The decision would limit NATO’s ability to launch long-range strikes and conduct surveillance, the report said.

The U.S. plan includes cutting the number of F-16 and F-15E fighter jets from roughly 150 to 100, reducing maritime reconnaissance aircraft from 26 to 15, and removing all eight aerial refueling tanker jets it previously made available to Europe, the report said.

The U.S. also aims to redeploy a missile-launching submarine and an aircraft carrier, along with several warships and scores of jets that join the carrier’s missions, the New York Times said, adding that one of two groups of bombers previously assigned for Europe’s defense may also be reallocated.

“Historically there has been an over-reliance on U.S. forces and capabilities,” NATO spokesperson Allison Hart told Reuters, adding that as Europe and Canada invest more in defense and develop greater capabilities, the balance of responsibility can shift.

This would strengthen NATO’s defense by reducing reliance on a single ally and reflect a broader change happening within the alliance, Hart said in an emailed statement.

The U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. European Command said in a statement last week that it would “rightsize” its contributions to the NATO Force Model, without providing further details.

Reuters reported in May that the U.S. planned to scale back the military capabilities it would make available to its NATO allies during a major crisis.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly accused European governments of underinvesting in ​their militaries and relying too heavily on U.S. protection, while urging both Europe and Asian allies ⁠to boost defense spending to 3.5% of GDP.

The name change is included in the committee’s version of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a Thursday statement, explaining why he chose to vote against the bill’s advancement.

Kaine criticized the proposed renaming and additional funding for what he called the “illegal and foolish” war in the Middle East.

“Rather than taking steps to end this deeply unpopular war, this bill rebrands the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a juvenile move that sadly describes the reality of a President who has abandoned meaningful diplomacy in favor of starting doubtful wars in multiple locations and threatening even more,” he said in the statement.

Though the Department of War and Secretary of War titles have not yet been legally established by Congress, the terms have been used by Pentagon and federal government officials as a secondary title since President Donald Trump’s September 2025 executive order declaring the reversal.

The Department of Defense was known as the War Department from its creation in 1789 until 1947, when President Harry Truman recommended the change.

A week ago, members of the House Armed Service Committee approved the name change, advancing the amendment included in fiscal 2027’s NDAA to the Senate, which has yet to release their version of the bill.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised the House vote on social media, stating that “The Department of War will officially be restored soon.”

Critics say it is unnecessary to change the name at a time when they say other matters should take priority. Supporters of the change say it would send a signal to adversaries by projecting America’s strength.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis released in January revealed that the push to rename the department could cost taxpayers between $10 million and $125 million.

“Instead of prioritizing bringing down the cost of groceries or health care, Trump and his cronies are focused on vanity projects like renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War – potentially costing American taxpayers upwards of $125 million,” Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., one of the lawmakers who request the CBO report, said in a statement following the report’s release.

“This move is performative government at its worst and does nothing to advance national security or help service members and their families,” he added.

In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote the United States would be hitting Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” adding that “at some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets.”

Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, typically handles roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. It has been central to the economic survival of the Islamic Republic for decades. A 1984 declassified CIA document called its facilities “the most vital in Iran’s oil system, and their continued operation is essential to Iran’s economic well-being.”

But Trump’s saber-rattling was quickly tempered by a note of caution. Speaking to the hosts of “Fox & Friends” shortly after his social media post, the president questioned whether America “has the stomach” for a larger military operation to take the island.

“I’m not sure the country has the appetite for it, as good as it is,” Trump said. “I think they’d like to see us come home.”

The White House told Military Times that all military options remain available to the president, including scenarios involving a significant number of ground forces occupying Kharg Island. On Thursday, however, Trump appeared to rule out that possibility.

“I don’t want to have boots on the ground. But if I wanted to, we could put a small group of soldiers and take over the whole place,” the commander in chief said, punctuating his remarks on Iran with “They’re finished.”

Trump’s political coalition has been riven with tensions since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Foreign policy hawks who insist Iran must be curbed are on one side, and isolationist-leaning, “America-First” voices are on the other. The latter group is vigorously opposed to the use of ground troops, fearing that such a deployment would pave the way for the U.S. getting sucked into a long and costly conflict, similar to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The proposal to seize the island and establish control over Iran’s oil sector also diverges from the four objectives that bolstered Operation Epic Fury in the first place. The Trump administration’s stated war aims were to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, inflict serious damage on its Navy and Air Force, prevent nuclear development and curtail its support for proxy groups in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

This all comes as hostilities between American and Iranian forces in the Middle East are on the rise, despite a ceasefire signed in April.

U.S. Central Command said that Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy assets conducted strikes Wednesday evening against Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites.

Trump, during his interview with Fox News, claimed the U.S. “dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night.”

Tehran — which asserts it has launched a series of retaliatory strikes against American bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait — cast the nearly two-month ceasefire as “practically meaningless.”

“The illegal and criminal attacks perpetrated by the United States in recent hours not only constitute a flagrant violation... but also render the ceasefire practically meaningless,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “Responsibility for the extremely serious consequences of the criminal act lies with the leaders of the United States.”

The airmen from the 492nd Special Operations Wing and 919th Special Operations Wing graduated recently from the Escuela Militar de Montaña in Bariloche, Argentina, according to a release. The school is set in Patagonia’s rough terrain and is intended to push students to their physical and mental limits.

“Nothing compared to the level of mountaineering we would endure during this course,” the 919th SOW airman said in the statement. “They took what I had previously considered intense hiking and went vertical. While I had some experience, this school introduced an entirely new element: multi-pitch rock climbing.”

The air commandos’ curriculum centered around high-altitude operations, cold-weather survival and mountainous landscape movements, per the release.

Over the course of several weeks, the airmen mastered advanced rock climbing, rope safety techniques and the use of single-rope bridges to cross mountain rivers.

The airmen successfully trained alongside members of the Argentine military, bolstering the relationship between the U.S. and Argentina and leading to one airmen earning the votes of their classmates for the “Best Teammate Award.”

Both air commandos also completed the school’s instructor course. The Argentine military invited the airmen to return as guest instructors for future courses.

“By mastering this course and becoming instructors alongside our Argentinean partners, these airmen are writing the next chapter of that legacy — tackling challenges that haven’t been touched by U.S. forces in decades,” Col. Zak Blom, 492nd SOW commander, said in the release.

While the course completion was the first of its kind in Air Force history, it also marked the first time since 2006 that any U.S. military personnel participated in the school.

The cancellation, first reported by Task and Purpose, was announced Wednesday by leaders of the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus in a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers decried the circumstances, saying it was more evidence of attempts by the administration and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to minimize the service of female veterans.

“In plain terms, the very women the ceremony was created to honor were pushed out of it,” Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, the caucus co-chair and vice chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said. “Honoring veterans should not be controversial. Recognizing the service and sacrifice of women who wore our nation’s uniform should be one of the easiest things for us to come together around. Yet, because of the decisions made by this administration, we are defending the basic act of honoring women veterans.”

A staffer for the Democratic Women’s Caucus told Military Times that the wreath-laying had been canceled June 10 after officials with the Department of the Air Force said they could not attend due to anti-DEI mandates published in January 2025, immediately after President Donald Trump took office.

An Air Force spokeswoman, Ann Stefanek, confirmed to Military Times via email that “The Department of the Air Force declined participation in compliance with Executive Orders … and DoW guidance.”

Officials with the Army and Navy declined to comment. But military sources with knowledge of planning indicated that the services were not coordinated in their response.

