The United States has a history of using its military to get food, water and other humanitarian relief to civilians during wars or natural disasters. The walls of the Pentagon are decorated with photographs of such operations in Haiti, Liberia, Indonesia and countless other countries. But it is rare for the United States to try […]
Read MoreTag: United States Defense and Military Forces
Pentagon Review Finds No Evidence of Alien Cover-Up
In the 1960s, secret test flights of advanced government spy planes generated U.F.O. sightings. More recently, government and commercial drones, new kinds of satellites and errant weather balloons have led to a renaissance in unusual observations. But, according to a new report, none of these sightings were of alien spacecraft. The new congressionally mandated Pentagon […]
Read MoreRonny Jackson, Former White House Physician, Was Demoted by the Navy
In a report completed three years ago, the Pentagon found that Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson had mistreated subordinates while serving as the White House physician and drank and took sleeping pills on the job. The report recommended that he face discipline. Now it turns out that the Navy quietly punished him the next year. […]
Read MoreU.S. Military to Build Floating Pier to Ferry Gaza Aid, White House Says
Facing warnings that the war-ravaged Gaza Strip is on the precipice of widespread famine, the United States on Thursday announced plans for a large-scale, amphibious military operation in the Mediterranean Sea that would ferry food and other aid to desperate civilians in the enclave. U.S. officials sketched out the plan, which would make the United […]
Read MoreMutual Frustrations Arise in U.S.-Ukraine Alliance
More than two years into their wartime alliance, the bond between the United States and Ukraine is showing signs of wear and tear, giving way to mutual frustration and a feeling that the relationship might be stuck in a bit of a rut. It is the stuff that often strains relationships — finances, different priorities […]
Read MorePutin’s Nukes in Space Are Back to Scare Us Again
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was considering what became known as “Star Wars,” a plan to shield America from Soviet missiles by deploying up to thousands of weapons in space. At the same time, as a young science writer, I was reporting on how the rays from a single nuclear detonation in orbit could wipe […]
Read MoreInside America’s Shadow War With Iran
It’s often been said that the most dangerous hot spot in the world is the waterway between Taiwan and mainland China, where the Chinese Navy and Air Force flex their muscles every day to try to intimidate Taiwan — while the U.S. Navy patrols nearby. I wonder. There is actually a stable balance of deterrence […]
Read MoreAaron Bushnell’s Winding Path Ended in Self-Immolation to Protest Israel
Dressed in his U.S. Air Force uniform, Aaron Bushnell walked up to the Israeli embassy in Washington one afternoon this week and calmly described his intention to “engage in an extreme act of protest” against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. He proceeded to pour a flammable liquid over his buzz-cut head, pulled his camouflage cap […]
Read MoreThe Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin
Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war. But that is above ground. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites […]
Read MoreHard Lessons Make for Hard Choices 2 Years Into the War in Ukraine
Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States has the capacity to keep Kyiv supplied with the weapons, technology and intelligence to fend off a takeover by Moscow. But Washington is now perceived around Europe to have lost its will. The Europeans, in contrast, have the will — they just committed another $54 […]
Read MoreHouthis Say They Shot Down a U.S. Drone Off Yemen
The Pentagon is investigating the cause of a crash of an American military surveillance drone off the coast of Yemen on Monday morning, two U.S. officials said. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, confirmed that the drone, an MQ-9 Reaper, fell out of the sky. Iranian-backed Houthi militants said […]
Read MoreHaley’s Attacks on Trump Over Veterans Aren’t Working, and Could Help Biden
As the clock ticks down before next week’s Republican primary in South Carolina, Nikki Haley is looking for any way to undermine Donald J. Trump and his commanding lead, including trying a new spin on an old line of attack: that he has a history of being disrespectful to veterans. Ms. Haley, in her quest […]
Read MoreIntelligence About Russia Puts Focus on New U.S. Satellite Push
Hours after the news broke on Wednesday that the United States had picked up worrisome intelligence about Russia’s capacity to strike American satellites, the Pentagon sent a missile-tracking system into orbit, part of a vast new effort to bolster the military’s growing presence in space. The timing was coincidental. But it underscored how concerns about […]
Read MoreAustin Is Released From the Hospital and Will Return to Work
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was released from the hospital on Tuesday, the Pentagon said. Mr. Austin, 70, had canceled a trip to Brussels to meet with NATO counterparts on Russia’s war in Ukraine after returning to Walter Reed National Medical Center in Bethesda for the second time this year with complications stemming from […]
Read MoreLloyd Austin Taken to Hospital for Bladder Issue
The Pentagon announced on Sunday that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been taken that afternoon to a military hospital to be treated for “symptoms suggesting an emergent bladder issue.” Mr. Austin was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., 2:20 p.m., a Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, […]
Read More5 Marines Confirmed Dead in Helicopter Crash in California
The Marine Corps confirmed on Thursday that five Marines had died in Tuesday’s helicopter crash east of San Diego. The announcement from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing came after a search and rescue operation located the helicopter on Wednesday in Pine Valley, about 44 miles east of San Diego. But the military did not confirm […]
Read MoreU.S. Strike in Baghdad Kills Iranian-Backed Militia Commander
A U.S. retaliatory strike in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday killed a senior leader of a militia that U.S. officials blame for recent attacks on American personnel, the Pentagon said, following up on President Biden’s promise that the response to a slew of attacks by Shiite militias would continue. The Pentagon said the man was […]
Read MoreIraq Hosts Both U.S. and Iranian-Backed Forces. It’s Getting Tense.
