The tiny island of Tinian was the launch point for American planes carrying atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Now a new runway is being carved from the jungle, just south of World War II ruins inked with mildew. And on a blustery February morning a few hundred yards away at Tinian’s civilian airport, American airmen refueled Japanese […]
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WASHINGTON — The United States launched airstrikes in eastern Syria against militant sites linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps after a suspected Iranian drone killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans, the Pentagon said. The retaliatory strikes came hours after the self-destructing drone struck a maintenance facility on a coalition base in […]
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WASHINGTON — The Navy admiral had a blunt message for the military contractors building precision-guided missiles for his warships, submarines and planes at a moment when the United States is dispatching arms to Ukraine and preparing for the possibility of conflict with China. “Look at me. I am not forgiving the fact you’re not delivering […]
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One of the strangest ads of the 2022 election cycle was an homage to “Top Gun,” featuring Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. In it, DeSantis is the “Top Gov,” setting his sights on his political enemies: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your governor speaking. Today’s training evolution: dogfighting, taking on the corporate […]
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WASHINGTON — A U.S. contractor was killed and another contractor and five U.S. service members were injured when a self-destructing drone struck a maintenance facility on a coalition base in northeast Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon said in a statement. U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that the drone was of “Iranian origin,” according to the Pentagon […]
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SOGAKOPE, Ghana — Troops clad in black jumped out of motorboats near a riverside resort and made their way along a wood-slat fence to their objective: a building where terrorists had seized a high-level government official. Shots rang out and the troops returned fire. They soon emerged from the one-story structure with the freed hostage, […]
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When Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made headlines recently by undercutting U.S. support for Ukraine, Republican hawks, many of whom cling to him as their only hope to defeat former President Donald J. Trump, wondered if they had misread him as an ideological ally. Mr. DeSantis ditched his previous backing for Ukraine to align himself […]
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WASHINGTON — A month before President George W. Bush first sent American troops into Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was warned that the war might end up costing the United States billions of dollars. Mr. Rumsfeld’s reply to retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the American tasked with overseeing Iraq’s postwar reconstruction, would constitute a […]
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia traveled to Mariupol, his second surprise visit to Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine this weekend, and a defiant gesture soon after an international court had issued a warrant for his arrest. Mr. Putin flew to Mariupol, a major Ukrainian industrial hub on the Azov Sea, by helicopter, the Kremlin said […]
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia traveled to Mariupol, a surprise visit to the Ukrainian city that was the site of one of the bloodiest battles since Russia invaded last year, and the closest the Russian leader has been to the front lines in the east. Mr. Putin flew by helicopter from Crimea and then […]
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The explosions on the first night, lighting up the sky as they burned through buildings below, were only the earliest blasts of the yearslong war to come. For the thousands of days and nights that followed, eruptions across Iraq came from warplanes and cannons, grenade launchers and mines, machine guns, pistols and handmade bombs. What […]
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WASHINGTON — A Russian warplane struck a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, hitting the drone’s propeller and causing its American operators to bring it down in international waters, according to the Pentagon, in the first known physical contact between the Russian and American militaries since the war in Ukraine started last […]
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SYDNEY — Australia will buy up to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States to be delivered in the 2030s, according to people briefed on the deal, which accelerates and deepens an ambitious defense agreement aimed at reinforcing American-led military dominance of the Asia-Pacific region to counter China’s military growth. Australia would then buy […]
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TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. — Sitting around a plastic folding table in a dusty tent, a half-dozen officers of the Hawaii-based 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment took a very short break from days of fighting on little to no sleep. The war, they said, was going well. The unit, newly created and innovative in nature, was facing […]
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WASHINGTON — Nearly 60 years after one of the first Black officers in the Special Forces was nominated — and then overlooked — for the nation’s highest military honor, President Biden on Friday awarded the Medal of Honor to that officer, Col. Paris Davis, for exemplifying “everything our nation is at our best.” “Brave and […]
