestic Homeland security agencies to secure the defense critical infrastructure, vital transport networks and logistics nodes and the defense industrial base. Without this advisory body, the DoW risks strategic blind spots in its primary mission to protect the Homeland.”According to the General Services Administration, there are now roughly 40 federal advisory committees serving the Pentagon. In March 2025, shortly after taking office, Hegseth dismissed all members of existing boards to conduct a “zero-based review” of their necessity and contribution to “warrior ethos.” Among boards terminated at the review’s conclusion were the 75-year-old Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services and the Defense Advisory Committee for the Prevention of Sexual Misconduct.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— Triumphal arch in Washington to serve as military complex, Trump says

 

at 9/20/26 9:18am

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the triumphal arch he plans to build near Arlington National Cemetery in Washington would double as a “military complex” housing drones and snipers, as well as storing large quantities of ammunition.The president cited national security concerns for the move, echoing the rationale offered for the roughly $400 million ballroom complex being built on the site of the White House’s former East Wing, which was demolished to make way for the project. He did not identify any specific threats.The projects are part of Trump’s ambitious effort to reshape Washington, including a push to add his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The plans have drawn criticism from preservationists and others who argue they could alter or diminish historic landmarks.In a social media post, Trump said that at the “strong request” of the military he had agreed to turn the 250-foot (76-meter) arch “into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Federal Aviation Administration said last week that the arch would not pose a hazard to aircraft but would be required to have an “eternal flame” on top, clearing an aviation hurdle for the arch, which Trump proposed to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary. Aviation experts have raised safety concerns given its proximity to Reagan Washington National Airport, while veterans have sued to block the arch, arguing it would destroy the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— Pentagon updates guidance on low testosterone testing for males

 

at 9/18/26 5:34pm

The Department of Defense on Thursday released clinical guidelines for testing and treating low testosterone in male service members.The initiative, first announced in a July memo by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is part of the agency’s Warfighter Performance Optimization program, which Hegseth announced in May.On Sept. 3, the Pentagon temporarily rescinded its published clinical guidance for a new, mandatory testosterone-deficiency screening policy, with an official telling Reuters, “The draft [document] published on September 2, 2026, has been temporarily rescinded to allow for updates.”The Defense Health Agency’s latest guideline indicates that every male service member over 30 — and some under that age, if they show symptoms of low testosterone and request testing — should be tested at Periodic Health Assessments, or PHAs. According to the new document’s executive summary, symptoms of low testosterone include “reduced libido, loss of spontaneous morning erections, erectile dysfunction, diminished energy and physical performance, impaired concentration, reduced muscle mass, and depressed mood.”It also notes that those symptoms can “overlap substantially with the effects of sleep restriction, caloric deficit, psychological stress, mild traumatic brain injury, and mood disorders, all of which are prevalent in the operational population.”Hegseth’s July memo indicated all service members would undergo testosterone testing, but the recent announcement clarified that only men would be required to do so. Clinical guidance for women is forthcoming, according to a department release.But the Pentagon has not publicly clarified whether women service members would be tested for estrogen or testosterone therapy, the Associated Press reported. Clinical research supports the effectiveness of testosterone therapy in older men, particularly with hypogonadism, a condition in which the body is incapable of producing adequate testosterone. However, the benefits for younger men and men who are aging normally are not as clear. There are also potential long-term risks such as infertility.

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— Lockheed Martin gets first batch of Patriot interceptor parts from General Motors

 

at 9/17/26 12:44pm

Lockheed Martin said on Thursday it received its first shipment of critical components from General Motors for Patriot interceptors, less than a month after the two companies inked a manufacturing agreement, as the Pentagon pushes for faster weapons production.The ⁠Patriot missile defense system remains one of the world’s most sought-after weapons for the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and Russia’s prolonged war with Ukraine. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv credits Patriot batteries with helping defend cities against Russian ballistic missile attacks, while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly appealed for ⁠more ​launchers and interceptors as Moscow intensifies air strikes. GM Defense delivered the initial batch of housing components for the Patriot interceptors called the PAC-3 MSE — on Aug. 28, just 22 days after the Aug. 6 contract signing, Lockheed said, for parts that traditionally take months or years to produce.The deal builds on a broader collaboration the two companies announced in June, when they said they were partnering to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base amid surging demand for munitions, tapping GM Defense’s manufacturing plants and laboratories to boost production capacity and supply chain resilience.“This extraordinary 22-day turnaround underscores Lockheed Martin’s relentless focus on execution — delivering for our troops faster, with greater capacity,” said Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.GM Defense President and CEO Stephen duMont said the automaker’s precision-fabrication expertise would support “production of this country’s critical defense capabilities.”Lockheed is investing $8 billion to $9 billion to scale munitions output, including PAC-3 MSE, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), adding new buildings and jobs at more than 20 U.S. sites. The company said production and warehousing space would grow nearly 50% following planned expansions.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— US Navy should target carriers in fight with China, report says

