The A-10 pilot was subsequently rescued, two U.S. officials told The New York Times.

Iranian state media stated the A-10 was targeted in southern waters near the strait.

Reports of the A-10 going down Friday followed confirmation that a U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle had been shot down by enemy fire.

One of two F-15E crew members had reportedly been rescued as of Friday afternoon. A search for the second crew member was ongoing.

Search-and-rescue efforts were launched in the immediate aftermath of the fighter jet crash, with videos circulating on social media appearing to show a low-flying U.S. Air Force HC-130 refueling a pair of HH-60G Pave Hawks over Iran.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday told Military Times “the president has been briefed” on the downed U.S. F-15E fighter jet.

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command have not yet responded to requests for comment.

Iranian state media on Friday shared images of aircraft debris alongside claims that Iran had downed a U.S. F-35 fighter jet.

However, images of the aircraft’s tailfin, specifically the red stripe on its vertical stabilizer, are consistent with markings used by the 494th Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lakenheath.

Iran also shared an image of an Advanced Concept Ejection Seat allegedly from the shot down F-15E.

The shoot-down of the F-15E marks the first time during Operation Epic Fury that a manned U.S. aircraft has been brought down by enemy fire.

A U.S. F-35 fighter jet was reportedly hit by enemy fire during a combat mission over Iran on March 19, but was able to make an emergency landing at a U.S. air base in the region.

Six U.S. airmen were killed on March 12 when their KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq during combat operations.

On March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down by a Kuwaiti F/A-18 in a friendly fire incident. All six F-15 crew members ejected and were safely recovered.

The A-10, meanwhile, has seen an increased role since the start of the Iran war. The attack aircraft has joined maritime interdiction operations, among other missions, along the southern edges of the conflict, targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fast-attack watercraft in the Strait of Hormuz, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said last month.

Military Times reporter Michael Scanlon contributed to this report.

Personnel in Space Launch Delta 45, located at Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, aided the Artemis II mission even before the launch began, according to a Thursday Space Force release, by analyzing payloads, launch vehicles and their trajectories to cross-match them with “hazard zones.”

The zones, which include land, sea and air, are required to guarantee that no person or vehicle is within a certain distance from the pad, per the release. To ensure a safe launch, the hazardous zones were identified through hours of trajectory and debris analysis and included cross-agency coordination, Emma Cusano, SLD 45 flight safety analyst and aerospace engineer, said in the statement.

Ahead of the launch, SLD’s Office of Emergency Management also worked with state and local leaders to create emergency response plans in case of an anomaly. The office examined the hazard zones and decided on where roadblocks should be placed, how traffic should flow and where emergency response vehicles would be stationed, according to the statement.

“We are committed to doing everything we can in the planning phase to ensure we are ready to execute our emergency response plans,” Air Force Master Sgt. Robert Ridgway, SLD 45 installation emergency manager, said in the release.

“Having effective plans in place is necessary for both ensuring the safety of the local community and the astronauts in the capsule,” Ridgway continued.

The launch emergency operations center was created and overseen by SLD’s Office of Emergency Management, and it was tasked with surveying and potentially responding to any dangers a launch could pose to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and its community, the statement reads.

The center stayed staffed during the April 1 launch to disseminate emergency information and directions because of the “inherently volatile nature of spaceflight,” per the statement.

The SLD 45’s 1st Range Operations Squadron and the 45th Weather Squadron supported getting launch vehicles from the pad into orbit by providing analysis of telemetry data and weather and continuously monitoring conditions that could impact the safety of the launch.

On top of that, the 45th Logistics Readiness Squadron gave airfield support to coordinate the Air Force Detachment 3’s human spaceflight recovery team, which oversees rescue forces at the Space Force base.

“Access to space would not be possible without the contributions of SLD 45 and its oversight of the Eastern Range,” Space Force Col. Joyce Bulson, SLD 45 deputy commander for operations, said in the statement. “These contributions enabled more than 100 launches in 2025, and we aim to only increase the pace.”

At a velocity of about 3,700 miles per hour, Orion, the spacecraft in the Artemis II mission, and the four astronauts inside are approximately 150,000 miles away from the moon and 100,000 miles from Earth as of Friday afternoon, according to NASA’s mission tracker.

The Department of the Air Force updated its SkillBridge programs to further “balance operational readiness and transition assistance to Airmen and Guardians,” according to a Thursday release.

SkillBridge is a Department of Defense program that pairs service members with 180 days or less left in service before their discharge with civilian industry partners for training, apprenticeships or internships.

Based on the service member’s rank, the new policy inputs the length of program participation into categories that include which commander levels are able to approve applications, per the release.

“These policy refinements balance the need for units to maintain operational readiness, while also ensuring eligible Airmen and Guardians can access opportunities aimed to support their transition to the civilian workforce,” the release says.

The previous policy allowed a 180-day window for service members to participate in the program, but now airmen and guardians have limited maximum participation that matches their rank, the statement reads.

For airmen, the program is split into three categories. The first category is for ranks E-1 to E-5 and O-1 to O-3 and allows for a maximum of 120 days participating in the program, and the approval must come from a 1st field grade commander.

The ranks in the second category are E-6 to E-7, WO to CWO-3 and O-4, with a maximum of 90 days and approval coming from 1st O-6 commander. The third category for E-8 to E-9, CWO-4 to CWO-5 and O-5 ranks is also for 90 days and needs a 1st O-6 commander’s approval.

Guardians eligible for the program will be structured in four categories, the release says. The first includes ranks E-1 to E-5, set for 120 days of maximum participation and the approval authority given to 1st field grade commander.

The second and third category lists E-6 to E-8 and O-1 to O-4, respectively, for 120 days and approval needed from 1st O-6 commander for both. The fourth and final category is for E-9, O-5 and above ranks and allows for 90 days max and approval coming from 1st general officer in chain of command.

The new policy for airmen and guardians took effect March 31, but those who received approval prior to that date will continue their SkillBridge participation under the previous standards.

One of two U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle crew members shot down by enemy fire in Iran has been rescued, Israeli media first reported. U.S. officials confirmed the reports in statements to CBS News, Axios and Reuters.

A search for the second crew member is ongoing.

A multi-aircraft search-and-rescue effort for survivors was launched on Friday in the immediate aftermath of the engagement, with videos circulating on social media appearing to show a low-flying U.S. Air Force HC-130 refueling a pair of HH-60G Pave Hawks over Iran.

Israel’s N12 News first reported the rescue of the one crew member.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday told Military Times “the president has been briefed” on the downed U.S. F-15E fighter jet.

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Iranian state media on Friday shared images of aircraft debris alongside claims that Iran had downed a U.S. F-35 fighter jet.

However, images of the aircraft’s tailfin, specifically the red stripe on its vertical stabilizer, are consistent with markings used by the 494th Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lakenheath.

Iran also shared an image of an Advanced Concept Ejection Seat allegedly from the shot down F-15E.

The shoot-down of the F-15E marks the first time during Operation Epic Fury that a manned U.S. aircraft has been brought down by enemy fire.

A U.S. F-35 fighter jet was reportedly hit by enemy fire during a combat mission over Iran on March 19, but was able to make an emergency landing at a U.S. air base in the region.