Sources claimed the Navy had been unaware of the event and their invitation to attend, while the Army faced scheduling conflicts related to Army birthday events following a rescheduling of the initial wreath-laying date. The Marine Corps did not respond to a query.

The caucus staff member confirmed the event had been rescheduled to June 10 from an earlier May date due to a conflict with votes. They also acknowledged that the Army had citing scheduling issues, but said Army birthday events had never been a problem in the past.

“The executive order and the DoD guidance, it’s for all the branches, so that’s ultimately why this event couldn’t happen,” the staffer said.

At Wednesday’s press conference, multiple speakers cited other recent moves they cast as diminishing the service of military women.

Sykes cited recent reports of Hegseth’s intervention to block the promotion of three female Navy officers to one-star admiral, leaving no women on the promotions list.

Kayla Williams, an Army veteran and former Department of Veterans Affairs official representing the Vet Voice Foundation, recalled Pentagon-driven directives that resulted in the services pulling down web pages honoring the achievements of women in uniform.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., a former Air Force officer, noted that her grandparents were buried in Arlington National Cemetery, which made the cancellation of the wreath-laying “so painful.”

“I keep coming back to a simple question for President Trump and for Secretary Hegseth and my Republican colleagues,” she said. “Which is, when did saying thank you to women who served their country become a controversial statement?

“Women have answered ... every call this nation has asked of them,” Houlahan continued. “They have flown combat missions, they have commanded troops, they’ve cared for the wounded, they’ve gathered intelligence and they’ve deployed into harm’s way alongside their fellow service members. They didn’t ask for special treatment, they earned our respect. And honoring their service should never be viewed as a political statement.”

In a study examining the Department of Veterans Affairs’ handling of disability claims filed for military sexual assault, a panel of experts found that the agency’s dual standards for related disability claims — which allow evidence such as behavior changes and outside observation for post-traumatic stress disorder claims but require proof of the experience for other disabilities — “results in inconsistent decision-making” during adjudication.

According to the report, disability claims related to sexual assault or chronic harassment were approved at lower rates than combat claims, with an 18.2% approval compared to 27.6% across a five-year period. Approval rates were also significantly lower for men and Black veteran.

Under the VA system, veterans who file a claim for conditions stemming from sexual trauma have separate burdens of proof depending on their disability. Those who file for related post-traumatic stress disorder may provide observational evidence but those seeking compensation for other mental or physical conditions connected to the assault must provide proof of the event.

Given that “elements of the military context pressure service members not to disclose” such assaults, showing evidence remains a “major barrier” to substantiating such claims, the report noted.

In 2024, the VA received 39,711 claims related to military sexual trauma. Nearly two-thirds were approved with the average disability rating of 80%. According to the report, the average monthly compensation rate was roughly $2,500 a month.

Roughly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 50 men report having experienced sexual assault or harassment during their service in the military.

The panel, made up of academics, think tank analysts and VA researchers, recommended that the department consider allowing lay evidence and behavioral observation to support PTSD and non-PTSD related claims.

“Congress should enact legislation directing the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to accept evidence from lay persons or other sources as sufficient proof of service connection of any condition claimed to have incurred or aggravated by experiencing MST, regardless of whether there is an official service record of the MST experience or an associated condition,” said Dr. Harold Kudler, who is a retired VA psychiatrist and panel member now with Duke University, during a briefing Wednesday on the report.

The VA’s process itself for handling sexual assault related claims is problematic, the experts said, because claimants must fill out disability questionnaires and attend compensation and pension exams that often are conducted by people who lack trauma-informed training. The panel said the process — including the possibility of having a claim denied — can be traumatic.

They recommended reducing the number of compensation and pension exams veterans must attend, creating a more supportive exam environment and making sure the examiners were trained in handling trauma-related cases.

They also recommended that the VA develop a specific disability questionnaire for sex-related trauma claims.

“We hope that our recommendations will reduce harms to veterans and improve their experience when making [military sexual trauma]-related claims, modernize and strengthen training, and improve accuracy and fairness in the disability compensation process,” Committee Chairwoman Hortensia Amaro, a community health professor at Florida International University, said in a statement.

The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine was directed to conduct the study by Congress in 2023.

Crafted by architect Kengo Kuma in partnership with the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, the memorial’s design is the culmination of eight years of input from 20,000 Americans, including veterans from every branch of service and every conflict since World War II, according to a foundation release.

According to the memorial’s description, visitors will first encounter steel and stone relics recovered from the 9/11 attacks at each of the site’s three entrances, “marking where the journey began,” the release states.

In a primary section coined “the embrace,” a classically inspired amphitheater rises over the path below and features an arch made of reclaimed steel from the era’s combat operations.

The arch, which will also be adorned with native vegetation, is designed to filter light and will be oriented to align with Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery, the resting place of roughly 1,000 service members killed in the post-9/11 wars.

Below the arch, a predominantly marble “path of honor” includes embedded boot prints “that represent the weight of war and the varied experiences of those who served and their families,” the release says. The path will also connect to adjacent memorials on the National Mall.

Extending from the footprint paths are shallow reflecting pools in which visitors can dip their feet before stepping back onto the stone to leave footprints of their own, an “interactive component [that] offers visitors the chance to walk alongside a loved one once more,” the foundation says.

“This design was shaped by history and held sacred from the beginning — forged by sacrifice and informed by the voices of warriors and their families,” Michael “Rod” Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation and a retired U.S. Army Green Beret, said in the release.

“Throughout history, societies have built sacred places to welcome their warriors home, places where a grateful people can say, ‘We see you. We honor you. You are not forgotten.’” Rodriguez added. “The GWOT generations deserve that same enduring tribute. Today, we take one step closer to welcoming them home.”

In addition to input gathered since 2018, a 23-member advisory council comprising Gold Star family members, veterans and their families worked alongside designers to craft what the foundation has called a “living place ... that will illuminate at night and invite reflection, healing and unity for generations to come.”

As the site’s architect, Kuma’s work on the memorial resonated on a deeply personal level, he said in a recent interview. The artist lost his close friend Yoichi Sugiyama, who worked for Fuji Bank, in the Sept. 11 attack at the World Trade Center.

“This memorial is not an abstract commission for our team, it is a sacred responsibility,” Kuma said in the release. “Our role was not to impose a design, but to listen. The voices of those who served and the families who stood beside them became our source of inspiration. We wanted to create a place of reflection and connection, a living memorial where nature, light and the materials of this war come together as an embrace for a grateful nation.”

Foundation officials are slated to meet over the coming months with various city planning commissions to finalize design approval, according to the foundation’s proposed timeline.

With approval, the foundation is aiming for a 2027 groundbreaking and a project completion date of late 2028.

The Cyber Mastery Incentive Pay, or C-MIP, initiative is meant to modernize how the department encourages the Cyberspace Operations Forces, the military and civilian units responsible for cyberspace operations, according to a June 10 release.

“To incentivize our cyber forces and meet both Department of War and Defense Industrial Base needs, we need to shed legacy incentive models and invest directly in our people serving on the digital front lines. C-MIP does this,” Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata said in the release.

The C-MIP program drops the previous incentive models to a more flexible system that aligns pay with skillset mastery and performance of demanding tasks, the announcement says. The program was developed in 60 days by the CYBERCOM 2.0 unit.

The program will feature two layers: skill incentive pay and special duty pay.

Skill incentive pay, or SIP, is considered the foundational layer that rewards an individual for skill level, whether it’s basic, senior or master.

Special duty assignment pay, or SDAP, is a monthly incentive for members who perform duties CYBERCOM deems “exceptionally demanding” and scale their skills by serving in roles such as trainers or more advanced cyber positions.