 

at 9/17/26 11:14am

China is devoting enormous efforts — from submarines to ballistic missiles — to destroy America’s aircraft carriers.The strategy prompted a U.S. think tank to ask why America couldn’t do the same and sink China’s growing fleet of carriers.The think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, devised a plan to target Chinese carriers by using many of the same tactics that China would use against American flattops.“China’s expanding carrier force presents a strategic vulnerability that the United States and its allies can exploit, rather than merely a challenge to U.S. dominance,” argues a CSIS report, titled “Flip the Script.”“Instead of treating U.S. carriers as hunted platforms, focusing on how to defend U.S. assets, this report argues that the United States and allied Pacific powers can — and should — go on the offense, becoming the hunters instead of the hunted in this near-peer competition,” it continues.For years, China has painted a bullseye on American carriers, including building a full-sized mockup of a U.S. carrier in the Taklamakan Desert. Beyond the poetic justice of replying in kind, targeting Chinese carriers exploits the same sensitivities that Americans have about their vessels.Just as losing a Ford-class carrier would deeply humiliate Washington, sinking a Fujian-class carrier would be devastating for Beijing. Just as U.S. planners must be cautious about committing carriers in waters exposed to submarine attack, so, too, might Chinese admirals.“These platforms are both prestige projects and critical enablers of future Chinese sea control and expeditionary operations,” CSIS said. “Moreover, just like their U.S. counterparts, the Chinese carriers are high‑value, hard‑to‑replace assets vulnerable to long‑range strike.”China currently has three operational aircraft carriers, and a 2025 Pentagon study estimated that the People’s Liberation Army Navy will build six more by 2035. Yet, Beijing’s quest to build a carrier fleet may be driven less by military considerations than by prestige, just as Britain and Germany raced to build dreadnoughts before the First World War.“China’s desire to be taken seriously as a first‑rate power may drive its construction of these capital ships more than pure military thinking,” the CSIS report said. Thus, “the PLAN’s new carriers become concentrated nodes of military, political, and symbolic risk.”The tactics advocated by CSIS may seem eerily familiar to U.S. Navy strategists contemplating American carriers sailing within harm’s way to save Taiwan from invasion. For example, CSIS envisions deploying manned and unmanned submarines that could ambush Chinese flattops. This would include U.S. nuclear subs and quiet diesel-electric boats from allies such as Australia, Japan and South Korea.“The key is to turn the undersea domain into a continuous threat envelope that forces Beijing to invest heavily in escorts, ASW aviation, and fixed sensors simply to move carriers out of its home waters,” the report said.Just like China and its “carrier-killer” ballistic missiles, the U.S. and its allies would deploy land-based missiles against Chinese ships, the CSIS plan says. Launched from bases in Japan down to the Philippines, these weapons would interdict chokepoints that a Chinese carrier would be forced to pass through. The idea is that “the mere expectation that upon entering the Philippine Sea, carriers such as the Fujian or Sichuan will face dense, land‑based anti‑ship fires backed by allied ISR [reconnaissance and targeting] raises the perceived risk of using them as front‑line tools of coercion.”In addition, the U.S. would target Chinese carriers with air-launched, anti-ship missiles backed by satellite surveillance. Meanwhile, electronic and cyber warfare would disrupt Chinese command networks in the same way that China would disrupt America’s.Taking a leaf from Ukraine’s successful campaign to drive the Russian Navy out of the Black Sea, swarms of unmanned surface vessels would hit Chinese ports and ships in those ports. “The central idea is to make a carrier’s routine employment around Taiwan, the South China Sea, or beyond the first island chain appear prohibitively risky, day in and day out,” said the report.Historically, powerful and prestigious warships have been a double-edged sword. For example, in World War I and World War II, the German navy’s battleships and battlecruisers spent much of their time in port. Losing a capital ship — such as the battleship Bismarck in May 1941 — could be seen as a national humiliation.“The potential domestic political fallout from losing the carriers might make the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] more risk-averse,” one U.S. expert on China told Defense News.“The CCP spent a lot of political capital making its case to the public about building a carrier fleet,” said the expert, who spoke about the situation on the condition of anonymity. “The sustained public campaign to drum up support was part of a larger effort to shape China’s ‘maritime consciousness.’ The CCP tapped into naval nationalism to mobilize enormous resources for the buildup.”The question then becomes what resources the U.S. Navy would need to threaten China’s carriers. CSIS’s plan would require changes to U.S. defense strategy, especially building more submarines. However, the study questioned whether U.S. shipyards have the capacity to build enough nuclear attack submarines to “sustain a dense ‘ambush belt’ against PLAN carrier groups.”CSIS sees the solution as threefold: buying more unmanned underwater vehicles, investing in allied bases to host naval drones and procuring more torpedoes to bolster an inadequate stockpile. Significantly, the plan calls for a change in the composition of the U.S. Navy. Rather than current plans for a force of 350 manned vessels and 150 surface and underwater drones, the force would be evenly split between 300 manned and 300 unmanned vessels under the CSIS plan.The U.S. Army and Marine Corps would contribute units equipped with anti-ship missiles. The U.S. would also arrange for its Pacific allies to co-produce guided munitions. “The United States cannot afford to fight a long war in the Western Pacific if every LRASM, SM‑6, or Naval Strike Missile must be produced in and shipped from North America,” CSIS said.Beyond finding a means to discomfit China, the study seems to aim at critics who believe the U.S. Navy’s carriers have become a liability in the age of missiles and drones. CSIS argues that while U.S. carriers are not invulnerable, they “may not be as vulnerable as analysts assume.” The “current discussion in Washington often frames carriers as unique to the United States and uniquely vulnerable, while underplaying the fact that China is now building its own large‑deck, network‑enabled capital ships that are at least as targetable as the U.S. ships China aims to threaten.”

