Brent M. Eastwood

Zelensky pressed NATO to admit Ukraine at the Ankara summit — but the vote he needs most, from Trump, may not be there.

With the ceasefire dead and oil climbing, Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz and wait Trump out — and time may be on Tehran's side.

Trump sees peace coming — but Putin has other ideas. Facing no good options in Ukraine, Russia may escalate and launch a summer offensive instead.

The U.S. Navy is retiring its last seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers by 2030, ending a decades-long era of missile-heavy carrier escorts. A $3.7 billion modernization program couldn't overcome aging hulls, cracks, and corrosion — leaving the Navy to shift Tomahawk strikes and carrier defense to other ships even as China's fleet expands.

Congress has set aside $40 million to put the Bullseye cruise missile in U.S. Marine Corps hands. Built by General Atomics from Rafael's Ice Breaker design, it flies 186 miles, hits targets on land and at sea, and deploys from a launcher that travels in a standard shipping container.

The Admiral Kuznetsov has been out of service since 2017. Its dry dock sank beneath it, a 70-ton crane fell onto the flight deck, fires broke out below deck, and a shipyard chief was arrested for embezzlement. Now Russia's only aircraft carrier is headed to the scrapyard, while its sister ship sails on as China's Liaoning.

The Lada-class was Russia's entry into fourth-generation submarines and the planned replacement for the Cold War Kilo-class. Twenty-eight years in, the program counts three boats: the lead ship scrapped after 13 years of building, the second delayed by a financial crisis, the third commissioned in December 2025, and the promised air-independent propulsion never installed.

The USS Gerald R. Ford has begun a planned incremental availability (PIA) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard that is expected to last around 18 months. A fire in March caused extensive damage to berthing spaces, while the carrier's vacuum sewage system — with 650 toilets — has suffered repeated failures throughout its recent deployment. The combination of fire damage repairs and major plumbing work will keep the Navy's newest supercarrier out of action significantly longer than a normal maintenance period.

The United States has supplied Ukraine with more than three million 155mm howitzer shells since the war began, significantly depleting American stockpiles. A major ammunition manufacturing facility in Mesquite, Texas, that received $469 million from the Pentagon has failed to produce critical metal projectile components for two years. As a result, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps could be left with dangerously low reserves of artillery ammunition if a major conflict breaks out.

The Canadian F-35 saga has a new chapter: observer status in the Global Combat Air Program, the British-Japanese-Italian effort to build a sixth-generation successor to the Eurofighter Typhoon. The catch is the calendar. GCAP doesn't enter service until 2035, the 88-jet F-35 order remains under review in Ottawa, and Saab is still pitching the Gripen.