“By breaking down the bureaucratic norms of government incentives, this framework enables increased lethality by driving the skills, roles and duties most vital to mission success,” Katie Sutton, assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, who will lead the execution of the program, said in the statement.

The pay incentive program is slated to begin Oct. 1, per the release. The announcement did not specify the pay incentive amount for either program level.

This initiative follows a recent push from some lawmakers to advance the creation of an independent Cyber Force military service.

A report from two D.C. think tanks examined how a proposed Cyber Force could take over the “service-like” responsibilities that CYBERCOM is currently expected to perform.

However, it would take at least one year and $10 billion to stand up the new force.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the president declared, “We hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today.”

Trump initially claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that Iran had shot down the aircraft, before revising his account a day later to say it was struck by an Iranian ordnance that failed to detonate on impact.

“That bomb was lodged in the helicopter, it didn’t explode. It was on fire but it didn’t explode,” Trump explained. “Those two guys, they knew how to fly, but they got very lucky.”

He then quipped: “You won’t believe the rescue, how cool it was.”

The crew members were retrieved by a remotely piloted Navy surface drone, in what Trump and military officials described as the first U.S. operation of its kind.

Still, the episode demonstrated one asymmetrical element of the conflict. U.S. officials said a low-cost Iranian Shahed-136 drone — estimated to cost roughly $20,000 — engaged the American attack helicopter valued at between $35 million and $40 million.

Describing the subsequent rescue, Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for Central Command, told Military Times that the unmanned surface vessel retrieved the downed aviators and ferried them to a rendezvous point at sea, where they were then hoisted aboard a helicopter for extraction.

“The surface drone that assisted in [Monday’s] rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59,” he said. “The task force began fielding these drones in theater in late March.”

The 24-foot Corsair — built by Texas-based Saronic Technologies — can carry payloads of up to 1,000 pounds over a 1,000-nautical-mile range and reach speeds of up to 35 knots, according to the company’s website.

Soon after the U.S. began carrying out retaliatory strikes on Tuesday night, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a social media post, wrote that “our powerful armed forces will leave no attack or threat unanswered.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps later announced, through a statement carried by Iranian state TV, that it had conducted 21 attacks on U.S. bases across the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

But despite the fresh wave of attacks, Trump on Wednesday insisted that a peace agreement can be reached.

“We’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” Trump said. “All they have to do is they have to start signing a paper, it’s fully negotiated.”

Given that negotiations are highly sensitive and secret, it’s unclear how close — or distant — the sides are from an agreement.

A delegation of Qatari officials arrived in Iran on Wednesday in an effort to broker a deal between Washington and Tehran, a source familiar with the discussions told Military Times, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matters publicly.

Across the branches, post-9/11 veterans are retiring, transitioning to civilian careers and stepping away from leadership and training positions. Their departures come as military leaders shift attention toward great-power competition, distributed operations and emerging technologies while preparing a force increasingly led by service members whose careers began after major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ended.

For retired Marine Lt. Col. John Harman, the retirement of that generation raises a question that extends beyond doctrine or force structure: What, exactly, is worth carrying forward?

Some of the lessons forged during two decades of war remain relevant regardless of how future conflicts are fought, Harman said.

“Never take lightly the responsibility of sending others into danger,” he said, after a career that included nine deployments and six combat tours across Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader Middle East.

That lesson emerged during some of the most intense fighting of the post-9/11 era.

During the Battle of Fallujah, young and noncommissioned officers made life-or-death decisions under relentless pressure. The leaders who earned trust were not necessarily the most aggressive or outspoken, Harman said. They were the ones who remained disciplined, calm and committed to the service members under their charge.

“What separated exceptional leaders from average ones wasn’t bravado or chest-thumping rhetoric,” Harman said. “It was steady leadership under pressure.”

Military leaders have spent years adapting strategy and training for future conflict. Whether the next battle involves a near-peer adversary, proxy forces or a crisis no one has yet predicted, Harman said junior leaders will still face uncertainty, the weight of responsibility and the consequences of their decisions.

“Technology will evolve, but leadership fundamentals will not,” Harman said.

The Pentagon’s 2026 National Defense Strategy shifts the department’s focus toward deterring major powers, strengthening homeland defense and preparing for future conflict. Army University Press’s recent Lariat Advance report argues that future warfare will place greater demands on dispersed formations, decentralized decision-making and leaders operating with incomplete information.

Both describe operating environments that differ sharply from the counterinsurgency campaigns that shaped much generation that served after September 2001.

The topic of what gets passed on to future military leaders has surfaced across military education, training and force-development discussions as the services prepare for future conflict. Harman said he has seen that transition firsthand while working with younger Marines and officers after leaving active duty.

Many of the students entering today’s force are highly educated, technologically fluent and comfortable operating in environments shaped by artificial intelligence, unmanned systems and constant connectivity, he said. What they lack is not capability; it is the shared operational experience that defined their predecessors.

In his interactions with students, Harman said he occasionally finds himself sharing lessons that once required little explanation because entire units had lived through them together. Concepts such as trust, accountability and responsibility were reinforced by repeated deployments and combat experience.

For many younger service members, those lessons must now be taught in classrooms, training exercises and professional military education programs, rather than learned during wartime deployments.

“The challenge isn’t that this generation is unprepared,” Harman said. “The challenge is making sure they inherit the lessons that previous generations learned through experience without having to relearn them in combat.”

Leaders who attended SOF Week 2026 agreed.

This year, U.S. Special Operations Command leaders warned that training requirements continue to accumulate, even as demands on the force grow more complex. Leaders argued that future readiness will depend on both emerging technologies and preserving the adaptability, judgment and resilience needed to operate in uncertain environments.

The fundamentals of leadership

The discussion is unfolding as many members who served during the height of Global War on Terror reach retirement eligibility. Service members who entered the military in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are now approaching or surpassing 20 years of service — the benchmark for military retirement.

Many serve in senior enlisted, officer, instructor and training positions responsible for developing the next generation of leaders.

Retired Army Capt. Maxine Reyes, an Afghanistan veteran who served in leadership and command positions during her military career, said one of the most important lessons she carried from Afghanistan had little to do with tactics.

“Having the ability to build genuine relationships often mattered as much as tactical proficiency,” Reyes said. “We must never forget that every mission is ultimately about people.”

Technology, weapons and battlefield conditions will continue to evolve, she said, but the fundamentals of leadership remain remarkably consistent.

“The battlefield of the next conflict may look nothing like Afghanistan,” said Reyes. “But one thing remains constant: success and failure often hinge on human relationships, trust, and leadership.”

Future conflicts may involve artificial intelligence, cyber warfare and technologies that did not exist during much of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Reyes explained. Even so, leaders will still be required to make decisions under pressure, uncertainty and exhaustion.

“When conditions are at their worst, people rarely follow a rank; they follow a leader they trust,” she said.

For Harman, those qualities are directly connected to future conflict.

A fight involving a near-peer adversary could place greater responsibility on junior leaders operating with less oversight, degraded communications and fewer opportunities to seek guidance from higher-ups, he said. In those environments, leadership, judgment and trust become operational requirements.

Reese Rogers, a retired Marine officer who served in Marine reconnaissance and special operations units during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, says gaining experience itself should be the goal.

“The first time is always the first time,” Rogers said. Training can prepare leaders for many situations, but some lessons are learned only when responsibility becomes real.

“We’ll always worry about how we should perform when it matters most, but you only learn by doing,” he said.

For retired Navy Senior Chief Stephanie Tankersly, who served in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom as a Fleet Marine Force corpsman, one of those lessons is judgment.