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— Pentagon, Lockheed sign framework deal to boost AIM-260 production

 

at 9/17/26 11:11am

The U.S. Defense Department and Lockheed Martin signed a framework agreement on Thursday to expand production of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, or JATM, laying the groundwork for a future multiyear buy of the classified long-range air-to-air weapon. The agreement is neither a contract nor an order for missiles. Officials described it as a demand signal to Lockheed and its suppliers to justify investing in capacity, workforce and production efficiencies. Should Congress authorize and fund a multiyear buy, the aim is for production lines to be ready when orders arrive. “Speed, scale, and stability drive acquisition excellence, and these gears must turn in unison,” Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey said in the release. “Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to sending clear, long-term demand signals across the defense industrial base.” Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said the company will invest its own money to expand capacity in advance of any orders. “JATM is one of our nation’s most important air dominance capabilities, but because of the classified nature of the program, it’s also a story we haven’t been able to tell,” Cahill said in a statement reported by Reuters. “We’re proud to finally talk about the extraordinary work behind this missile and how we’re working with the U.S. government to rapidly scale production.” Lockheed has been developing JATM for the U.S. Air Force and Navy to outrange and eventually replace the AIM-120 AMRAAM. The company said the AIM-260 offers greater range and effectiveness than current U.S. air-to-air weapons. Public estimates put its range at more than 120 miles, a response to longer-range Chinese weapons such as the PL-15. Sized to fit the internal bays of fifth-generation fighters like the F-22 and F-35, the missile must deliver that added range with a footprint no larger than the AMRAAM it replaces. The first public images of the missile were taken May 13, when aviation photographer Jonathan Tweedy photographed an AIM-260 loaded on a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The Aviationist published the photo two days later. Lockheed also tied the framework to foreign military sales. Australia announced Aug. 6 it would invest about $520 million USD, or $736 million AU, to buy JATM for the Royal Australian Air Force, becoming the missile’s first export customer. The service plans to integrate it first on F/A-18F Super Hornets, then on F-35A Lightning IIs and EA-18G Growlers. That order represents a fraction of what the U.S. has authorized. In March, it approved a potential sale to Australia of up to 450 missiles and associated test articles valued at $3.16 billion. While some earlier 2026 framework deals with Lockheed came with public production targets, Thursday’s releases gave no JATM production rate or dollar value.

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— AI military targeting may move faster than humans can authenticate, critics warn

 