Six U.S. airmen were killed on March 12 when their KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq during combat operations.

On March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down by a Kuwaiti F/A-18 in a friendly fire incident. All six F-15 crew members ejected and were safely recovered.

A total of 13 U.S. service members have been killed during combat actions against Iran.

The 2027 budget request comes as the president faces risky choices abroad, with the administration sending U.S. service members to the Middle East, and a public at home feeling the economic crunch of skyrocketing gas prices due to the conflict.

The request ultimately requires approval by Congress, where disagreement over Trump’s spending decisions recently led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The president’s budget also reflects the administration’s political priorities ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in November, when Trump’s Republicans hope to maintain their small majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

The huge proposed surge in defense spending to $1.5 trillion, up from about $1 trillion in 2026, includes a 5-7% pay raise for military personnel at a time when thousands of service members are actively deployed.

The defense request will please defense hawks on Capitol Hill, but also highlights how Trump is trying to pay for his doubling-down on military pursuits, even after Republicans boosted defense spending last year in party-line legislation.

The Pentagon already requested $200 billion in extra funding to pay for the Iran war, but the White House has not yet officially made that request to Congress, where it is also likely to face scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties.

Other specific funding increases proposed by Trump include his controversial Golden Dome missile defense shield, money to build up critical mineral supplies for the defense industry and $65.8 billion to build 34 new combat and support ships.

Funds for shipbuilding, a priority for Trump since his first term, include initial funding for the so-called Trump-class battleship as well as submarines.

It is unclear how this new spending would impact the U.S. budget deficit because the projections were not included by the White House. The deficit is expected to grow slightly in fiscal 2026 to $1.853 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill often treat White House budget requests as suggestive, as appropriators try to negotiate behind the scenes to maintain their own legislative priorities. But Trump’s latest budget will likely add to the ongoing tension with congressional Democrats over funding federal programs that they see as important — and plan to campaign to protect — as the president seeks to cut federal programs.

“Savings are achieved by reducing or eliminating woke, weaponized, and wasteful programs, and by returning state and local responsibilities to their respective governments,” the White House said in a budget fact sheet.

A United States F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet has been shot down by enemy fire over Iran, U.S. officials confirmed.

One of the aircraft’s two crew members has been rescued, Israeli media first reported. U.S. officials confirmed the reports in statements to CBS News and Axios.

A search for the second crew member is ongoing.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Military Times “the president has been briefed” on the downed fighter jet.

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Officials in Iran, meanwhile, called for the search and capture of any surviving crew members of the jet, according to reports by the semi-official ISNA news agency and the Young Journalists Club.

The governor of one of the Islamic Republic’s provinces stated that anyone who captures or kills the crew would receive a special commendation.

Video circulating on social media appeared to show a low-flying U.S. Air Force HC-130 refueling a pair of HH-60G Pave Hawks over Iran while conducting a search for the downed crew.

Iranian state media on Friday shared images of aircraft debris alongside claims that Iran had downed a U.S. F-35 fighter jet.

However, images of the aircraft’s tailfin, specifically the red stripe on its vertical stabilizer, are consistent with markings used by the 494th Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lakenheath.

Iran also shared an image of an Advanced Concept Ejection Seat allegedly from the shot down F-15E.

The search-and-rescue effort inside Iran during an ongoing conflict greatly raises the stakes for the United States.

U.S. Central Command on Tuesday issued a statement denying claims that “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps downed an ‘enemy’ fighter jet over Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.”

“All U.S. fighter aircraft are accounted for,” the CENTCOM statement read. “Iran’s IRGC has made the same false claim at least half a dozen times.”

The location of the downed jet has not yet been confirmed.

The shoot-down marks the first time during Operation Epic Fury that a manned U.S. aircraft has been brought down by enemy fire.

A U.S. F-35 fighter jet was reportedly hit by enemy fire during a combat mission over Iran on March 19, but was able to make an emergency landing at a U.S. air base in the region.

Six U.S. airmen were killed on March 12 when their KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq during combat operations.

On March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down by a Kuwaiti F/A-18 in a friendly fire incident. All six F-15 crew members ejected and were safely recovered.

A total of 13 U.S. service members have been killed during combat actions against Iran.

As of March 31, 348 U.S. personnel have been wounded, Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, U.S. Central Command spokesperson, told DefenseScoop. Of those injured, the majority have since returned to duty. Six remain seriously wounded.

Reuters contributed to this report.

“The War Department’s uniformed service members are trained at the highest and unwavering standards. These warfighters — entrusted with the safety of our nation — are no less entitled to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms than any other American,” Hegseth announced in a video posted to social media.

The memorandum instructed installation commanders to consider requests with a “presumption of approval,” reversing what Hegseth described as a system that made it “virtually impossible for troops to carry or store personal firearms in accordance with state laws, the Pentagon said in a statement on Thursday.

The policy builds on existing authority under the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon said, and the new guidance directs Pentagon officials to update regulations to formalize the process for approvals.

Hegseth framed the move as a constitutional issue and in response to recent active-shooter situations on military installations. He specifically cited a 2019 attack at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, where three people were killed and eight others injured; a 2025 shooting that wounded five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia; and a 2026 shooting at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico that killed one person and injured another.

In emergencies like those, he said, “minutes are a lifetime, and our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.”

The directive also applies to personnel working at the Pentagon, where the Pentagon Force Protection Agency must adopt the same presumption of approval. However, the policy does not allow personal to carry inside the building itself, instead permitting storage of the firearms in vehicles on Pentagon grounds.

The abrupt move, one of three significant changes made by Hegseth the same day, cuts short George’s tenure, which began in September 2023, well before the end of the typical four-year term.

The Pentagon intends to replace him with a leader aligned with Hegseth and President Donald Trump’s vision for the Army, the official added. They did not specify what this vision entails.

George has more than four decades of military service, according to the Army. He was commissioned as an infantry officer from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1988 and served in the Gulf War, with subsequent deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that the current vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, will replace George on an interim basis.

Parnell asserted that LaNeve is “a battle-tested leader with decades of operational experience and is completely trusted by Secretary Hegseth to carry out the vision of this administration without fault.”

The Department of Defense said it “has nothing further to provide at the moment.”

Hegseth on Thursday also removed Gen. David Horne, a former Army Ranger who had been overseeing the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, the Army chief of chaplains, a Pentagon official confirmed to Military Times.

Since taking office, Hegseth has fired over a dozen generals and admirals, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

The latest shakeup coincides with the Pentagon’s deployment of thousands of troops from the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, as the war with Iran enters its fifth week.

The ouster was first reported by CBS News.

Trump said he viewed U.S. membership in the defense pact as not merely up for debate but “beyond reconsideration.” However, he cannot withdraw unilaterally; doing so would require a two-thirds Senate majority or an act of Congress. Neither option, senators say, is likely to materialize.

“Any President that contemplates attempting to withdraw from NATO is not only fulfilling Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s greatest dreams but would be undermining America’s own national security interests,” Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., co-chairs of the Senate NATO Observer Group, said in a statement.