“Perfect information is a luxury leaders rarely have,” Tankersly said. “Most consequential decisions are made long before all the answers are available. Authentic leadership is the willingness to act amid uncertainty, guided by judgement, experience and a clear understanding of what is at stake.”

A new era

Military historian Erik Chapman said the retirement of the post-9/11 generation is influencing a broader discussion about what future leaders need to know.

As the military shifts from the wars that defined the last two decades to preparing for future conflict, Chapman said the challenge is not preserving Iraq and Afghanistan as case studies. It is determining which lessons remain relevant regardless of the battlefield.

“Every retirement represents more than a billet to be filled,” Chapman said. “It represents years of accumulated judgment, mentorship, and operational experience walking out the door.”

As military leaders redesign training, doctrine and force priorities for future conflict, Chapman said, “We can’t wait for the next conflict to rediscover what previous generations learned through hard experience.”

He continued, “The next generation doesn’t need to fight the last war, but they do need to understand the hard-earned lessons that war produced.”

Ensign Christopher Miller, a recent Naval Academy graduate, is part of the generation that will inherit those lessons and apply them to conflicts that may bear little resemblance to those fought after 2001.

“My generation may never fight the same wars our mentors fought,” Miller said.

The responsibilities that come with leadership, however, remain unchanged.

“We’ll face the same responsibility of making difficult decisions under pressure,” Miller said. “The technology will be different. The burden of leadership won’t be.”

The president’s aircraft, referred to as the VC-25B Bridge, is undergoing its final “government modifications,” an Air Force spokesperson told Military Times on Wednesday.

A photograph of the aircraft sporting its new paint job circulated on social media this week. It was taken by aviation photographer Travis Ghormley on Saturday and posted the following day.

pic.twitter.com/LAk8IqnLlR

— TGhormley Photography (@SkunkChaser25) June 7, 2026

The controversial gift from Qatar was donated in May 2025 after President Donald Trump aired his dissatisfaction over Boeing’s delays to deliver two new VC-25B aircraft. The replacement of the current Air Force One was originally slated for 2024, but now it is expected in 2028.

The Air Force provided an update on the Bridge aircraft at the beginning of May, saying it completed flight testing and is on track for a summer delivery to the Presidential Airlift Group. The service did not specify when the president will begin flying in the aircraft.

The spokesperson declined Wednesday to comment on what final modifications are being made to the aircraft.

To make the plane suitable for a president, the plane would require a reinforced defense with countermeasures, encrypted communications and other capabilities installed.

Currently, the president is flying in a version of the Boeing 747 aircraft, the VC-25A.

“The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” U.S. Central Command said on X.

Trump earlier said the two U.S. pilots involved in the incident were uninjured but that the United States would respond to the attack.

The Apache was brought down by a one-way Iranian attack drone, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi did not directly address the incident, but said foreign forces in the region risked being involved in accidents or crossfire.

“To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave,” he said on social media.

Iran’s state media later cited a military source as saying that no offensive air military operations have been conducted in the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours.

The source was also quoted as saying that there would be a decisive response in the event of renewed “hostility by the enemy” in response to the helicopter incident.

Trump told The Wall Street Journal during a phone call on Tuesday that the incident “wasn’t a big deal” and stressed that “the pilot is fine.”

However, the episode could well add further strain to efforts to broker a peace deal to end the wider Middle East war and reopen Hormuz, a vital conduit for petroleum and other commodities.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran and the United States are close to an agreement, though there have been few signs of progress since a tenuous ceasefire took effect in early April.

A U.S. Navy surface drone found and rescued the two crew, the U.S. military said, after the U.S. Army attack helicopter went down in waters near Oman’s coast while on patrol at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday.

U.S. Central Command gave no reason for the crash. It said the soldiers were rescued after two hours and said they were in stable condition — a more cautious assessment than Trump’s description.

As the Senate Armed Services Committee continues to work through its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2027, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said during a Tuesday hearing that America has a defense crisis, but Republicans and Democrats do not currently see eye to eye on the amount of funding required to mitigate the challenge.

During a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing about the Department of the Air Force’s budget request, Kennedy said that President Donald Trump’s request for a 42% increase will be difficult to deliver. Currently, Republicans are weighing the possibility of a 20% to 27% increase for the defense budget, even though the lawmakers have not settled on a final number yet.

The president’s fiscal 2027 defense budget request is a historic $1.5 trillion that includes an increase in funding for each service branch, with the Air Force recommended to receive a 33.6% rise in appropriations.

Kennedy claimed that Democratic senators have said privately that instead, they wish to spend additional money on welfare.

The senator did not refer to a specific welfare service to which Democrats wish to allot additional money. Services could include child welfare, housing assistance or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.

“Now they’re smart people, they know that we can’t do that, and we’re not going to do that,” Kennedy said during the hearing. “If nothing else, it would explode the deficit, and besides that, as they know, we don’t have a crisis in welfare like we have a crisis in defense.”

The Louisiana senator clarified that he is not against assisting the less fortunate but that he supports standing up to adversaries like China and North Korea.

“That tells me that the Democrats have no intention of helping us pass a budget, and I also predict, if I’m wrong, I will apologize, that my friend Senator [Chuck] Schumer is going to shut down government tight as Dick’s hatband first chance he gets before the midterms,” Kennedy said.

The government will be shut down eventually for a period of time until there is a continuing resolution, Kennedy asserted, saying that his Democratic “friends” want to “play politics” ahead of the midterms in November.

Military pay raises, changes to housing allowance included in House-passed $1.15 trillion defense budget

In response to how a shutdown without a reconciliation bill or continuing resolution would effect the Air Force, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said that it would significantly impact readiness.

“A lot of the investments we’ve just been talking about to meet the threats, from the unmanned vehicles as well as the increased readiness for weapon systems to increase that [F-35] readiness, as well as ammunition procurement, all that is substantially impacted if we stayed at $890 [billion] without a reconciliation or other mechanism,” Meink said at the hearing.

Meink was referring to the fiscal 2026 NDAA that authorized a budget of $890 billion for the Department of Defense, National Nuclear Security Agency and related agencies.

Kennedy said that he believes Meink should prepare for a possible shutdown.

“You’re going to hear a lot of happy talk from senators about how we need to spend more money on defense, but I think a lot of my colleagues have no intention of voting for a budget under any circumstances,” Kennedy said.

“They want [the] government to be shut down, and I think Senator Schumer is going to accommodate them,” he concluded.

During Trump’s second administration, there has been two government shutdowns, with a complete one lasting a record number of 43 days in 2025 and a partial shutdown of 76 days in 2026.

The House Armed Services Committee advanced its version of the fiscal 2027 NDAA last week. The measure includes a historic $1.15 trillion for the Defense Department after Democrats on the committee failed to reduce the amount authorized by $150 billion. The bill is expected to go to the full House for a vote in mid-July.

The Senate has not yet released its version to the public.

His famous Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — or OODA — Loop described the mental cycle by which combatants, from fighter pilots to generals, assess and react to a constantly changing situation.

Those with a faster OODA Loop could exploit opportunities while their befuddled opponents struggled to understand what was going on.

Germany crushed France in 1940 largely because of a sluggish French command system that was always one OODA step behind the swift panzer divisions. More recently, OODA might explain why tactically rigid Russian tank columns were decimated by outnumbered but agile Ukrainian troops in 2022.

Had the Soviets invaded Western Europe during the Cold War, NATO would have relied on OODA — plus airpower and more advanced weapons technology — to stop the Soviet steamroller.

