One year after it began striking boats suspected of ferrying drugs, the Pentagon is dramatically expanding the military’s role in tracking drug cartels across Latin America and the Caribbean, deploying high-tech drones to map smuggling networks and sending U.S. troops to assist in ground raids.
President Trump touted the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as a win for both countries more than 20 years after the start of the Iraq War. “It’s a victory for the United States, it’s a victory for Iraq and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated,” Trump said speaking at a Hispanic Heritage Month event at the White House on Sept. 30.
The materials that make up the 2026 Suicide Prevention Total Force Awareness Training use several video segments with AI-generated characters, scenarios, and presenters to deliver portions of the annual instruction required across the force. The Air Force did not specify which portions of the video presentations were AI-generated.
A Russian nuclear-capable strategic bomber crashed Sept. 29 on a training mission in the country’s far east, killing six members of its crew, the Defense Ministry said. The ministry said in a statement that the Tu-95 bomber went down in an unpopulated area in the Amur region, adding that one crew member survived the crash and was hospitalized with injuries.
Troops at Cannon Air Force Base lost at least 5,000 duty days in 2025 because they had to travel long distances for medical care, with some service members traveling as far as 350 miles each way, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.
China has announced the opening of a new air base in Laos, described as a joint training center but marking its third overseas military base, and the second in Southeast Asia. China’s Ministry of National Defense said on social media on Sept. 29 that the China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center at Ban Keun Airport in Laos and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy started operations.
The U.S. Air Force is looking at adding a missile warning system to its new F-15EX Eagle II fighters. This will give the aircraft a way to optically detect incoming missile threats, especially passively guided ones like heat-seeking infrared-guided missiles, which they currently lack. The continued absence of an MWS has become more pronounced in light of recent combat experiences over Iran.
The Pentagon’s latest report about its implementation of the National Defense Strategy notes progress on accelerating weapons production, cutting red tape, and persuading European governments to boost defense spending—but is light on problems such as Russia’s increasing aggression in Europe and the high cost of U.S. wars in the Middle East.
Details of President Trump’s planned Golden Dome missile defense remain hidden to prevent China and Russia from building countermeasures, but that secrecy is setting off a debate among lawmakers and missile defense experts about both costs and whether the system will work.
The U.S. government is reportedly alerting millions of current and former U.S. military service members and staff that their personal information was stolen during a months-long breach of the Pentagon’s personnel records, the latest in a spate of thefts involving federal workers’ data in recent months.
The Defense Department wasted millions of dollars on food never eaten and tents never lived in while assisting the Department of Homeland Security’s rush last year to build migrant detention facilities in Texas and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a government watchdog report.
The Defense Intelligence Agency revealed Sept. 30 the analytical framework it’s using to try to answer a key but difficult question: When conflict arises, what is a foreign military’s “will to fight”?
The Defense Department announced this month a $450 million investment in The Elmet Group to strengthen the U.S. supply chain for tungsten, a critical mineral used for manufacturing military weapons ranging from bullets to missiles.
The Navy intends to procure 30 medium unmanned surface vessels from three vendors at an average cost of $40 million per platform, the sea service announced this week, part of a broader effort to ramp up its arsenal of robotic capabilities.
Scores of bipartisan lawmakers are calling on top leaders to continue funding for the Bell MV-75 Cheyenne II tiltrotor for the U.S. Army, as uncertain funding in recent months has caused unpredictable impacts on the program’s schedule.
A copilot stabbed a captain in an apparent attempt to crash a jetliner as it was flying 174 people to Israel on Sept. 30. But passengers burst into the cockpit and wrestled with the attacker even as the plane descended sharply, witnesses and Israel’s government said.