“Let us be clear, Congress will not allow the United States to withdraw from NATO,” they continued. “Congress and the American people know we are stronger when we stand with our allies. This is a basic fact and one that we ignore only to our own detriment.”

The president’s ire at European allies stems from what he describes as lackluster backing for the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran. From the other side of the Atlantic, many governments attribute their reluctance to Trump’s failure to consult them before launching the operation — and to the perception that it was a war of choice.

Trump has repeatedly called on allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz — a critical waterway that typically carries a quarter of the world’s oil — which Iran has effectively blocked in retaliation for the war. NATO, so far, has demurred.

Trump has since dismissed the alliance as a “paper tiger,” but Shaheen and Tillis argue this is belied by NATO’s response after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Roughly 3,500 American and allied troops died over the subsequent 20-year war in Afghanistan.

Trump threatens to walk away from NATO

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senator Chris Coons, D-Del., also issued a joint statement on Wednesday underscoring NATO’s fight alongside American forces.

“The only time NATO has gone to war has been in response to an attack on America,” McConnell and Coons wrote. “The United States must not take this sacrifice — nor our allies’ commitment to make it again — lightly.“

The senators added: “Alliance disputes are as old as the alliance itself. Americans are safer when NATO is strong and united. It is in our interest for all allies to tend this unity with care.”

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that the tension between Trump and NATO, and the U.S. president’s constant “chatter,” could fundamentally weaken the alliance.

“Alliances like NATO are valued from the unspoken — meaning the trust behind them," Macron said during a state visit to South Korea. “If you create daily doubt about your commitment, you hollow it out.”

Maj. Gen. Charles Bolton, the 18th Air Force Commander, presided over the ceremony and bestowed the medals upon the Fairchild Air Force Base airmen, assigned to the 92nd Air Refueling Wing, according to a Wednesday release.

“These historic missions were fraught with peril and required decisive reactions to dynamic operational environments,” Bolton said during the ceremony. “The way they choose to respond, the way they adapt and work together – that’s what we’re highlighting today.”

During missions in contested airspace, the airmen provided crucial refueling that allowed for other Air Force “assets to continue the fight and return home,” the release reads.

The release says the airmen were involved in Operation Midnight Hammer — the Jan. 22, 2025 U.S. attack on three main Iranian nuclear facilities — but did not detail the extent of their involvement.

Bolton said during the ceremony that the members’ skills and perseverance led to the success of the overall mission, and he acknowledged the efforts of all Fairchild’s personnel in the mission, as well.

“From maintainers ensuring aircraft readiness, to mission planners and support crews, none of this could happen without the collective efforts of our Air Force family,” Bolton said.

The ceremony drew a crowd of around 300 people, the release says, with Fairchild personnel, local community heads and family members in attendance.

Fairchild Air Force Base, located in Spokane County, Washington, houses the force’s premier tanker base and survival training school, according to the base’s website.

The Distinguished Flying Cross recognizes heroism or extraordinary achievement in aerial flight, and the Bronze Star Medal is awarded for heroism in combat.

Funding for Trump’s marquee but controversial $185 billion “Golden Dome” missile defense shield is expected to be included in the budget request as well as Lockheed Martin F-35 jets and warships.

Procurement of Virginia-class submarines made by General Dynamics, and Huntington Ingalls Industries as well as other top shipbuilding priorities is expected.

Last year, Trump asked Congress for a national defense budget of $892.6 billion then added $150 billion through a supplemental budget request, sending the total price tag over $1 trillion for the first time in history.

While the budget request framework for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2027 is set to be unveiled on Friday, a Pentagon official said more details on the defense budget will be announced on April 21.

Earlier this year, the administration was contemplating whether the $1.5 trillion budget request could be in the form of a $900 billion national security budget, with a $400 billion to $600 billion additional request, similar to the structure used in 2026.

The administration plans to use funds for more weapons production in the hopes of deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region and to rebuild weapons stocks depleted by conflicts in Israel, Iran and Ukraine.

The budget request will be debated in Congress in the coming weeks and months.

Haunting Russian FPV drone footage that they themselves have uploaded to the internet shows the hum of drones as they stalk their human prey — civilians who find themselves caught in the quagmire of war.

“They’re talking about hunting humans,” former Navy pilot Ken Harbaugh told Military Times. “They’re talking about it as a kind of flex, and they post these images on Telegram, and they share them around. … It’s not collateral damage. Civilians are the targets. Little old ladies walking back from the market with shopping bags under their arms. They’re the targets.”

While just 17 minutes, “Drone Hunters of Kherson” displays the adaptability of this new war landscape, as Ukrainian counter-drone units patrol on foot to protect the people of Kherson and Odessa from Russian attacks.

The documentary follows Harbaugh — the first American to embed with the elite 11th “M. Hrushevskyi” Brigade, the 34th Coastal Defense Brigade and the 30th Marine Corps — as he takes viewers into what he describes as “a blend of trench warfare and the Terminator.”

Ukraine is, as the documentary puts it, ground zero of 21st century drone warfare, with Russia rewriting the rules of modern combat.

Harbaugh, alongside former U.S. representative Denver Riggleman, who serves as an executive producer of the film, argue that the United States is woefully unprepared for the new landscape of warfare — starting with procurement and adaptability.

“We don’t have an answer for it,” said Harbaugh. “The public is barely even aware of the threat. They know what drones are, but they do not know about their offensive capabilities and just how cheap and ubiquitous they are and how easily they can be turned into weapons.”

Both men are witnesses to what Harbaugh termed the “compressed the innovation cycle.”

“I have seen the innovation cycle at the front in Ukraine occur in a matter — I’m not exaggerating — of hours, and I’ve seen triggering mechanisms for warheads that are about to be fitted to the next day’s drones being 3-D printed the night before based on the next day’s targets,” Harbaugh said.

These are Ukraine’s $1,000 interceptor drones the Pentagon wants to buy

“That kind of innovation, which takes hours or days in Ukraine, literally takes years in the United States when you go through the procurement process, the design iterations and all the various approvals … unless we adopt some of the Ukrainian approach to innovation, we’re never going to be able to adapt to a battlefield that changes by the day. We cannot have an innovation system that operates in timescales of years and decades responding to a battlefield that changes by the day.”

“Even with the biggest military budget in the world, we’re trying to catch up,” Riggleman added.

The documentary, which was filmed last fall, takes on new meaning as the United States enters its second month of war with Iran.

Since the United States and Israel began their joint offensive against Iran on Feb. 28, 13 service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury.

Just last Friday, an Iranian missile and drone attack injured a dozen U.S. service members at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Two of the 12 injuries are considered to be serious.

Pentagon acknowledges tough quest to counter Iranian drones

“I think the lack of preparedness was evident that the first U.S. service members killed was by a Shahed [drone],” Riggleman said. “When you’re looking at drone warfare, we should have been well ahead of the curve with a U.S. military the might that we have, and instead, we’re at the mercy of countries that had to adapt in real time in a wartime environment.”

In Ukraine, drones are being used not only by the Russians for specific terror missions, but are used to actually control the front lines — from surveillance to targeting.