To the troops watching waves of Soviet tanks roll into the Fulda Gap or the North German Plain, OODA would have been just a buzzword. But NATO needed every advantage it could get to compensate for superior Soviet numbers and firepower.

Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War, published by Matrix Games, is a computer wargame that depicts a hypothetical Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany in 1989.

But it is more than just another World War III wargame. Flashpoint Campaigns is the OODA Loop gamified. In fact, the game comes in two versions: the regular game for armchair generals, and a professional edition for real soldiers.

Flashpoint Campaigns is a 2-D map game, with NATO platoons and Warsaw Pact companies waging battalion- to division-sized battles. Set in the twilight of the Cold War, much of the hardware — such as Abrams and T-72 tanks, and Bradley and BMP infantry fighting vehicles — are still around today.

Players issue orders to their troops, such as movement, direct fire, calling in artillery and airstrikes, combat engineering operations and resupply. For example, a tank platoon can be ordered to head to a crossroads via a series of designated waypoints along the route.

Units can be given standard operating procedures, or SOPs, such as determining at what range to open fire, when to change firing position and when to retreat. Enemy units are usually invisible until spotted. With Late Cold War weapons so devastating, combat is deadly and proper concealment and reconnaissance a must.

After a player finishes issuing commands, they can hit the start button. A game clock then appears and a certain number of minutes elapse, during which units try to fulfill orders.

It all sounds like a straightforward process — until OODA intervenes.

Unlike many wargames, players in Flashpoint Campaigns can’t give orders to their troops at will. Instead, only at certain intervals does the game clock pause and allow commanders to issue fresh orders. This reflects the time it takes for the command system to collect information, analyze it, reach a decision and pass a new order to subordinates.

Like an object in motion in Newtonian physics, units will try to execute their last set of orders until new instructions arrive. That tank platoon heading down the road toward a village will keep going toward that village until told otherwise, even if the tactical situation has changed.

This is where NATO’s OODA advantage kicks in. The NATO player might have to wait, say, for 14 minutes of game time to elapse before issuing fresh orders. For the Soviets, the delay might be 23 minutes, or about 50% longer.

This means that NATO will have more opportunities to give new orders than the Soviets do. In turn, this means NATO troops can more quickly react to new threats such as enemy forces on their flank, or exploit discovery of a gap in the enemy’s lines.

It also means that NATO can be more flexible in its planning, rather than having to anticipate the tactical situation far in advance.

“We all know what happens when plans make contact with the enemy,” Robert Crandall, president of On Target Simulations, which designed Flashpoint Campaigns, told Military Times. “NATO spent considerable efforts to train for what happens after that contact and to respond faster than their counterparts. This could let them operate inside the Warsaw Pact command loop and outmaneuver them.”

But even NATO has OODA problems in the game. The presence of electronic warfare, in which the Soviets invested heavily, lengthens the interval before a player can give orders. Units engaged in combat will require 50% more time to react to new orders.

And commanders who send too many orders to their troops will receive an unpleasant surprise: too much radio traffic reveals the location as a headquarters, marking it for an artillery or airstrike.

Indeed, some U.S. Army experts today worry American command posts are so chatty that they will be targeted in wartime.

As battles progress in Flashpoints Campaigns, and units takes losses and headquarters are disrupted, command delays will inevitably lengthen for both sides.

Clausewitz’s “friction of war” will become an impediment, though a bit less so for NATO. Commanders on both sides will have to grit their teeth and accept that they can’t control their troops as they would like to.

Would NATO’s tighter OODA Loop have been enough to defeat the Soviets?

“One of the nicest compliments the game received came from a former Warsaw Pact officer who said he played the game using strict Warsaw Pact doctrine and won,” Crandall recalled.

“If the Warsaw Pact player has figured things out correctly, his initial plan will not have needed much, if any, adjustment and just rolls along at maximum speed. His opponent will be wrong-footed and at the mercy of the OODA Loop to react in time. With the fast-moving, hyper-lethal forces of 1989, good luck with that.”

In some ways, Flashpoint Campaigns is a memorial to another era.

The year 1989 was the twilight of 20th Century mechanized warfare. With the threat of drones paralyzing battlefield maneuver in the Ukraine War, discussing OODA’s influence on tactics seem almost quaint.

And yet, there is a reason why there is a global arms race today to develop smarter AI, quicker kill chains between sensors and weapons, and tightly networked forces that can act faster than the enemy.

Every year, the OODA Loop seems to tighten, with less margin to fall behind. As OODA reminds us, time is too precious a commodity to squander.

The Defense Innovation Unit announced in a LinkedIn post last month that the winners — Bravo Ordnance, Kela Technologies, Kraken Kinetics, Mountain Horse Solutions and Northrop Grumman — developed “cost-effective, mass-producible, and easily integrated lethal payloads for small drones.”

According to the program’s Industry Day presentation, military officials reviewed submissions from 17 vendors. Evaluators examined both the payloads themselves and how they interfaced with various Electronic Safe and Arm Devices, or ESADs, as well as their compatibility with drones being considered in the program’s broader competition.

Although the cash prize was just $10,000 — a modest sum compared to the scale of the Pentagon’s investment — the selected designs will be presented to companies participating in the program as “preferred munitions” for one-way attack drones.

Northrop Grumman’s winning design, dubbed the Common UAS Payload, was built to require “no redesigns” and is “ready to integrate and deploy immediately,” according to a statement from Tanya Santers, the company’s director of fuzes and warheads.

The company added that it has invested more than $2 billion over the past several years in technologies and manufacturing facilities to meet the program’s requirements and accelerate delivery timelines.

Unlike Northrop Grumman, which enters the competition with an established defense-industrial base and decades of experience producing munitions for the Pentagon, most of the other winners are relatively young companies hoping to capitalize on the military’s growing demand for drone warfare technology.

The Texas-based Bravo Ordnance launched in 2025 with $3.5 million in venture capital. The company bills itself as capable of creating custom warheads in “two weeks or less.”

Founder Devan Plantamura, a Navy and Army veteran, told GQ magazine that his experience working at military technology startups convinced him the industry focused too heavily on drone platforms and not enough on the weapons they carry.

Without a warhead, he said, an attack drone is “just a flying object.”

The Israeli defense startup Kela Technologies was founded in July 2024 following the Oct. 7 attack as a software company focused on helping Western militaries rapidly integrate commercial technology into existing military systems.

The company quickly attracted backing from Silicon Valley investors as well as IQT, the CIA’s investment arm.

In just two years, Kela has raised roughly $100 million, secured an additional $200 million in financing and earned a reported valuation of $1.2 billion.

Although software integration remains its primary business, Kela was also named a winner of the Lethality Prize. The company reportedly partnered with fellow Israeli defense firm Autonomous Guard, which specializes in border security technology, including drones.

The North Carolina-based Kraken Kinetics was founded in 2023 to manufacture warheads for drone combat. Since then, the company has heavily promoted its Terminus payload, a warhead designed for first-person-view attack drones.

Kraken has demonstrated the system with Army Rangers, Marines and other military units, emphasizing its ability to be quickly attached to commercial drone platforms through its ESAD.

The Colorado-based Mountain Horse Solutions is one of the older companies in the group. Founded in 2014, about a year after its parent company, Global Ordnance, the firm initially focused on personal protective equipment before expanding into military drones in 2025.

That year, Mountain Horse and its partner Rotron Aerospace secured a spot on the Defense Department’s Blue UAS list of approved drone systems.

For the Lethality Prize, Mountain Horse partnered with several other companies to develop a payload system designed to work with “any drone on the market.”