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WASHINGTON — In the battle to become the country’s most senior military commander — a position inhabited at the moment by one of the most voluble of men and a frequent target of the right — it has come down to a choice between the fighter pilot and the Marine infantryman. Gen. Mark A. Milley’s term […]
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In the summer of 1897, 20 Black U.S. Army infantrymen cycled 1,900 miles on fixed-gear, state-of-the-art bikes from Fort Missoula, Mont., to St. Louis. The Army ordered the grueling expedition to see whether soldiers could form a bicycle corps. Newspapers chronicled their progress as they pedaled 50 miles a day in mud and sand, through […]
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There will be no state dinners, no press entourage and little fanfare. On a two-day visit to Washington to see President Biden, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, wants to get straight to business. The question many in Berlin are asking is what that business is. “What is the purpose of your trip to Washington today? Why […]
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WIESBADEN, Germany — With winter almost behind them, senior American generals hosted Ukrainian military officials this week for a set of “tabletop” exercises designed to help Kyiv map out the next stage of its battle to reclaim territory from dug-in Russian troops. During a war-game session at the headquarters of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, […]
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WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress sharply questioned senior Pentagon officials on Tuesday about the tens of billions of dollars in military and other aid the United States has sent to Ukraine, casting doubt on whether they would embrace future spending as Democrats pleaded for a cleareyed assessment of how much more money would be needed. […]
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BALEDOGLE, Somalia — The promise and perils of America’s counterterrorism campaign were on full display at a remote training base in central Somalia. It was graduation day for 346 recruits who would join an elite Somali commando unit trained by the State Department, advised by U.S. Special Operations forces, and backed by American air power. […]
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These operations would most likely be accompanied by cyber offensives to disrupt electricity, gas, water, transport, health care and other public services. China has demonstrated its capabilities already, including in Taiwan, where it has waged disinformation campaigns, and in serious hacking incidents in the United States. Mr. Xi himself has championed such subterfuge as a […]
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As the Russian assault largely ground to a halt — or even reversed, in places such as Kyiv Oblast — arms transfers to Ukraine began to include more weapons designed for attacking rather than defending. In successive batches starting last spring, Poland donated more than 200 old tanks. Some were ex-Soviet T-72s. Others were locally-made […]
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Fishback moved in summer 2010 to Ann Arbor, where he enrolled in the University of Michigan’s master’s programs in philosophy and political science. The move marked a personal and professional pivot. In academia he was regarded as a moral figure, a man to be heard, not shunned. His professors recall a sparkling student. “He was […]
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Tomoko Ichihara’s family was wrapping up a birthday lunch near Mount Fuji when celebration turned to horror. A silver Toyota drifted across a road and careened into the parking lot of a noodle restaurant, crushing Ms. Ichihara’s brother-in-law and mother between cars and leaving them with fatal injuries. The minivan’s driver, a U.S. Navy lieutenant, […]
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DEADHORSE, Alaska — Really? That’s it? The United States military is capable of many things, but finding the remnants of an unidentified flying object scattered across a blinding expanse of Arctic ice in minus-30-degree weather using six available hours of daylight is not one of them. The search for a downed U.F.O. began and ended […]
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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken held what American officials described as a confrontational meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday night in Munich, warning him that the flight of a Chinese surveillance balloon across the United States “must never happen again.” He also cautioned Beijing against providing “material support” to Russia’s war in Ukraine, […]
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DEADHORSE, Alaska — The United States has called off the search for two of the unidentified flying objects that the military shot out of the sky this month, raising the possibility that the devices will never be collected and analyzed, a U.S. official said Friday. The floating craft above North America have become a source […]
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“The Chinese military has written about a range of potential applications for balloons and drones in near space,” he added. “You can intercept communications that you can’t capture from space. You can loiter for longer periods of time over targets, study or interfere with an adversary’s radar, target enemy satellites and help guide strategic weapons.” […]
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WASHINGTON — A sweeping new entitlement program to provide medical care to millions of veterans who may have been exposed to trash burn pits on U.S. military bases around the world may increase federal spending on veterans by at least $400 billion and as much as $789 billion over a decade, according to the official […]
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Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible […]
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