“You have people underground living like [it’s] 1916, while you have fiber optic and radio-controlled drones buzzing around,” said Riggleman.

In the case of fiber optic drones, Ukraine must deploy foot patrols — placing its soldiers between the Russians and its civilians. Fiber optic drones cannot be jammed. They cannot be detected. There is no electromagnetic signature. It all runs through wire, “so you have to have people between the drone operator and the civilian targets,” said Harbaugh.

The best way right now to shoot down drones is with a Kalashnikov … or with a .50 cal,” said Riggleman. “I actually got to do that training, and even in a simulated environment, I was lucky to get 20 to 30%. These guys [have] got to be on target every time.”

The short but impactful film delivers a stark warning to America and its allies: one must adapt — and quickly — in order to survive.

Asked by The Telegraph whether he would consider pulling the United States out of the alliance after Operation Epic Fury, Trump replied: “Beyond reconsideration.”

“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian President Vladimir Putin] knows that too, by the way,” he said.

Trump, however, cannot unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the alliance it helped found in 1949. A 2023 law — co-authored by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, now secretary of state — vests that power in Congress, not the president. Even then, NATO rules impose a one-year notice period before an exit takes effect.

Trump’s rebuke of NATO allies stems from their reluctance to support American efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint responsible for roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies under normal circumstances. Tehran’s effective blockade has exacerbated energy costs and granted the Islamic Republic strategic leverage over the U.S. and its allies as the conflict enters its fifth week.

“There was no consultation with the Europeans about this war, and the closing of the Strait is a direct result of the U.S.-Israeli military operations,” Max Bergmann, a former state department official and the current director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Military Times.

Referring to Trump’s jabs at NATO — and key members like the United Kingdom and France in particular — Bergmann added: “It’s in some ways a clear deflection for the failures of the U.S. military campaign, and sort of saying ‘Well, it’s your problem now.’”

But the expert warned that the transatlantic alliance could falter without American military might.

“NATO is built around the United States serving as the backbone of European security,” Bergmann said. “It’s not defenseless because Europeans haven’t spent money. It’s defenseless because if you remove the backbone from an entity, then the appendages don’t work. And that is the fundamental dilemma that Europe faces.”

In a post on X, Poland’s defense minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz acknowledged NATO’s dependence on Washington, while noting that the alliance “works both ways.”

“Amid the emotions surrounding Donald Trump’s words, one must keep a cool head,” he wrote. “There is no NATO without the USA, but there are no strong United States without allies either.”

At the heart of the alliance is Article 5 — the core commitment that an attack on one member is an attack on all. It has been invoked only once: in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

European leaders have rejected Trump’s assertion that the pact’s cohesion is unproven. They see the joint U.S.-Israeli offensive on Iran as a war of choice, quite different from the kind of circumstance to which Article 5 applies.

“This isn’t the first time he’s done this, and since it’s a recurring phenomenon, you can probably judge the consequences for yourself,” Stefan Kornelius, the spokesman for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, told reporters. “I simply want to state on behalf of the German government that we are, of course, committed to NATO.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a frequent target of Trump’s broadsides, has rejected any direct participation in the conflict — but maintains that Downing Street remains dedicated to the alliance.

“I’ve been absolutely clear that this is not our war and we’re not going to get dragged into it,” Starmer said in a press conference. “NATO is the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen, and it has kept us safe for many decades, and we are fully committed to NATO.”

A White House official told Military Times on Wednesday that the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, is expected to meet with Trump in Washington next week.

Rutte has generally worked hard to keep in Trump’s good graces — an approach that has led the secretary general into controversy at times, most famously when he referred to the U.S. president as “Daddy” at a NATO summit last June.

Two weeks earlier, on March 13, five KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft were damaged on the flight line, two U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal, as reported by Military Times.

Since Feb. 28, Iran has struck radar systems, satellite communications and mission-critical aircraft at at least seven U.S. bases across Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The attacks have focused on infrastructure that U.S. forces depend on to detect threats, refuel aircraft and direct air operations in the region.

By late March, Iranian missile and drone launches had dropped more than 90% since the conflict began, according to U.S. Central Command. Meanwhile, the attacks that persist have zeroed in on radar sites, SATCOM terminals, tankers and now an AWACS.

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said the pattern points to deliberate targeting, rather than opportunism. The strikes are systematic and target three “distinct functional categories,” she said, including radar and communications infrastructure, aerial refueling tankers and now the AWACS.

“Each is a critical enabler of U.S. air operations,” Grieco told Defense News. “That’s not random. That’s a target set derived from an understanding of how U.S. airpower functions and where it is most exposed. The pattern suggests deliberate doctrine, or something close enough to it, not opportunism.”

Joe Costa, director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for plans and posture, said Iran’s targeting approach makes tactical sense.

“It’s much easier to hit stationary infrastructure on the ground than planes flying in the air,” Costa said. “The U.S. has a dynamic process to quickly reallocate global resources to mitigate risks to troops and the mission, but the real cost is the cumulative impacts this operation will have on long-term readiness for other U.S. priorities.

“The more assets we use and lose now, the less will be available later until maintenance cycles, repairs and new purchases are complete.”

Strikes on communications, missile defense infrastructure

Iran’s retaliatory campaign targeted communications infrastructure from the opening hours of the conflict.

On Feb. 28, an Iranian drone struck Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Satellite imagery later obtained by The New York Times showed damage to large SATCOM terminals at the installation.

Satellite imagery also confirmed damage to the AN/FPS-132 phased array early warning radar in Qatar, with at least one of the system’s three arrays struck in the opening days of the conflict, according to Planet Labs imagery obtained by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Similar strikes hit radar facilities at Al Ruwais and Al Sader in the UAE, according to satellite imagery reported by The War Zone.

Qatar purchased the AN/FPS-132 radar system from the U.S. in 2013 for $1.1 billion. The Iranian drones used to strike it cost an estimated $20,000 to $60,000 per unit.

CENTCOM and Space Force Public Affairs directed Defense News to previously released operational updates and declined to comment further about the strikes.

The targeting also extended to missile defense infrastructure.

Satellite imagery confirmed the AN/TPY-2 radar for a U.S. THAAD battery at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan was struck and apparently destroyed in the opening days of the conflict, later confirmed by a U.S. official. The AN/TPY-2 is the primary sensor for the THAAD system. Without it, a THAAD battery cannot independently search for or track targets.

An already waning E-3 fleet

The damage to the Prince Sultan E-3 on March 27 comes at a time when the fleet is already stretched thin. The Air Force’s E-3 inventory has dwindled to 16 aircraft, the last delivered by Boeing in 1992.

In fiscal 2024, the fleet posted a mission-capable rate of 55.68%, according to Air Force data reported by Air & Space Forces Magazine, meaning fewer than nine aircraft were operationally available on any given day.

As of March 26, the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program, which tracks U.S. military assets committed to Operation Epic Fury, estimated that between 66% and 75% of the available E-3 fleet was deployed to the theater.

Air & Space Forces Magazine, which reviewed imagery of the damaged aircraft, reported the extent of the damage likely renders the E-3 unrepairable.