In a statement, Bill Allen, Mountain Horse’s president, called the challenge “exactly the kind of problem set we are built for — delivering adaptable, scalable lethal solutions that keep pace with the lightning-fast evolution of drone warfare.”

The Defense Department launched the Drone Dominance program in July 2025 and in December of that year, revealed a three-phase effort to acquire roughly 300,000 drones by 2028.

For the first phase, the Pentagon invited 26 companies to demonstrate their systems. In the second and current phase, military officials are evaluating 79 drones from 49 companies for both long-range and close-quarters missions.

Over the remaining phases, the Pentagon plans to narrow the field to a select group of vendors. According to Pentagon officials, the goal is to reduce the average cost of a military drone from roughly $5,000 to $2,300.

The third phase of the Drone Dominance program is set to begin around November 2026, with final testing six months after that.

Two U.S. Army soldiers were brought to safety by a drone on Monday after their AH-64 Apache helicopter went down near the coast of Oman, in what may mark the services’ first unmanned vessel rescue.

“The surface drone that assisted in last night’s rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59,” Capt. Tim Hawkins, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday.

”The Task Force began fielding these drones in theater in late March,” he said.

The crew was rescued by American forces within two hours, at 7:33 p.m. Eastern Time, according to a separate release. Both service members are in stable condition.

The helicopter was “patrolling regional waters,” according to the command, and the cause of the incident is under investigation.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that Iran downed the helicopter while it flew over the Strait of Hormuz.

“The United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” Trump said in an afternoon post on Truth Social.

U.S. Navy assets from Naval Forces Central Command, including Task Force 59, and the 82nd Airborne Division led the rescue, with assistance from the Air Force.

Task Force 59 is the Navy’s Bahrain-based unit, responsible for integrating artificial intelligence and unmanned systems into maritime operations in the U.S.’s Fifth Fleet Area of Operations, which includes the Strait of Hormuz.

The Corsair is a 24-foot vessel that is capable of carrying more than 1,000 pounds over 1,000 nautical miles, according to Saronic, its manufacturer.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday arrested former U.S. Navy Seaman Bareen Dzayee, 25, along with Bisaam Ghafoor, 21, and Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, for allegedly providing over $2,000 to an individual they believed to be an ISIS member.

The trio reportedly believed their money would sanction the purchase of rocket-propelled grenades and drones that would be used to murder U.S. service members.

“Over years, the individuals communicated about several plans to support ISIS, including through the provision of personnel, services and money,” a criminal complaint read. “Through chats, voice calls and multiple messaging platforms, these conspirators pledged allegiance or ‘Bayat’ to ISIS and its leader.”

Dzayee enlisted in the Navy in 2021 and served aboard the USS John McCain from March 25, 2022, to July 19, 2024, when he separated from the service.

Between March 2025 and January 2026, the FBI identified all three suspects as ISIS sympathizers after alarming social media posts.

The posts pledged allegiance to the terrorist organization, promoted violence and discussed weapons and explosives in support of ISIS operations.

A confidential FBI source the suspects believed to be an active ISIS member reached out to Ghafoor and Shamsaldeen in May 2025 and joined a social media group chat in which Shamsaldeen specifically stated his desire to injure U.S. service members, travel overseas to fight for ISIS and “take action” to make his fantasies of violence come true.

Ghafoor, Dzayee and Shamsaldee paid money between March and May of this year to the confidential FBI source. At one point, Ghafoor said it would be “sick” if the contact — who was the FBI agent — wrote Ghafoor’s name on one of the drones.

During the process of sending money to the FBI source, Ghafoor acknowledged that doing so would be treason but stated that he wanted to continue with the transaction, according to the Justice Department.

He also reportedly told the confidential source that he had fantasized about killing a female soldier by beheading and wanted to kill 300,000 Americans.

“For years, the Department of Justice has been encouraging Americans that if they see suspicious activity, they should report it to law enforcement,” U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser for the District of Kansas said in a DoJ release. “That’s because long gone are the days where terrorist threats and attacks are incidents that only take place far away on foreign soil.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a close ally of President Donald Trump, says he raised the issue directly with the president, arguing that the government should not be involved in adjudicating doctrinal disputes among faith traditions.

Two more Republicans from Utah — Sen. John Curtis and Rep. Mike Kennedy — also urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to amend the list for the same reason.

The Pentagon subsequently announced on Monday that it had removed “unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed.”

The new “Religious Affiliation Codes” no longer features the subheading gathering together Christian denominations, thus sidestepping the contentious issue of whether to include or exclude Mormonism.

Instead, it provides a long list of uncategorized options, including the previous Christian denominations; the Church of Latter-day Saints; other major religions like Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism; and classifications of Agnostic, “no religion,” and “other religions.”

According to a May 20 memorandum signed by Under Secretary of Defense Anthony Tata, the list will provide chaplains with “clear, readily available information” to better anticipate the religious needs of service members and to deliver religious support consistent with their faith and practices.

Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, described the original shift as “long overdue,” saying that the consolidation is intended to improve administrative efficiency rather than elevate certain religions over others.

“This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” Parnell said in a statement on Friday. “Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups.”

Troops will not be restricted, however, in what information they choose to include on their dog tags.

When previewing the new policy in March, Hegseth said that the rank insignia worn by military chaplains on their uniforms is set to be replaced with religious insignia. He emphasized chaplains are “first and foremost called and ordained by God,” and, while they will retain rank as an officer to those they serve, their rank will not be visible.

The changes are expected to take effect by mid-July.

The Palau-flagged M/T Marivex, which was reportedly traveling without cargo, was transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman when its crew failed to respond to directions from U.S. forces in the region.

A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln responded by firing a precision munition into the Marivex‘s engineering and steering spaces.

“Marivex is no longer sailing to Iran,” a release from U.S. Central Command stated.

To date, U.S. forces carrying out the naval blockade — launched April 13 — in waters around Iran have disabled seven non-compliant ships, according to the command release.

Well over 100 vessels have complied and been redirected, while 42 ships transiting the area with humanitarian aid have been permitted to pass.

The United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, part of the House’s version of the fiscal 2027 defense policy bill, would codify and increase military technical cooperation between the U.S. defense industry and Israel’s, as well as create a technical liaison position within the Pentagon to support the effort.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the measure as part of its National Defense Authorization Act after a marathon debate on hundreds of amendments.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced an amendment to strike down the proposal, but it found very little support from his colleagues.

“We need to tell [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that America calls the shots, not the prime minister of any other country,” Khanna said during his introduction of the amendment. “[Americans] want less cooperation and blank checks to Israel, not more. Only the United States Congress would dream up at this moment, ‘Let’s actually do more for Israel,’ not less.”

Eight committee members, including fellow Democrats, spoke against Khanna’s effort to quash the measure. The amendment was ultimately defeated.

The proposal “actually improves oversight and accountability for these programs by designating a single official responsible,” said committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala. “Claims that this provision somehow cedes authority to a foreign government are ridiculous.”

Lawmakers quarrel over effort to boost defense tech integration between US and Israel

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking Democrat on the committee, conceded that he understood some of the concerns Khanna outlined in his amendment, particularly regarding Netanyahu’s leadership in Israel and his multi-front war.

“We have endless wars, now, in Gaza, in the West Bank [...], in Lebanon,” Smith said. “No effort to negotiate, no effort to find partners for peace amongst the Palestinians or the Lebanese, even where there are opportunities to do so.”

But the measure puts existing programs under streamlined supervision, Smith argued. He and other committee members touted the benefits of Israeli technology for U.S. weapons systems.