For years, Iraq has managed to pull off an unlikely balancing act, allowing armed forces tied to both the United States and Iran, an American nemesis, to operate on its soil. Now things are getting shaky. When Washington, Tehran and Baghdad all wanted the same thing — the defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group […]
Read MoreU.S. Strikes in Yemen, Syria and Iraq: A Timeline
The United States has led a major wave of retaliatory strikes in the Middle East, hitting scores of targets belonging to Iranian-backed armed groups since Friday. The strikes are a sharp escalation of hostilities in the region, one that President Biden had sought to avoid since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began […]
Read MorePhoto: Biden Sees Dignified Transfer of 3 Troops Killed in Jordan
A stillness lingered under a cloudy sky as a team of Army soldiers slowly emerged from the large gray C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft. They walked in step at a smooth and steady pace. Their eyes remained forward. The flag-draped transfer cases were held level with the weight distributed evenly among the six service members conducting […]
Read MoreThe U.S. Conducted Retaliatory Strikes in Iraq and Syria
American forces today carried out a series of military strikes against Iranian forces and the militias that they back in half a dozen sites in Syria and Iraq. The assaults, targeting command centers, weapons facilities and bunkers used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force and affiliated militia groups, made good on President Biden’s […]
Read MoreBiden Honors Three U.S. Soldiers Killed in Jordan
President Biden honored three Army reservists killed in the Middle East as their bodies were returned to the United States on Friday in a silent, somber ceremony marking the first deaths under fire in a proxy war with Iranian-backed militias since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Mr. Biden attended a short event known as […]
Read MoreIran Tries to Avoid War With U.S. After Stoking Mideast Conflicts
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting this week, deeply worried that the United States would retaliate after an Iran-aligned militia in Iraq killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 others in Jordan. The council, including the president, foreign minister, chiefs of the armed forces and two aides to the country’s […]
Read MoreDefense Secretary Tries to Explain Why He Kept His Illness Secret
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III appeared at the lectern of the Pentagon briefing room on Thursday to take questions from reporters for the first time in more than a year, beginning what is expected to be a protracted period of explaining why he kept the public, and the president, in the dark for weeks […]
Read MoreLike Two Soldiers Killed in Jordan, Young Black Women Look to the Army for Opportunity
At a dusty military base in northeastern Jordan, Specialist Kennedy Sanders drove bulldozers and road graders. When she had free time, she liked to spend it knitting, or feeding her sneaker-head habit by shopping online for rare pairs of Nike Dunks that she would make her mother unbox for her over FaceTime. She spent a […]
Read MoreMix-Up Preceded Deadly Drone Strike in Jordan, U.S. Officials Say
Air defenses failed to stop an attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan on Sunday that killed three American soldiers at least in part because the hostile drone approached its target at the same time an American drone was returning to the base, two U.S. officials said on Monday. The enemy drone was mistaken […]
Read MoreU.S. Identifies 3 Soldiers Killed at Base in Jordan
The Department of Defense on Monday identified three Army Reserve soldiers who were killed at a U.S. base in Jordan on Sunday in what the Biden administration said was a drone attack from an Iran-backed militia. The department said at least 34 other service members were wounded in the attack. Those killed were Sgt. William […]
Read MoreLloyd Austin Returns to Pentagon a Month After Surgery Complications
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III returned to the Pentagon on Monday for the first time in more than a month, the Defense Department said, after his surgery for prostate cancer and hospitalization for related medical complications. Mr. Austin was widely criticized for failing to immediately disclose his illness and absence to the White House, […]
Read MoreHow Biden May Respond to the Drone Strike That Killed Three U.S. Soldiers
Even before the drone strike that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan on Sunday, the Biden administration was planning for a moment just like this, debating how it might strike back in ways that would deter Iran’s proxy forces and send a message that Tehran would not miss. But the options range from the […]
Read MoreBiden Vows to Retaliate After Strike Against American Forces in Jordan
This was the day that President Biden and his team had feared for more than three months, the day that relatively low-level attacks by Iranian proxy groups on American troops in the Middle East turned deadly and intensified the pressure on the president to respond in kind. With three American service members killed and two […]
Read MoreHow Anxiety About War with China May Raise the Danger of It
Michael Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is concerned enough about the risk of war between the United States and China that he is listening to the audiobook version of Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August,” the classic history of how the major powers in 1914 stumbled into World War I. […]
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