Grieco said the near-term impact is real, but manageable. Prior to the damage, six aircraft were forward-deployed, and the theater was operating “at the margins of what continuous battle management coverage requires,” she told Defense News.

“Five aircraft means accepting either a single continuous orbit or periodic gaps when a second cannot be regularly sustained. In those gaps, the air picture degrades, air battle management is less effective and the theater’s ability to coordinate a complex, multi-aircraft operation becomes significantly more constrained,” she said.

“The United States could send another E-3 to the theater,” Grieco added, “but there are only 15 left in the entire fleet — and every one deployed to the Middle East is one less available everywhere else.”

Philip Sheers, an associate fellow in the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the loss emphasizes the burden on the airborne battle management fleet. About half of the 16-aircraft E-3 fleet is mission capable, he said, and with six in the Middle East, only two or three remain for other needs.

“There is very little slack remaining for flexibility and adjustment, and that places a huge burden on the remaining fleet as well as other systems to fill in the gaps, potentially at the expense of other priorities,” Sheers said.

A ‘massive alarm bell’ for air defense

A March 2026 report by the Center for a New American Security warned that proposed alternatives to dedicated airborne battle management aircraft, including space-based sensors and fighter-based networks, are either longer-term technological prospects, unproven at battle management or highly vulnerable, and should be treated as complements rather than substitutes.

Replacing the airborne capability will take time.

The Pentagon moved to cancel the E-7 Wedgetail program in its fiscal 2026 budget request, citing cost growth, from $588 million to $724 million per aircraft, as well as survivability concerns in contested airspace. Congress reversed the decision, preserving the program in the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act and blocking further E-3 retirements until enough Wedgetails are in service.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the E-7’s first flight has slipped to May 2027, with full operational capability now projected for the early 2030s. Space-based systems proposed by the Pentagon as a longer-term alternative face a similar timeline, according to Space Force officials.

Near-term, Sheers said the loss will increase operational strain on the remaining E-3s and could result in increased dependence on carrier-based E-2 Hawkeyes and the Australian E-7 Wedgetail.

“The demand for airborne sensing to manage cruise missile and drone threats is not going anywhere,” he told Defense News. “Medium and long-term, this all bodes very poorly for E-3 readiness and highlights the need for DoD and Congress to resource a real solution to the shrinking and aging E-3 fleet.”

The KC-135 tanker fleet faces parallel pressures. Already cannibalizing parts from the boneyard, the Cold War-era jets have absorbed repeated strikes.

In addition to the five KC-135s damaged at Prince Sultan on March 13, multiple refueling aircraft were also hit in the March 27 strike, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Costa pointed to broader implications that outlast the current conflict.

“The continued use and possible reallocation of high-demand, low-density assets like air defense systems will impact readiness for other U.S. global priorities,” Costa said. “That’s the real strategic tradeoff.”

Sheers said the conflict should serve as a warning well beyond the Middle East.

“The entirety of this conflict should be a massive alarm bell on the need for passive defenses, not just for U.S. forces in the Middle East, but over the homeland where drone incursions are increasingly frequent, and especially in the Indo-Pacific, where the Chinese missile threat is orders of magnitude larger and more difficult to suppress,” he told Defense News.

“Airbase vulnerability has been an issue for decades, and the drumbeat of independent analysis on this issue could not be louder,” he added. “If DoD doesn’t take these events as a wake-up call, we are setting ourselves up for disaster in a future great power conflict.”

Grieco suggested the effects may already be rippling through the campaign in ways that don’t show up in publicly available strike counts.

Those “less visible metrics” include tanker availability, AWACS coverage gaps and stockpile constraints, she said.

“If Iran’s strikes on radar and communications infrastructure are compressing warning times and creating gaps in the missile defense network, that’s operationally significant even if no additional aircraft are destroyed,” she said.

“The threshold for material degradation isn’t a single dramatic loss. It’s the accumulation of constraints that make the campaign more expensive, less flexible and less effective over time. We may already be past it in ways that won’t be visible until the campaign’s operational history is written.”

“Expertise is not a drone, but a skill, a strategy, a system where a drone is one part of the defense,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters on Monday.

Ukraine now produces roughly 1,000 interceptor drones a day through hundreds of vetted manufacturers, deliberately dispersed so that no single strike can cripple the supply chain, Zelenskyy reported last month. The country has the technical capacity to double that figure, he said, but lacks the budget to do so.

While Ukraine has built that infrastructure gradually over the last few years, most countries now trying to integrate interceptors into the air defense have not invested in building the necessary logistical framework needed to effectively build, arm or deploy the cheap flyers.

Some countries have already learned this lesson the hard way.

After some Ukrainian companies built interceptor drone factories abroad without state approval, multiple buyers complained because the drones were sold without the warheads or expertise needed to operate them properly, Zelenskyy said on Friday, per Ukrainska Pravda.

“They had also been sold a certain number of interceptors — again without explosives,” Zelenskyy said about a European country he visited recently. “And they asked me whether we could send more operators. I said no.”

The bottleneck isn’t the interceptor itself, but the logistics infrastructure to produce and sustain them at scale, officials said.

“It seems there is still a misconception,” Artem Moroz, head of investor relations at Brave1, wrote on LinkedIn last month.

Brave1, Ukraine’s defense-tech accelerator, has worked with more than 500 defense startups since 2023 and now serves as the primary gateway for foreign governments seeking access to Ukrainian drone technology and production partnerships.

“Many believe Ukraine could simply send a few hundred interceptor drones to the Middle East and stop the Shahed drones currently hitting critical infrastructure,” Moroz said. “Drone warfare is far more complex than that.

“Yes, hardware matters. And Ukraine knows how to build drones at scale. But the real advantage lies in the infrastructure behind them.”

Companies launch drone-production innovations

The gap between buying a drone and building the system to sustain it is the market several defense companies are now racing to fill.

A handful of defense companies from Helsinki to San Francisco are offering the production line, the detection system and the supply infrastructure compressed into a portable unit that can be shipped anywhere to produce up to dozens of drones a day.

Sensofusion, a Finnish defense company founded in 2016, sells a full-cycle drone production chain as one of the latest innovators in this arena.

The company’s $2.4 million (€2.1 million Euros) Tactical Drone Factory is a standard 20-foot shipping container equipped with industrial 3D printers, an electronics assembly station and enough spares to run around the clock with a crew of three, producing up to 50 interceptor drones a day, according to the company.

What sets the Finnish system apart from its competitors is that it’s not just a factory: It ships as a package with Sensofusion’s Airfence radio-frequency detection and tracking platform, designed to detect a hostile drone, cue an interceptor and guide it to the kill — a full sensor-to-effector chain in a box.

The company says each interceptor costs less than $580 (€500) and is built to chase targets at speeds up to 310 mph (500 km/h).

Although Sensofusion boasts some of the highest production numbers on the market, it’s not the first company to market the concept of a portable all-in-one drone production hub.

Firestorm Labs' xCell system, the most tested U.S. equivalent to Sensofusion, uses two containers and works at a significantly slower pace by producing roughly 50 drones per month. Its newly announced SQUALL airframe is the first drone purpose-built to come off a mobile factory line, according to the company.