at 9/16/26 5:49pm

Human approval may not be enough to ensure manual control over AI-enabled decisions, witnesses told Congress Wednesday, as artificial intelligence takes on a greater role in military target identification and recommendations, and in turn, compresses time available to intervene.The concern, critics say, is not limited to weapons that can select and engage targets on their own. At the hearing, titled “Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain: Implications for Human Rights,” witnesses told members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission that AI can influence human decisions leading to a strike while leaving the individual formally responsible for the final call. “The approval button alone does not demonstrate the control,” Anna Mysyshyn, a Ukrainian AI-governance researcher, told lawmakers. The issue comes as the Pentagon pushes to use AI to accelerate military decision-making. The Pentagon’s 2023 AI adoption strategy identified “fast, precise and resilient kill chains” as a desired outcome, while its 2026 AI strategy calls for becoming an “AI-first” warfighting force by redesigning military workflows and operational concepts around current AI capabilities.Mysyshyn questioned whether a person supervising multiple AI-enabled systems can recognize an incorrect recommendation and intervene fast enough before harm occurs. She cited Ukraine as an example of AI compressing decisions from hours to minutes.In many scenarios, a human making the final decision does not necessarily have enough information, time or the ability to challenge the system’s recommendation, she said.The Defense Department’s 2023 directive on autonomy in weapon systems requires autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force. Wednesday’s testimony focused on a broader question: whether that judgment remains meaningful if AI is influencing targeting faster than a human can authenticate.Amanda Klasing, national director of government relations and advocacy at Amnesty International USA, warned that AI can compress the military “kill chain” in ways that make it difficult to determine whether meaningful human discernment actually occurred before a strike.Joseph Chapa, a former military officer and scholar of military ethics, argued that the debate should not focus solely on how autonomous a system is. He urged policymakers to consider whether an AI system relies on statistical inference, what happens when it fails in a particular operational environment and whether its decisions can be audited afterward.Statistical AI systems can fail differently from traditional software, Chapa said, including producing substantially different outputs from relatively small changes in inputs. More complex systems can also make it difficult to reconstruct how a particular recommendation was produced after the fact.He called for greater AI education across the military, including specialized training for personnel working with targeting and intelligence systems.Witnesses on Wednesday also pointed to a larger accountability problem: determining what happens when an AI-assisted decision results in civilian harm.The Defense Department established its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan in 2022, including a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence intended to serve as a hub for analysis and training. Federal law requires the Pentagon to operate the center.But a Defense Department inspector general review released in May assessed the department’s implementation of the civilian-harm framework and found problems including the loss or reassignment of personnel, the end of funding for a civilian-harm data-management platform and the failure of a senior steering committee to continue meeting.That matters in the case of AI because, as Klasing noted, the military currently has limited ability to determine whether AI may contribute to improper targeting of civilians.On the first day of the U.S.-Iran war, a Tomahawk cruise missile struck Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, southern Iran. At least 168 people were killed — more than 100 of them under the age of 12, according to UN and Iranian officials.The school building sat fewer than 100 yards from a long-time Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval installation and was previously located within the IRGC compound perimeter until a wall appeared between 2013 and 2016, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by Amnesty International.By the time the U.S. and Israel launched their first strikes on Feb. 28, the school had been established several years prior. It was active on social media and had its own website, a Reuters investigation found.More than 120 House Democrats sent a letter to the Pentagon on March 12, demanding clarity on whether artificial intelligence, “including the use of the Maven Smart System, [was] used to identify the Shajareh Tayyebeh school as a target.”U.S. military investigators in the wake of the incident stated that the strike was likely carried out by U.S. forces. The Pentagon, however, has still not released its investigative findings. Klasing proposed adding information about AI involvement to the Pentagon’s annual civilian-casualty reports required under Section 1057 of the National Defense Authorization Act. The existing reporting requirement calls for information about civilian casualty mitigation efforts and investigations, but does not specifically require the department to identify whether AI contributed to an incident.Steve Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Pentagon should collect data from military operations and conduct after-action reviews to determine whether AI-assisted systems accurately identified intended targets and whether errors contributed to civilian casualties.“A bigger question is to what extent is the Pentagon collecting data and verifying the target accuracy of all these 1000s of strikes?” Feldstein said.Feldstein also cautioned against treating AI itself as the source of every potential problem. AI can be used to help verify intelligence, detect changes in imagery and prioritize defensive responses to threats such as drones and ballistic missiles.But if a human-influenced system is built around assumptions that certain demographic traits make someone a lawful target, Mysyshyn said, AI would not correct that underlying premise.Feldstein similarly pointed to the rules humans establish before an AI system is used. If commanders determine that a particular level of civilian harm is acceptable in pursuit of a military objective, he said, the machine is operating within a human-defined framework.The challenge is particularly acute when systems operate faster than people can meaningfully assess recommendations.The commission opened Wednesday’s hearing with an example from Iraq. In 2004, Army squad leader Nick Ellison encountered two young men firing a machine gun from a car during a census patrol in Kirkuk.Ellison made eye contact with one of the men, saw panic and ordered his soldiers to hold fire. The men turned out to be brothers of a newly married groom, and the gunfire was celebratory.Mysyshyn said testing should examine bias, reliability, civilian protection, realistic time pressure, whether operators can interrupt systems and whether decisions can be traced throughout an AI system’s lifecycle.Chapa said some AI systems may be difficult to audit after the fact, while Deborah Brown of Human Rights Watch said information about military AI use has often emerged through investigative reporting and whistleblowers rather than government disclosures.The growing challenge, according to witnesses, is no longer making a machine pull a trigger, but whether the human who approves the trigger pull has enough time, information and authority to make a meaningful choice before disaster.Military Times reporter Katie Livingstone contributed to this report.

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— Iranian strikes damaged hundreds of US military buildings, dozens of aircraft

 

at 9/15/26 1:06pm

Iranian strikes have damaged hundreds of U.S. military and diplomatic buildings, according to a new report by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General.U.S. Central Command told IG investigators that “Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict.”While the report provided no details on damaged military facilities, it did include specifics on damage to U.S. diplomatic facilities. The State Department told investigators that “U.S. diplomatic facilities in four countries suffered physical damage from Iranian strikes, with an estimated total cost of about $184 million.” U.S. diplomatic sites in Iraq suffered more than 600 attacks, while the embassies in Kuwait City and Riyadh were also hit.Operation Epic Fury had cost the United States $33.4 billion as of June 29, based on Pentagon estimates. The amount includes $22.3 billion in expended munitions, $3.7 billion in equipment losses and $7.4 billion in costs beyond CENTCOM’s normal operating expenses. However, these estimates do not count the costs of repairing infrastructure. The Department of Defense “did not include the cost of military construction for damaged infrastructure in its estimate because the DoD has not determined what its future posture will be in the region, how it will construct its bases, and what percentage of the construction costs allies and partners will contribute,” the report states.Because Congress did not appropriate funds for the war in Iran, the money is being funneled from normal operating budgets, such as amounts set aside for training and maintenance. “The absence of a dedicated appropriation for OEF means that it can be difficult to calculate the total ‘cost’ of OEF,” noted the report, which is among the first official assessments of Operation Epic Fury since it began on Feb. 28.Funding is also becoming an issue for U.S. Transportation Command, which flew more than 1,500 missions to support the mission. “During peak OEF times, airlift surged to 30 to 40 daily missions directly into the CENTCOM [area of responsibility], with an additional 20 to 30 daily aircraft pushing into the USEUCOM AOR for transload operations,” the report said.This cost nearly $2.4 billion as of June 30. “While these obligations have been largely reimbursed by the military services to date, USTRANSCOM reported that it anticipates delayed payments moving forward as service funding is depleted without a supplemental appropriation,” the IG said.The report confirmed that dozens of U.S. manned and unmanned aircraft have been destroyed or damaged, based on data from a Congressional Research Service report released in May and “vetted” by CENTCOM as of Aug. 24. The tally of destroyed aircraft includes four F-15Es, one A-10, four AH-6 helicopters, one AH-64 and one MH-60, as well as an MQ-4C drone and as many as 30 MQ-9 Reapers.The report listed 18 dead U.S. military personnel as of Aug. 27. The Pentagon claimed 417 wounded as of June 30, though casualty figures released in late August soared to 774.