The cooperation initiative “comes at a very bad time because of everything I’ve just said about Israel, but let’s not forget” what it actually does, Smith said.

Michael Hanna, director of the U.S. program at International Crisis Group, told Military Times the addition of the U.S.-Israel cooperation initiative “tells us something important about the broader climate.”

Further integrating U.S.-Israeli military cooperation differs from the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, process that has dictated military aid to Israel historically, he said.

“It’s hard to imagine there will be another MOU after [the next] one,” Hanna said. The current MOU expires in 2028, and while Hanna said a shorter agreement could follow, it’s clear that the U.S.-Israel relationship is changing.

“The Israelis understand that and are trying to get ahead of that” by moving from an aid model to one of co-production and procurement, he said.

One committee member spoke in support of Khanna’s amendment. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., argued the cooperation initiative “entrenched” the U.S. and Israeli militaries “with no strings attached.”

“A clear majority of Americans already oppose sending more military aid to Israel,” Jacobs said. “They will not support this, and neither should we.”

A majority of Americans now hold negative views of Netanyahu and Israel, according to polling from the Pew Research Center. By August of last year, 60% of Americans disapproved of sending the country additional military aid, per a Quinnipiac poll.

The House’s version of the NDAA is expected to go to the floor for a vote in mid-July. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., pledged to introduce another effort at that time to strike the section about U.S.-Israeli cooperation.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the provisions as part of its fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, which the panel passed 44-12 late Thursday after a marathon markup that stretched past midnight.

The measures, offered by Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz., were adopted in a tactical air and land forces en bloc package.

One measure directs the Air Force to maintain enough training, depot maintenance, spare parts and contractor support to keep the A-10 fleet mission-ready through 2030, including combat search and rescue. The service ended its A-10 depot maintenance at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, in February, though the amendment’s “as necessary” language means the Air Force may simply deem reopening the depot line unnecessary.

The bill also blocks the Air Force from moving the A-10’s formal training unit without first submitting a cost-benefit analysis to Congress and waiting 90 days. The 357th Fighter Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, the service’s only A-10 pilot training unit, graduated its last class in April and is on track to inactivate by the end of the fiscal year.

A separate provision would create a program under the Air Force Historical Research Agency to capture A-10 oral histories and technical records, including from pilots, maintainers and joint terminal attack controllers, before the fleet is gone.

The package also addresses what comes next in a world without Warthogs.

Another Hamadeh measure directs the Air Force to develop a plan for “competitive experimentation, prototyping, and operational assessment of autonomous, semi-autonomous, artificial intelligence-enabled, and adjunct aircraft capabilities” tied to the A-10 mission set. The plan would make a limited number of A-10s available for research and development, with nontraditional and venture-backed defense firms given the opportunity to participate.

The amendment ensures that humans remain in the loop. Experiments must run in a way “consistent with meaningful human command and control, by a qualified military aviator,” over functions including target engagement, weapons release and mission abort.

The Air Force has not identified a direct replacement for the A-10. The service sees its Collaborative Combat Aircraft as wingmen for crewed fighters like the F-35 but has no program for an uncrewed attack jet, leaving no clear successor in the pipeline.

Another Hamadeh provision requires a report on the Warthog’s combat record from Operation Desert Storm through Operation Epic Fury, including its recent role supporting the recovery of downed aircrew in Iran and operations in the Strait of Hormuz.

A separate amendment from Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., directs the Pentagon to evaluate transferring retired A-10s to another military service, such as the Army or Marines.

None of the measures block the jet’s planned retirement from service. The Air Force has pushed for years to divest the Warthog over survivability concerns, and the bill keeps that path open as long as the service preserves the specialized mission expertise associated with the aircraft and its crews and fills the readiness gaps left in its wake.

The bill now heads to the House floor.

On ships and bases in the Middle East, U.S. troops — some recovering from injuries — operate amid exchanges of fire with Iran every few days as the Navy blockades Iran’s ports.

At home, the Pentagon is scrambling to bolster production of depleted munitions as families of service members cope with the stress of extended deployments.

Counterattacks from Iran continue against U.S. allies in the region, such as Bahrain and Kuwait, which Iran targeted in a ballistic missile attack on Friday.

Trump declared his ceasefire with Iran in April, but the war has settled into a stalemate, with Iran keeping the Strait of Hormuz largely closed to shipping and Trump threatening a return to full-scale bombings of Iran if peace negotiations fail.

The threat requires U.S. troops to maintain an acute state of readiness.

That means everything from stocking bases with missiles and interceptors to scouring intelligence from drones and satellites to updating lists of targets inside Iran should large-scale fighting resume.

“To maintain this constant state of ‘Level 10’ alert vigilance, to be ready to go at the drop of a hat, is a very stressful and difficult operational mission,” said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Joseph Votel, the former commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, described the current conflict phase as “a very, very dangerous period for us.”

He said keeping troops ready during the ceasefire is no small challenge.

“It puts on a lot of pressure on leaders to make sure that people are still at their edge,” Votel said.

Asked for comment, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the U.S. military stands ready to support deployed troops “in every way imaginable.”

“The Department of War is proud of our incredible troops. Their courage, readiness, grit, and unmatched professionalism are why they are the greatest fighting force in human history,” Parnell said.

TOLL ON TROOPS AND FAMILIES

For U.S. troops recovering from injuries, the military’s shift to an extended wartime footing requires a profound adjustment.

U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Cory Hicks, 37, is among the wounded recovering from an Iranian drone attack at the start of the war that left him without a pulse for minutes.

Punctured by shrapnel that severed an artery and fractured his jaw, Hicks is also wrestling with the impact of a traumatic brain injury from the blast that could challenge him for life.

“It sounded like a small prop plane coming in quick,” Hicks told Reuters. “And then it just smashed into the building and blew up. And I remember a big bright ball of flames and lots of pressure and heat, and I was out.”

Hicks is not the only one adapting to a new normal. Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, where he is being treated, is coping with a new surge in combat care cases years after the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Hicks said.

Around 400 U.S. troops have been wounded during the conflict, many of them with a traumatic brain injury like Hicks. Over 90% have returned to duty, the U.S. military says. Thirteen service members have been killed in the conflict.

Families of U.S. service members also confront stress amid confusion about what is happening during the ceasefire.

Iranian state media publishes claims regularly about attacking U.S. ships and aircraft. On Friday, Iran said it fired warning shots at U.S. warships in the Gulf of Oman, an event the U.S. military denies happened.

“It’s just really scary not to know details of what exactly is going on,” said Yadira Dessaint, mother of a sergeant in the Army Reserve from California’s San Fernando Valley.

Dessaint asked not to identify her son for fear of retaliation by the U.S. military. She has protested for an end to the war, which has damaged Trump’s popularity.

Just one in four respondents in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll ​said the U.S. military action in Iran has been worth it.

Dessaint said her son has seen multiple attacks on his position by Iranian drones, their debris falling around him after being intercepted by air defenses.

“I tend to send a text every day: ‘Good morning, son. I love you,’” Dessaint said. “Every so often, I get ‘I love you mom’ or ‘I miss you’ or something.”

PERSISTENT THREAT

As the United States and Iran negotiate a potential deal to open the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil transited before the war, it looks increasingly likely that any agreement would extend the ceasefire while delaying some of the thorniest issues, such as Tehran’s nuclear program.

That suggests the tense standoff and the demands on the U.S. military will continue.

The signs of strain on military operations are visible in the huge expenditure of munitions for the war. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it could take years to fully replenish U.S. inventories of missiles and interceptors.

Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., said it is not just inventories that are eroding.