Founded in 2022, Firestorm’s biggest selling point is its testing and validation. The company holds a $100 million U.S. Air Force contract, has run field exercises with Air Force Special Operations Command and the Air National Guard and raised $47 million in Series A funding.

Per Se Systems, a French firm, operates in a middle ground by building micro drone factories on trailers — instead of shipping containers — that produce up to ten drones per hour on a generator with 19 hours of autonomous operation.

Per Se has been field-tested with 12 French Army regiments and is embedded in four active development projects with the French military, according to Army Recognition.

The drawbacks of production containers

Some logistics and strategy specialists say the all-in-one package wrapped into the portable factory concept ignores some critical battlefield questions that could render the projects useless.

A container full of printers, raw materials, sensitive electronics and proprietary design files concentrates exactly the kind of capability an adversary would want to destroy or capture, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis that identified several strategic vulnerabilities in frontline drone production.

And the problems compound from there.

Airframes can be printed, but the motors, batteries, electronic speed controllers, radios and sensors that make a drone combat-capable cannot, and those components must be trucked to the container through the same supply chains the factory is supposed to bypass.

Quality control under field conditions remains untested. Vibration, temperature swings, dust and intermittent power degrade the dimensional tolerances that 3D-printed parts require, and no company has demonstrated sustained production outside a controlled environment.

“Industrial resilience is combat power,” the CSIS experts concluded. “The next war will not be won by who initially fields the most drones, but by who sustains building them at scale.”

Several countries are catching on to the growing need to invest in drone production logistics.

Five NATO nations — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Poland — launched a joint initiative in February to develop affordable interceptor drones within a year under a program called LEAP, explicitly drawing on Ukrainian battlefield know-how to do it.

Ukraine’s experts say they are ready and willing to share their hard-earned lessons with allies, including the strategies to build a new layer of defense alongside the new weapons themselves.

“What Ukraine has built is a deep operational ecosystem across multiple domains, designed for conflicts where entirely new types of threats appear,” Brave1’s Moroz said.

“And ecosystems like this are extremely hard to copy,” he explained. “Even investing hundreds of billions or a trillion today would not easily replicate the experience, integration, and speed of iteration built over years of real combat.”

His final words of advice to allies?

“Drones are the tool. The infrastructure is the weapon.”

A Department of Defense suicide report found that 471 service members died by suicide in calendar year 2024, down from 531 in 2023, according to the report released Tuesday.

In the Department of Defense’s seventh-annual report on suicide in the military, the department found that even though the total force suicide rate decreased by around 11% for 2024’s calendar year, suicide rates have gradually increased in the active component from 2011 to 2024.

The department began collecting data on service members’ suicides in 2011 when the Defense Suicide Prevention Office was established. After accounting for age and sex, the increase in active component suicide rates from 2011 to 2024 reflects the increase in U.S. population suicide rates, the report says.

“Overall military suicide rates have not differed meaningfully from those of the U.S. population for most years since 2011,” the report states.

“This result indicates that the military suicide rates resemble trends in the country as a whole,” the report continues.

Like previous years, the majority of the active-duty service members who died by suicide in 2024 were enlisted males under the age of 30 — making up 64% of the service members who died by suicide during that year, according to the report.

Even as the active component’s suicides have steadily increased since 2011, the rate has decreased by around 16% from 2023 to 2024, the department found.

While the Reserve suicide rate decreased by approximately 14%, the National Guard suicide rate increased by around 13%. Suicide rates for the Reserve component, including the National Guard, have remained stable from 2011 to 2024.

Divorces or separated service members had a higher suicide rate compared to the overall active component between 2022 and 2024, while female service members who were 30 or older or a warrant or commissioned officer had a lower suicide rate.

The report states that firearm usage was the most common death by suicide method in the active component, Reserve and National Guard in 2024 and in the U.S. population in 2023. Poisoning was the leading method for attempted suicides, the report says.

“Recognizing that every death by suicide is a tragedy, the Department will continue to take action to support our men and women in uniform and their families, promote the wellbeing and resilience of the force, and take steps to prevent suicide in our military community,” the Tuesday statement announcing the report’s results reads.

To help service members in need of support, the Department of Defense has expanded the availability of clinical services, like telehealth, and service members can also self-refer for mental health evaluations as part of the Brandon Act, the report says.

In its 2025 suicide prevention campaign, the department focused on building connections across the military and reducing stigma, while the Defense Suicide Prevention Office uses social media as a way to reach service members.

The Defense Department has paired with the Department of Veterans Affairs, among other federal agencies, to increase publicly accessible mobile app usage that supports mental health, like Virtual Hope Box and Breathe2Relax.

For veterans, there has been a downward trend in suicides since 2018, shown by the February release of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ suicide prevention report for 2023. Over 6,000 veterans died by suicide in 2023, with roughly 17.5 veterans’ deaths per day, last month’s VA report found.

Hegseth, speaking during a press briefing at the Pentagon, asserted that morale is high and service members are determined to “finish the mission.” He declined to disclose the precise location of the bases that he toured over the weekend.

More than a month into the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, Hegseth warned that the coming days could prove pivotal, even as the broader course of the conflict remains unsettled.

“The upcoming days will be decisive. Iran knows that, and there’s nothing they can militarily do about it,” he said. “We have more and more options, and they have less.”

Pressed on whether the influx of newly arrived Marines and Army paratroopers might be used in ground operations on Iranian territory, Hegseth offered no indication either way.

“You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground,” Hegseth said. “Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground and guess what? There are.”

He added: “If we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the President of the United States and this department. Or maybe we don’t have to use them at all.”

Limited missions, big risks: What a US ground fight in Iran could become

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that B-52 Stratofortress bombers have begun conducting missions over Iran, taking advantage of U.S. forces gaining air superiority over the country.

Caine said the campaign remains focused on “interdicting and destroying the logistical and supply chains that feed” the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile, drone and naval production facilities, aiming to limit Tehran’s ability to replenish key weapons.

The Pentagon news conference began roughly one hour after President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social, lashed out at American allies for resisting his demands for help in the Middle East. He told nations who are facing fuel shortages to “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”

The United States “won’t be there to help you anymore,” Trump said, adding that “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your oil!”

The de facto shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz since the conflict began has sent global energy prices soaring, imperiling supply chains that under normal circumstances transport roughly a fifth of the world’s oil.

Hegseth echoed the president’s message in his Pentagon briefing, calling on America’s partners — specifically the United Kingdom — to assume a larger role.

“There are countries around the world who ought be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well,” Hegseth said. “It’s not just the United States Navy. The last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big, bad, Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well.”

Military analysts point to several possibilities, including coastal assaults, nuclear site raids or operations deeper inside the country.

Any one of these missions could unfold alone or evolve into something more broad. But across each scenario, U.S. forces would enter an environment where Iranian missiles, drones and ground units could begin targeting them as soon as they arrive.

A battle for the waterway

One version of the fight would likely unfold along the water.

U.S. forces could be tasked with seizing islands or coastal positions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a global shipping route that has been heavily disrupted by the war with Iran.