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— Proposed VA loan fee hike could make refinancing more expensive for some borrowers

 

at 9/15/26 9:11am

Veterans who refinance their homes through a VA-backed loan could face significantly higher fees under a proposal in Congress that would use changes to the home-loan program to fund a broader package of veterans benefits.The provision is Section 104(b) of the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, H.R. 9237. It carries forward the home-loan fee changes developed in the standalone Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act, H.R. 6047, before that legislation was incorporated into the broader package. The proposal would sharply increase two specified VA home-loan fees. The funding fee for Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans, or IRRRLs, would nearly triple from 0.50% to 1.42%, while the fee for assuming an existing VA-backed loan would double from 0.50% to 1%For Air Force veteran Amy Murphy, who wants to refinance a $400,000 VA-backed mortgage solely to secure a lower interest rate and monthly payment, the proposed change would mean $3,680 more in funding fees. At the current rate, her fee would be $2,000. At the proposed rate, it would be $5,680.“The point of the IRRRL is to make it easier for me to take advantage of a lower interest rate. But under the proposed fee structure, I have to save enough through the lower rate to overcome a substantially larger upfront cost.”VA exempts certain borrowers from the funding fee, including veterans receiving VA disability compensation; some veterans entitled to compensation but receiving retirement or active-duty pay instead; certain borrowers with qualifying pre-discharge disability ratings; and active-duty service members who have received a Purple Heart. Active-duty status alone does not qualify a borrower for an exemption.The number of IRRRL borrowers who would be subject to the higher fee is not clear from publicly available VA data. VA reported 119,457 IRRRLs in 2025, a 135% increase from 50,825 in 2024. VA’s loan-volume reports do not publicly identify how many of those borrowers paid the funding fee or how many were active-duty service members.For borrowers who do pay the fee, VA allows the cost to be financed into the new loan. That avoids an upfront payment but increases the loan balance and means the borrower pays interest on the financed fee.Marcia Black, a VA loan officer with M&T Bank, said higher fees could discourage veterans from refinancing when interest rates fall.“Higher fees deter veterans from refinancing when market interest rates drop, trapping them in higher-rate loans,” Black said. “Targeting refinances disproportionately harms active-duty military and veterans trying to lower monthly payments during high-cost cycles.”The Mortgage Bankers Association said it could not support H.R. 6047 as drafted because of the proposed funding-fee increases. MBA urged Congress to remove or substantially modify the proposed fee increases and the extension of higher VA home-loan fee rates.The IRRRL is designed to streamline refinancing for existing VA borrowers, generally to obtain a lower interest rate or reduce the monthly payment.In TCAVA’s proposed legislation of more than 60 veteran bills, the VA home-loan fee provisions serve as budgetary offsets. In its March estimate of the standalone H.R. 6047, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill’s home-loan fee provisions would reduce net direct spending by about $4 billion from 2026 through 2036 by lowering the subsidy cost of VA loan guarantees. CBO estimated the overall H.R. 6047 package would reduce net direct spending by $42 million over that period.For veteran borrower Mitchell Duffy, who has used VA-backed financing on multiple properties, the potential impact could accumulate across several loans.Duffy owns four properties he now rents out that were financed with VA-backed loans and has about $1.15 million in combined mortgage debt. If the full $1.15 million were refinanced and each loan were subject to the proposed fee, the 0.92-percentage-point increase would amount to about $10,580 in additional funding fees. The actual amount would depend on the outstanding balance and eligibility of each loan when refinanced.Section 104(b) does not establish a new IRRRL fee based on whether a veteran is using the VA home-loan benefit for a second or third time.The House has not passed H.R. 9237. On July 16, a motion to recommit the bill failed 210-211, after which further consideration was postponed. The proposed fee changes have not yet become law.“I don’t necessarily have an extra $3,680 sitting in the bank,” said Murphy. “So, if this legislation gets passed, I have a decision to make: is the lower interest rate still worth refinancing, or will the higher VA fee make the savings less worth it?”

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— McChrystal, Hayden join other flag officers to promote trust in American elections

 

