Ukraine and the U.S. have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials said Feb. 25. ... One of them said that Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of U.S. military support that Ukraine urgently needs.
Israel confirmed it is conducting strikes in southern Syria, as the new Syrian government calls for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Syrian territory. "We will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said regarding the strikes. "Any attempt by the Syrian regime forces and the country's terrorist organizations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria will be met with fire."
“Control of space is essential to both national security and economic prosperity, and the U.S. must act decisively by significantly increasing the budget and size of the U.S. Space Force. However, doing so requires making difficult choices about reallocating resources away from outdated legacy programs that no longer best serve our nation’s security interests or may be funded and operated due to Congressional interest,” write retired Gen. John E. Hyten, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, former Director of Staff of the U.S. Space Force.
The Air Force wants to accelerate its plans to retire old and outdated aircraft to meet Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order for services to cut and reallocate a portion of their spending. But the service’s previous efforts to cut planes like the A-10 Warthog and older F-22 Raptors have shown that making such plans is easy, while actually seeing them through is far trickier.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged Feb. 25 to raise U.K. defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, saying Europe is in a new era of insecurity that requires a “generational response.”
The Pentagon’s IT agency wants to simplify the digital tools used for identity verification and systems access on unclassified networks across the military this year, starting with the Army—which is on track to wrap up next month.
Pentagon leaders are crafting a plan to shake up how they buy and field technology, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth starting things off by potentially directing that the department adopt the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) as the preferred method for software development.
The Army is getting a new leader after Daniel Driscoll secured enough Senate votes Feb. 25 to become the service’s secretary, allowing him to take the wheel for the organization as it pursues major transformation efforts across the force. ... During his confirmation process, Driscoll told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee that the department should purchase more commercial off-the-shelf technologies, including drones.
The U.S. Air Force has confirmed that a recently released rendering of the AIM-260A does indeed reflect the actual design of what is also known as the Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM). The JATM, details about which are still highly classified, is expected to ultimately supplant the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) in U.S. military service.
In a bit of verbal alchemy, the Pentagon is turning iron into gold. The Midas touch of Pentagon bureaucracy has just hit President Trump’s “Iron Dome” missile defense shield, which shall be henceforth known as “Golden Dome.”