The mission could be a limited ground incursion, with Marines and airborne units deploying to seize important terrain, said Joe Costa, director of the Forward Defense program at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center.

President Donald Trump has publicly threatened Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub, which is located off the country’s coast.

In a Truth Social post on Monday, he said the U.S. would finish its “stay” in Iran, by “completely obliterating” Kharg Island.

Costa, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on U.S. war plans, including Iran, acknowledged speculation about Kharg, but also described a scenario in which U.S. forces would try to secure islands such as Abu Musa, Larak and the Tunbs, off Iran’s southern coast.

“This helps us take out Iranian reconnaissance units as we think of ways to reopen Hormuz. If you have the ability to secure some of the ports along the coast as well, you go a long way to supporting naval assets to start to open up the Strait,” Costa said, adding that the operation could rely on Marine units for the initial assault, with airborne forces supporting limited incursions and air assault operations — all under U.S. air superiority.

The USS Tripoli and embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived in the region’s waters last Friday, and the elements of the 82nd Airborne Division are deploying to the Middle East, the Pentagon confirmed last week.

An opening fight would not be in isolation, Costa said, and though there are mixed reports about Iranian military capacity right now, the country still appears to have functional command and control and is capable of attacks.

The first waves of U.S. ground troops would undoubtedly face Iranian fire, Costa warned.

“We have overwhelming force and would likely be successful in securing territory, but at that point every commander will face the daily decision of assuming risk to troops or risk to mission — force protection becomes paramount, especially if we start to see casualties mount up,” he said, adding, “There’s a high risk of that in this operation.”

Targeting nuclear sites

A different type of operation would focus on Iran’s nuclear program instead of territory.

Instead of seizing ground, U.S. forces could be tasked with entering fortified sites and securing material, likely under fire and deep within Iranian territory.

An operation aimed at seizing enriched uranium would likely involve special forces at a nuclear site in Isfahan, a populous city in the center of the country, said Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iran’s missiles and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Excavating nuclear material would require a myriad of support, from construction equipment to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear assets, Grajewski, a professor at Sciences Po, said.

Ground forces would likely have to dig deep underground to access the highly enriched uranium canisters “and then go in there, excavate it, then get out of the country,” she added.

An extraction team would likely be met with force. The area is heavily trafficked, and the nuclear site in Isfahan is located near numerous military and missile facilities, making it exceedingly risky.

Grajewski described the operation as likely “one that the U.S. military has not really done before,” and said experts could only speculate on how it would be accomplished.

“I’m not sure how they’re thinking about doing it,” she said, pondering if “they’re going to fly in there and do this quick extraction under the guise of night?”

Iran’s response

Even targeted operations like seizing an island or extracting nuclear materials carry the risk of evolving into something larger.

Dan Grazier, the director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, said the challenges U.S. forces may face goes beyond securing land or items. It centers on how Iran chooses to fight once American soldiers are on its ground.

“The Iranians are going to do whatever they can to kill and capture as many Americans as they can,” said Grazier, who is also a Marine Corps veteran, “for the propaganda victory alone.”

Rather than seeking decisive engagement, Iranian forces would likely avoid conventional confrontation and stretch the conflict over time, he said. Instead of defeating U.S. forces, he added, Iran’s objective becomes making the conflict costly and prolonged, forcing leaders in Washington to decide whether the fight is worth continuing.

Any sustained ground operation would also risk widening the battlefield, as Iran could activate proxy groups across the region to further target U.S. forces and partners.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies in early March estimated that the first 100 hours of the war cost billions of dollars, and experts warn that critical air defense interceptors could be depleted faster than the rate of replacement.

The human cost has also risen as the war enters its second month. Thirteen American service members had been killed and over 300 injured as of late March. A survey earlier in March found that a majority of Americans thought the war had gone too far, and a separate poll showed diminished confidence in the president’s handling of it.

“The Iranians don’t stand any chance of defeating the United States on the ground, I don’t think,” Grazier said. “They do stand a chance of defeating the United States politically back home.”

Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One while holding renderings of the plans, said the ballroom “essentially becomes a [shield] for what’s being built under by the military.”

He emphasized protective features — comprising thick, high-grade bulletproof glass — will be installed as part of the ballroom’s design to protect against drones and “any other things.”

Trump said that the initiative is progressing “ahead of schedule and under budget” and reiterated that it is being financed entirely by himself and private donors.

“There’s not one dime of government money going into the ballroom,” he stressed.

“I’m so busy that I don’t have to do this, but I’m fighting wars and other things,” Trump added. “But this is very important, because this is going to be with us for a long time, and it’s going to be ... the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world.”

The WWII origins of the (now demolished) East Wing of the White House

The president complained the military’s previously clandestine undertaking only became public because of a “stupid lawsuit” that seeks to halt the endeavor.

The suit, filed in December 2025 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, contends that Trump violated at least four laws by bypassing required review processes. It asks a federal judge to suspend construction of the ballroom until the design undergoes a series of independent reviews, passes environmental assessments, secures congressional authorization and allows the public an opportunity to offer input.

A federal judge rejected the group’s initial request to pause construction but had been expected to rule by the end of March on the amended complaint, including whether to issue an injunction.

The Trump administration, however, has already begun demolishing the East Wing to make way for the project. A White House spokesperson asserted at the time that Trump has “full legal authority to modernize, renovate and beautify the White House — just like all of his predecessors did."

Unlike their forefathers, who were met with lethal sprays of machine guns and shells on the shores of the Pacific and Europe during World War II, these Marines were, almost comically, met by the mayor of Da Nang with girls placing wreaths around the Marines’ necks. Four American soldiers met them with a large sign stating: “Welcome, Gallant Marines.”

“Garlanded like ancient heroes, they then marched off to seize Hill 327, which turned out to be occupied only by rock apes — gorillas instead of guerrillas, as the joke went — who did not contest the intrusion of their upright and heavily armed cousins,” writes the Council on Foreign Relations.

While the U.S. had been involved in Vietnam for over a decade, with the U. S. Military Assistance Advisory Group existing in Vietnam as early as 1950, the arrival of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade historically marks the Americanization of the Vietnam War.

Many in the upper echelons of American policymaking welcomed the landings. However, Maxwell Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam at the time and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed strong reservations. He predicted that it would be difficult to “hold the line” on further force commitments.

His fears would prove accurate.

By the end of 1965, 185,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam. Less than three years later, the city that welcomed the Americans with handshakes and leis had become the host to high-level U.S. and South Vietnamese operations, including the headquarters of I Corps, the military zone encompassing South Vietnam’s northern provinces.

March of Folly

From the moment he was sworn into the presidency on Nov. 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson was hardened to the notion that he was not going to be the first American president to lose a war, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman in her book “The March of Folly”.

“Johnson’s idea was to fight and negotiate simultaneously,” she wrote. “The difficulty was that the limited war aim … was unachievable by limited war. The North had no intention of ever conceding a non-Communist South, and since such a concession could have been forced upon them only by military victory, and since such a victory was unattainable by the United States short of total war and invasion, which it was unwilling to undertake, the American war aim was therefore foreclosed.