at 9/15/26 8:07am

Seven prominent retired general officers are imploring the U.S. electorate to have faith in the election process, issuing a call for Americans to read and adhere to what they call five “principles for trusted elections.” The group, with a combined 250 years in the military and additional service as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, NASA administrator, Central Intelligence Agency director and other leadership posts, issued a video Tuesday asking voters, candidates and government officials to take time to understand the voting process in their communities and share the information with family and friends. The message, sponsored by Team Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization with a goal to reduce political polarization, focuses on the principles of free elections and responsibilities of citizens to sustain confidence in American elections. “Protecting our lawful electoral processes might be our most important civic role of all,” said retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as director of the National Security Agency under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and as Central Intelligence Agency director under Bush and President Barack Obama. In the video, Hayden joined fellow retirees Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, Army Maj. Gen. Marilyn Quagliotti, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, Marine Corps Major Gen. Charles Bolden and Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper in speaking on election integrity — without mentioning any candidates, political leaders, parties or previous election outcomes. Advocates call on veterans to serve as poll workers for upcoming electionsPresident Donald Trump cast doubt on the security of the American election system when he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. Although Biden won the popular vote 81.2 million to 74.2 million and the Electoral College 306-232, Trump attempted to overturn the results through legal challenges and political pressure. According to a poll conducted in June by the Economist/YouGov, more than a quarter of Americans believe that the 2020 election was “rigged,” and only a quarter of Americans are “very confident” that the November mid-term elections will be conducted fairly. It is in this heated climate that the retired generals have entered the fray. During an interview with Military Times Monday, Lute said the officers weighed in because they feel it is time to “get back to the basics.” “Before, during and after elections, there are some fundamental rules that everybody ought to agree on, and I think you know why that’s important now,” Lute said. According to the video, the five fundamental principles Team Democracy is asking Americans to commit to are their beliefs in: an honest process; nonviolent campaigns; secure voting; responsible oversight; and trusted outcomes. The generals say that free, fair and trusted elections are the root of democracy, and without belief in the system, trust breaks down. “We know what holds countries together and we know what tears them apart,” Hayden said in the video. “These aren’t liberal ideas, conservative ideas. They are the rules of the road, the ones that make self-governance possible,” Lute said. According to the group, more than 6,000 Americans have signed the principles, including roughly 2,000 candidates across the political spectrum. In addition to supporting the principles, the officers urged Americans to get involved in the election process, sharing trusted information with others, volunteering as a poll worker or taking a tour of local election offices. “I’ve traveled the world and I’ve seen this country at its best. I’ve seen what’s worth protecting,” McChrystal said. Founded by two whitewater rafters — Ken Powley, who operated a rafting company in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, and Chris Newlon, an IT manager and specialist — Team Democracy partnered with The Carter Center and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation on the Principles for Trusted Elections campaign and has received financial support from The Carter Center to enable its work. “My grandfather once said, ‘In our democracy, the only title higher and more powerful than that of president is the title of citizen.’ Whether you are a former U.S. president, a retired general, or any other American citizen, we have a shared responsibility to uphold the principles upon which our electoral system was founded: honest process, nonviolent campaigns, secure voting, responsible oversight and trusted outcomes,” Jason Carter, Carter Center Board of Trustees chairman, said in a statement to Military Times.“These principles are not about politics — they are about ensuring that our elections remain credible, secure and worthy of our confidence,“ Carter added.In addition to focusing on trust in elections, the group supports programs that support civic engagement and hosts rafting excursions that bring together people of various backgrounds. In his interview, Lute said the political divide has become so rancorous he worries it cannot be overcome, especially regarding the topic of election integrity. But he hopes for a future where election winners will be “gracious winners” who are respectful of their opponents and consider their positions, even if they disagree. “I was part of the transition between Bush and Obama and there was a strong mutual regard for the other party,” Lute said. “There’s an old saying in the Army that I suspect is the same across the other services, that effective leadership reflects that disagreement is not disrespect. … we need to get back to that as a sort of a political model.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday against the administration’s proposals to restrict mail-in ballots, allowing states to proceed as usual with their voting processes for this year’s midterm elections. Nearly one-third of the country votes by mail.

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— Organizers break ground on education center at Pentagon 9/11 memorial

 

at 9/14/26 12:37pm

Family members, survivors and first responders turned out Saturday to break ground on a visitor center at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial 18 years after the historic site first opened. The $100 million Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitor Education Center, located across a busy parkway from the Pentagon and its adjacent memorial in Arlington, Virginia, will contain exhibits and host programs about the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The facility, expected to open in 2029, will also include event spaces, a cafe and bookstore. The Pentagon Memorial first opened to the public on Sept. 11, 2008, the first of the three attack sites to have a monument. It will be the last, however, to have a museum or visitor center explaining its importance and impact on American history. “We want people to remember what happened here. We want people to remember our loved ones. We want people to remember that feeling that swept through our country after 9/11 — that feeling of taking care of others who were in such pain,” said Jim Laychak, the Pentagon Memorial Fund board chairman and the brother of David Laychak, a U.S. Army budget executive who died in the building. At 9:37 a.m. EST on Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 was deliberately crashed into the western facade of the Pentagon. Fifty-nine passengers and crew members on the aircraft that was originally bound for Los Angeles died, as did 184 people in the building. In New York City, 2,753 people died in similar attacks on the World Trade Center, including civilians in the buildings and on the ground, 343 firefighters and 60 police officers. In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field following a struggle between passengers and hijackers, killing 44 passengers and crew members. The Pentagon Memorial features 184 cantilevered, stainless steel and granite benches, each with a lighted water feature and memorial tree. The benches are arranged by age of the victims and positioned so that visitors viewing the names of those on the aircraft face the direction of the plane’s approach, while those viewing the Pentagon victims’ names see the building in the background. The visitor center will explain the events of the day, the significance of the memorial and the aftermath of 9/11, including the reconstruction of the affected portion of the Pentagon. The fund began raising money in 2015 to support the project and has collected roughly 25% of the funding needed, including $12 million in federal dollars and $1 million from the state of Virginia. Organizers have requested another $35 million from Congress in fiscal 2027 and hope to cover additional expenses from private funds and corporate sponsors, including American Airlines, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and others. The National Park Service announced Wednesday that the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial is now an area affiliated with the national park system, although the memorial will continue to remain under the care of the Department of Defense, supported by the Pentagon Memorial Fund. The NPS also announced a $2 million grant last week to support the memorial’s operation and maintenance. During the groundbreaking ceremony Saturday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the visitor center will make sure the story is “told in a way that people understand it.” “It may have been the worst day in American history, but my hope is we can learn from that, remember that — that we can remember those that ran into burning buildings but that we can also remember the nation states around the world that stood with us,” Warner said. On Friday, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth joined with Pentagon leadership to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Trump said in the aftermath of the violence, the United States “saw the authentic spirit of our nation.” “The enemy might destroy what American hands had built, but they could not touch the fight and fire and the love in our great American hearts,” Trump said. More information on the fundraising and construction effort can be found on the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Fund website.

