The war in Ukraine has exposed a critical front long neglected by Western militaries: electromagnetic warfare (EW). Control over this invisible battlespace, where communications are jammed, drones blinded, and precision weapons thrown off course, can decide the outcome of a conflict. Russia has understood this sooner than NATO, using EW to isolate Ukrainian units, disrupt command networks, and neutralize Western systems. Ukraine has adapted with ingenuity, but it is learning in combat what NATO should have learned in training.

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In 2002, President George W. Bush tried to recite an old proverb: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” What emerged instead was: “Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again” (see video).

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced “a war of bureaucratic attrition” in a speech on Friday afternoon. The target of his address was the Pentagon’s perennially-criticized process for buying and fielding military capabilities.

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In recent months, Russia has frequently flown drones into NATO territory, where NATO countries typically try to shoot them down. By contrast, when three Russian fighter jets made an incursion into Estonian airspace in September, they were intercepted and no attempt was made to shoot them down — although the incident did make headlines and led to a Russian diplomat being expelled from Estonia.

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Keeping the peace in the Cold War was a matter of MAD, or mutually assured destruction, with both the U.S. and Soviet Union racing to develop and amass ever more deadly weapons to keep the other at bay and maintain an uneasy status quo.

The problem, according to Benjamin Wilson, was the chief proponents of that early brand of arms control, an elite group of science advisers, “wore a progressive face” but ended up “protecting existing structures and domestic arrangements, foreclosing the possibility of more radical transformations.”

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A massive military buildup in the Caribbean has sparked speculation that the U.S. is now engaged in its latest chapter of direct intervention in Latin America.

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The Trump Administration announced last week that the USS Gerald Ford and her Carrier Strike Group, consisting of three Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyers, would be redirected from the Mediterranean Sea to the US Southern Command.

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America is a maritime nation, and its security and prosperity are inexorably linked to the sea. Yet the United States has let its ability to design, build, and sustain the fleet of ships that are the backbone of this prosperity atrophy. A maritime nation that cannot build ships cannot long thrive.

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Engagement between Australia and the United States on critical minerals has matured from technical cooperation into a strategic partnership, aligning resource security with clean energy and defense priorities. Both governments recognize the urgency of diversifying supply chains as China entrenches its dominance across critical mineral extraction and processing. US policy has so far delivered strong domestic signals and backed its producers, but outcomes of its recent allied contributions remain to be seen.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, dressed in a military uniform, announced on Oct. 26, 2025, that Russia had successfully tested a nuclear-powered missile. If true, such a weapon could provide Russia with a unique military capability that also has broader political implications.

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An Israeli solution may offer the best value-for-money for the integrated air-and-missile defense (IAMD) capability that Australia urgently needs.

The Australian Defense Force and Australian civilian infrastructure are facing a plethora of advanced air and missile threats, including fast, hard-to-intercept ones such as ballistic missiles, hypersonic boost-glide missiles and now weapons that reach orbit before descending.

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President Donald Trump and his administration plan to inform Congress about using the military to target drug traffickers, but stopped short of saying they would ask for authorization to use military force.

Since September, Trump has been using the U.S. military to destroy suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. The military campaign and build-up of U.S. military forces comes amid fresh pressure on Latin American countries. 

On Friday, Trump ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the U.S. Southern Command.

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Cheap ground-launched cruise missiles could be the decisive weapons of the next Pacific war. They’re concealable, mobile, just accurate enough to hit some of the time, just powerful enough to inflict meaningful damage and—most importantly—simple enough to be inexpensive and mass-producible. These munitions could sink fleets, wipe out air forces, unravel supply lines and devastate war industries.

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For 250 years, the U.S. Navy has both protected the flow of commerce and projected American military might across the seven seas.

Northeastern University national security expert Stephen Flynn has a five-part plan to adapt and rebuild the Navy, and ensure its next 250 years continue the mission.

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To borrow the words of my colleague, CFR Senior Fellow Heidi Crebo-Rediker, in the pages of Foreign Affairs, critical minerals today are “America’s most dangerous dependence.”

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When French bank BNP Paribas quietly dropped its ban on financing ‘controversial weapons’ in September, it looked like a technical tweak. But far from semantics, it was a shift in how finance can serve strategy.

As Europe’s banking sector begins to re-align with the imperatives of rearmament, deterrence and economic statecraft, Australia should take note and develop mechanisms to mobilize finance for national security.

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