“Wars are expensive. They grind on the equipment and the people, as well as the missiles that are shot,” Karako said.

Back in Maryland, Hicks stays in touch with fellow U.S. soldiers in the Middle East, some frustrated by deployments that are being extended as the conflict drags on.

“They’re doing a lot better now than they were. The threat is not as bad,” he said, referring to the reduced scale of fighting.

But Hicks carries the memory of six fellow soldiers who died in the Kuwait attack that injured him, including Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39.

“I was talking to Sgt. Amor when the drone hit. She was maybe 10 feet away from me,” he said. “It’s something that I’m going to have to deal with the rest of my life.”

Caine held bilateral discussions with senior leaders of the interim government and with U.S. embassy personnel. During those meetings, he underscored the importance of Venezuelan stability, broader security across the Western Hemisphere and the military’s commitment to implementing Trump’s “three-phase plan,” Joe Holstead, a spokesman for Caine, said in a statement.

The plan focuses on avoiding chaos, bolstering an economic recovery and — eventually — facilitating a transition to democracy.

A key pillar of the effort has been restoring Venezuela’s oil industry, which Trump previously characterized as a “total bust.”

All of that changed with Operation Absolute Resolve. The sprawling military raid — which involved more than 150 aircraft — culminated in Delta Force commandos descending on a heavily fortified compound and capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The pair were later flown to New York, where they each face criminal charges.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, continues to maintain a robust presence in the region, with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group sailing into the Caribbean in May.

Since September, the Pentagon has carried out at least 62 strikes in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people whom the Trump administration says were involved in drug trafficking, according to data compiled by Military Times. Many legal experts dispute the legality of those operations.

After a spirited 30-minute debate late Thursday evening, members of the House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment offered by Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., to change the names in a narrow 29-27 vote.

In offering her amendment, Strickland said it was necessary because the Trump administration ignored Congress by changing the new names, choosing to honor, instead, different service members with the same last names as the Confederate officers for which the bases originally were named.

Strickland said while the current names honor military personnel in their own right — for example, Fort Lee in Virginia is now named for Fitz Lee, a Buffalo soldier who earned the Medal of Honor — the administration’s changes sidestepped the law and were hurtful to many military personnel and veterans for reviving Confederate legacies.

“They used the same stunt the commission considered and rejected, finding new service members that share the same last name as the Confederate traitors,” Strickland said.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who voted for the amendment, said his Virginia ancestor fought for the Union and would be “rolling in his grave” knowing U.S. military bases were named for Confederate leaders.

“I thought we did it right in 2020 — we debated it, it was a strong debate here. It passed in the House, a Democrat majority, and it passed in the Senate, Republican majority,“ Bacon said. ”The president vetoed it, and we overrode the veto. We did it right, and what happens is the secretary comes in here, puts his thumb in our eye … it should bother all of us.”

Lawmakers opposed to the change said the longstanding names have widespread and international recognition and mean much to the troops who have served on the bases, even as they may not know much about the installation’s namesakes.

“To judge historical figures by the morality of our time is taking certain things out of context … I just heard we can’t honor our forefathers who enslaved other people. Are we going to rename this city? Where does it end?” asked Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas.

“I think Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Trump have struck a reasonable balance. Our history should be taught, not erased, the good and bad,” agreed Rep. John McGuire, R-Va.

Under Strickland’s amendment, the Naming Commission’s recommendations would be reinstated: Fort A.P. Hill would become Fort Walker; Fort Bragg would become Fort Liberty; Fort Benning would become Fort Moore; Fort Hood would become Fort Cavazos; Fort Lee would become Fort Gregg-Adams; Fort Polk would become Fort Johnson; Fort Rucker would be Fort Novosel; and Fort Pickett would be Fort Barfoot.

Fort Gordon also would become Fort Shughart-Gordon. The installation, once named for Confederate Maj. General John Brown Gordon, was changed last year to honor Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, a Medal of Honor recipient for his heroism in the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia.

Strickland said she worked with Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., to add the name Sgt. First Class Randall Shughart, who also earned the Medal of Honor in that battle.

Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., joined with Bacon and committee Democrats to overturn the names.

Codifying the ‘Department of War’

The panel also voted to change the name of the Defense Department to the Department of War. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, introduced the amendment, saying that the change sends an “unmistakable signal” that “America is willing to fight and win to secure its interests.”

“This name reflects the determination and resolve of our brave men and women of the U.S. military who aggressively fight to secure our national interests,” Jackson said. “Our military does much more than defend the homeland.”

The War Department was established by legislation signed by President George Washington in 1789, and it remained so until 1947, when President Harry Truman sought to consolidate the services under a single Cabinet-level command structure.

Truman recommended that Congress pass legislation creating a Department of National Defense, which became the Defense Department.

Pentagon asks Congress to codify ‘Department of War,’ estimates $52 million cost

Trump issued an executive order Sept. 5, 2025, to restore the name Department of War, a secondary title to the Defense Department. The department has been using the moniker but requires legislation to permanently change the name.

Smith said the name change would have very little impact on adversaries.

“Practically speaking, it makes no frickin’ difference whatsoever. We have a lot of important work to do … and we are arguing over a name. It’s incredibly expensive to change that name,” Smith said.

Earlier in the day, the panel also voted unanimously by voice vote to ban hate symbols like swastikas, nooses and other graphics across the department, to include tattoos, uniforms, patches, personal equipment and government property.

The amendment requires the secretary to establish standards for identifying and addressing prohibited symbols and procedural review for removal.

Coast Guard clarifies hate symbol policy

The proposal is related to a policy change last year by the Coast Guard, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, that classified the Nazi insignia as “potentially divisive” rather than a hate symbol.

Coast Guard officials said the policy change was misunderstood, and it was designed to clarify — not downgrade — its stand on extremist symbols.

“This is not an updated policy but a new policy to combat any misinformation and double down that the U.S. Coast Guard forbids these symbols,” officials wrote in a statement.

The measure, which has bipartisan support, was added as an amendment to the House version of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, a massive defense funding and policy bill. After more than 14 hours of debate, the committee sent the bill to the full House, where it’s expected to go to the floor for a vote in July.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., introduced the amendment. Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran, previously grilled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the cost of the war. During an April 29 hearing, Moulton guessed the cost could reach $100 billion, or about $600 per U.S. taxpayer, he said.

“For the American taxpayers out there, I’m just wondering if they have an extra 600 bucks lying around to pay for your war,” Moulton said. “That’s a question we ought to ask.”

The measure requires the defense secretary to provide the House and Senate armed services committees with an unclassified assessment of the total cost of the operations by April 1, 2027. The U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran began Feb. 28.

In addition to the costs of damaged or destroyed equipment and property, expended munitions and deployments, the report would include the cost of an ongoing U.S. Navy blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, the proposal says.

Pentagon officials estimated May 12 that the total cost of the Iran war had reached $29 billion, up from $25 billion on April 29. Jules Hurst III, the Defense Department’s acting comptroller, relayed the figures to lawmakers during back-to-back budget hearings on Capitol Hill.

Hurst emphasized that the projections did not include expenditures for repairing damaged military installations in the region.

A Congressional Research Service report released May 13 tallied 42 U.S. aircraft lost or damaged during the war, with drones accounting for 25 of the 42 losses.

The Pentagon has not publicly disclosed the scale of munitions expended before a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran took effect April 7, citing operational security. A May 27 analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, however, found that more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles had been launched during the U.S. strikes on Iran and 290 THAAD interceptors were used.

In addition to providing the cost assessment to the armed services committees, the measure mandates the Defense Department make it publicly available on its website.