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— China changes law to mobilize all resources in case of conflict. Should neighbors worry?

 

at 9/14/26 6:26am

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — China’s armed forces will get every possible resource from the home front if needed during a war, according to a change in the law to take effect in October.And its militarily less endowed neighbors such as Taiwan and the Philippines would bear the brunt of a fully kitted People’s Liberation Army, which the updated National Defense Mobilization Law says may draw from deep within the civilian population for resources, analysts say.Australia, Japan and the United States also would note Beijing’s revised law as they’re most likely to become involved in any Taiwan “contingency” or conflict in the South China Sea, said Carl Thayer, an Asia specialist and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.Australia, India and the United States have their own issues with Beijing, he added.“In sum, in a future conflict, China will have immediate unfettered access to relevant civilian physical and human resources,” Thayer said. “This should be a clear wake-up call to defense planners in the Pentagon and (U.S.) Pacific Command.”The 2010 law that had not been changed over the past six years was updated to give a legal definition of “national defense mobilization,” the Chinese state-controlled Global Times news outlet said on Sept. 8.Per that definition, the term means that when national sovereignty, national unity, territorial integrity or development interests are “threatened,” Chinese “economic and social resources” can be shifted entirely toward defense, the Global Times said.Chinese military analysts can’t wait for the US Navy’s battleship era“This ensures that mobilization can be carried out in accordance with the law and established procedures, avoiding hasty, improvised responses in times of crisis,” it said.China, backed by the legal revision, will be able to mobilize men and women over age 18 and take over commercial and private assets and infrastructure including planes, ships and private land, Thayer projected. He said satellite communications, cyber-security systems and drone production could go into PLA hands too.Scholars say the legal revision, announced in late August and due to take effect on Oct. 1, may address a particular scenario, most likely in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea.China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military drills nearby since 2022, as Washington sells arms to the island in case of any conflict. Japan, a U.S. treaty ally, contests with China a chain of uninhabited islets.Beijing separately disputes parts of the resource-rich South China Sea with five other governments. Beijing has expanded artificial islands and carried out military drills to bolster its maritime claims against a particularly assertive Philippines.Japan and the Philippines, both U.S. treaty allies, are tightening security relations “to safeguard all eventualities” as they see China as a joint threat, De La Salle University international studies lecturer Don McLain Gill wrote for ThinkChina in June.The South China Sea has kept relatively calm over the past two months, though Chinese naval presence has reached “large numbers” and grown “quite widespread”, said Jay Batongbacal, associate professor and director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines.“You don’t know why they do these things,” Batongbacal said of the Chinese law revision. “The timing is of course problematic and that raises concern. If it’s the South China Sea situation, they’re pretty confident they already have control over the area, so no need to mobilize.”Taiwan and any of its supporters would feel more fear, said Denny Roy, a ­senior fellow at the East-West Center think tank in Hawaii.“Taiwan, Japan and the U.S. reasonably see this as another signal that the Chinese are marching toward a war over Taiwan and thinking through the practical issues, and therefore this is another warning to stop supporting Taipei before it’s too late to avoid suffering along with Taiwan,” Roy said.Foreign defense attaches have noted previously that China carried out a large-scale mobilization exercise in Guangdong province in 2022 as a blueprint for future mobilization.“This could also be the result of the internal mandate to obey (Chinese President Xi Jinping’s) order to get the PLA ready for war, even if there is no decision yet to go to war.” Roy said.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

— Pentagon looks to AI to identify space and missile threats

 

at 9/11/26 11:38am

Missile defense in wartime involves many complications. Human operators must deal with high-speed objects, short timelines and sensor data that isn’t always clear.The Pentagon now wants artificial intelligence that can cut through the confusion. It’s seeking “AI-based software tools to turn fragmented sensor data into a continuously updated understanding of space and missile threats fast enough to drive operational decisions,” according to the Defense Innovation Unit solicitation, which is due Sept. 24. “Existing tools struggle to distinguish closely spaced objects, track emerging threats, and keep threat models current.”The project, known as the “Space Threat Intelligence Synthesis Engine,” will leverage AI’s greatest strength: the ability to quickly analyze reams of data. The software will fuse “massive streams of multi-source data, including live video, satellite imagery, radar and sensor feeds, geospatial data, and classified intelligence reports.”“By automating advanced cross-data correlation, the architecture aims to uncover hidden patterns, complex operational relationships, and predictive threat behaviors far beyond the capabilities of human analysis alone.”Ultimately, the system should “generate actionable, confidence-scored alerts supporting analyst-in-the-loop, human-on-the-loop, or automated workflows.”The AI will help human operators — and other machines.It will provide “intuitive, human-readable visualizations for frontline operators and low-latency, machine-to-machine APIs to drive automated command-and-control (C2) workflows.”DIU is aiming for an open-source system with a latency delay of no more than five seconds — and preferably no more than two seconds — between the arrival of data and the results being displayed. Throughput should be 20 to 30 megabytes per minute, with bursts of up to five gigabytes.Contractors should demonstrate that their products show “significant speed and accuracy improvements in event detection, characterization, and attribution compared to existing baseline systems.”As skies fill with missiles and drones in conflicts like the ones with Ukraine and Iran, AI is increasingly being seen as an indispensable partner to overworked human operators. In particular, with a perpetual shortage of expensive interceptors, such as the Patriot air-defense system, operators must quickly decide when and where to allocate them.Defense contractors and AI firms are teaming up to incorporate AI into missile defense. For example, Northrop Grumman announced in July that it was partnering with AI firm Camgian to incorporate artificial intelligence into integrated air and missile defense systems. BAE and Scale AI have also teamed up for AI-enhanced missile defense.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

— Americans mark 25 years since September 11 attacks amid enduring grief, reflection

 

at 9/11/26 11:09am

Twenty-five years after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, Americans paused on Friday to commemorate the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania — and to wrestle with the consequences of September 11 that reverberate to this day.In New York, family members of the victims, many carrying pictures of their loved ones, joined Vice President JD Vance and four former U.S. presidents at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. The ceremony began, as always, at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Standard Time with a moment of silence to remember the shocking instant when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower.Shortly after, victims’ family members began reading aloud the names of all 2,977 people who died on September 11, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a somber recitation that lasts for hours. In a reminder of the time that has passed, some readers were children who had never met the relatives they lost in 2001.Other moments of silence followed, marking when the other three airplanes crashed and the two towers collapsed. For the first time, a seventh moment of silence was set to honor the thousands who have died since 2001 from illnesses tied to the toxic dust that poisoned the air for months afterward.Gregory Carafello attended the ceremony to honor the memory of his lifelong friend James Martello, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm that lost more than 650 employees in the attacks. Carafello was on the 18th floor of the South Tower but managed to evacuate.“Everyone should realize that it was a very bad, catastrophic day for many families,” he said. “These were not warriors. These were people like you and me going to work.”At the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building’s west flank, killing 184, President Donald Trump chronicled some of the stories of those aboard who perished in the crash: a woman pregnant with her first child, a family of four headed to Australia, three sixth-graders on a field trip.The president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also delivered remarks, both used their speeches to make the case for the Iran war, which they have defended as necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.“We salute our first responders and law enforcement, and we love them,” Trump said. “And we salute the service members working right now to ensure the world’s number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon.”Mourners were also gathering in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the crash site where passengers brought down one of the four hijacked jetliners, United Airlines Flight 93, that had been headed for Washington.Generational painThe attacks shaped generations of Americans who lived through the day or grew up in its aftermath, influencing U.S. foreign policy, domestic politics and public attitudes toward security.But for many whom the attacks directly affected — the victims’ families and friends, first responders and rescue workers — the anniversary is a tribute to the lives lost on a clear blue day a quarter century ago and the heartbreak that followed.Caroline Ogonowski’s father, John, was the captain of Flight 11, which took off from Boston 47 minutes before striking the North Tower.Ogonowski, now 39, had her first baby this year and named him after her father. She brought him to her father’s grave last week and attended a memorial ceremony in Boston on Friday.“This year, there’s this new sadness in knowing that they won’t ever get to know each other,” Ogonowski, who has worked in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, said in a phone interview. “My father will never know his grandson. And my son will never know his grandfather.“We owe it to my father and all the others that we lost on that day to make sure that we continue to teach future generations about what happened, about who these people were, who these heroes were, how our country came together and became stronger because of it,” she added. Lasting legacyA generation of Americans has grown up since 2001 who are too young to remember the attacks but whose lives were fundamentally altered by them.The attacks initiated the War on Terror, which led to the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that lasted years. The resulting public backlash helped fuel Trump’s rise a decade ago, when he vowed not to start new foreign entanglements — a promise being tested by the Iran war.At home, Americans expressed deep solidarity and patriotism, as well as sorrow, in the immediate wake of the attacks. At the same time, however, Muslim Americans and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries faced a rise in prejudice and hate crimes. Public polls have found 9/11 colors Americans’ perceptions of Muslims to this day. Zohran Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor, faced calls from some Republicans to skip Friday’s ceremony, which he rejected.Casualties were not limited to those who perished on September 11. Many rescue workers who spent weeks or months at the site afterward, as well as nearby residents and others, were sickened by toxins in the air and eventually died.The New York City Fire Department lost 343 members on September 11. More than 600 additional firefighters, including some retired members who took part in the rescue effort, have died of 9/11-related illnesses since then, department figures show.Twenty-six have died this year alone.

[Category: / Pentagon & Congress] [Link to media]

As of 9/23/26 11:33pm. Last new 9/23/26 4:44pm.