“If this was recognized by some, it was not acted upon because no one was prepared to admit American failure. Activists could believe the bombing might succeed; doubters could vaguely hope some solution would turn up.”

As Johnson chose to fight and negotiate simultaneously, Operation Rolling Thunder began in earnest. The soon-to-be frequently interrupted bombing campaign had begun just prior to the sustained American ground campaign. The operation, which began on Feb. 24, 1965, had initially begun as a diplomatic signal to impress the North Vietnamese of America’s determination and serve as a warning that the violence would continue to escalate unless Ho Chi Minh “blinked.”

According to the Air Force Historical Division, Gen. Curtis LeMay argued that “military targets, rather than the enemy’s resolve, should be attacked and that the blows should be rapid and sharp.” When that outcome failed to arise after the first several weeks in March 1965, “the purpose of the campaign began to change.”

Throughout the next decade, more than 2.6 million U.S. servicemen and women eventually rotated through Vietnam. More than 58,000 of them died there, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Now, with President Donald Trump weighing his next steps in the war against Iran and thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division arriving in the Middle East, certain parallels have begun to emerge between the opening days of the wars with Vietnam and Iran.

Operation Epic Fury

Since Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28, over 11,000 targets have been struck.

“Targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy,” Gen. Jim Mattis, who served as Trump’s first defense secretary, cautioned in a recent interview. “By that I mean 15,000 targets have been hit. There have been significant military successes. But they are not matched by strategic outcomes”

Now, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is putting together plans for weeks of ground operations in Iran as U.S. forces amass in the region.

Citing multiple U.S. officials, the Post report suggested ground operations could involve both conventional infantry and special operations elements, but would not yet rise to the level of a full-scale invasion.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement provided to Military Times. “It does not mean the president has made a decision.”

The Post’s report comes as U.S. military assets continue to flood the region. On Friday, U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in U.S. Central Command waters.

The Pentagon has also confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are deploying to the Middle East. Based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

The report also comes on the heels of an Iranian missile and drone attack on Friday that injured a dozen U.S. service members at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Two of the 12 injuries are considered to be serious.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Jon Simkins contributed to this report.

Reuters first reported on March 18 that Trump’s administration was considering deploying thousands of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East, a move that would expand options to include the deployment of forces ​inside Iranian territory.

The paratroopers, based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, add to the thousands of additional sailors, Marines and Special Operations forces sent to the region. Over the weekend, about 2,500 Marines arrived in the Middle East.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, did not say specifically where the soldiers were deploying to, but the move was expected.

The additional Army soldiers include elements of the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters, some logistics and other support, and one brigade combat team.

No decision has been made to send troops into Iran, but they will build up capacity for potential future operations in the region, one of the sources said.

Options for Trump

The soldiers could be used for several purposes in the Iran war, including an attempt to seize Kharg Island, the hub for 90% of Iran’s oil exports.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported there had been discussions within the Trump administration about an operation to take the island. Such a move would be highly risky, since Iran can reach the island with missiles and drones.

Reuters has previously reported the administration has discussed using ground forces inside Iran to extract highly enriched uranium, though that option could mean U.S. troops deeper inside Iran for potentially longer periods of time, trying to dig out material that is deep underground.

Pentagon reportedly preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran

The internal Trump administration discussions have also included potentially putting U.S. troops inside Iran to secure safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. While that mission would be accomplished primarily through air and naval forces, it could also mean deploying U.S. troops to Iran’s shoreline.

Trump said on Monday the United States was in ​talks with a “more reasonable regime” to end ‌the war in Iran, but repeated his warning to Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or risk U.S. attacks on its oil wells ​and power plants.

Any use of U.S. ground troops — even for a limited mission — could pose significant political risks for Trump, given low ⁠American public ​support for the Iran campaign and Trump’s own pre-election promises to avoid entangling the ​U.S. in new Middle East conflicts.

Since operations started on February 28, the U.S. has carried out strikes against more than 11,000 targets. More than 300 U.S. troops have been injured and 13 service members have been killed as part of Operation Epic Fury.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., placed a hold Wednesday on the promotions of Marine Lt. Col. Vincent Noble, Col. Thomas Siverts and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Thomas MacNeil, saying his objections to a process that would quickly approve the promotions as a bloc was based on “misconduct or concerning judgement.”

In responses provided to Military Times, Wyden’s office made clear that the holds were a direct response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reported decision to pull two Black and two female military officers from a list of troops up for promotion to general or flag officer.

“Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have launched an unprecedented politicization of the military promotion process, most recently, reportedly blocking promotions for Black and female officers,” Wyden said. “I asked my staff to vet potential promotions, to ensure the Senate is doing its job to ensure the officers leading our armed forces continue to meet the services’ high standards.”

In the case of Noble and MacNeil, Wyden cited their proximity to highly publicized war crimes cases dating as far back as 2007.

Noble, then a captain, had been the leader of a Marine Corps special operations platoon deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 when the unit became involved in an ambush that left up to 19 Afghans dead and dozens more wounded.

The Marines were accused of war crimes, and Noble and another officer, Maj. Fred Galvin, were sent to a rare court of inquiry military proceeding back in the states. But ultimately, the government opted not to charge the men after a three-star overseeing the case determined they “acted appropriately.”

Military Times investigated the incident in 2015, finding through the examination of newly declassified documents that the Marines were unjustly held to account for what was a combat engagement.

Wyden described it differently in his statement Wednesday in the congressional record.

“Military investigations found that Lieutenant Colonel Noble’s platoon fired indiscriminately on civilians in Afghanistan in 2007, and he was disciplined for filing a false report and asking Marines under his command to lie about the attack, according to military records,” the senator said, though he linked to a New York Times report from the time that quoted a source saying neither Galvin nor Noble fired a weapon in the engagement.

Wyden’s office did not provide additional information or context when asked about the statements regarding Noble.

MacNeil’s war zone case, which dates to 2017, is linked to that of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused by his own unit of war crimes in Iraq, including stabbing a 17-year-old ISIS-linked prisoner to death. Gallagher was acquitted on charges linked to the death but found guilty of posing for photos with the prisoner’s corpse.

President Donald Trump intervened in 2019 to keep Gallagher from being stripped of his SEAL trident in the matter. MacNeil, then a lieutenant, testified against Gallagher in his trial but can be seen in a unit photo with him and nine other SEALs posing behind the corpse.

After Trump’s intervention with Gallagher, the Navy gave up efforts to strip MacNeil and two other SEALs of their tridents, and the matter was dealt with through internal “administrative measures,” acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said at the time.

“While MacNeil was the junior member of his platoon and eventually testified against Gallagher, he exercised poor judgement as an officer and should not be promoted within the United States military,” Wyden said in arguing against his promotion.

The case of Siverts is different. Wyden highlighted appearances on a podcast, The Berm Pit, co-hosted by the colonel’s brother, Scott Siverts. The Anti-Defamation League, a global anti-hate organization, describes the podcast as far-right and antisemitic, and its social media feeds reveal re-posts of antisemitic memes and other offensive content.

The left-wing news outlet RawStory, which regularly covers extremism, previously reported that Siverts, who has served most recently with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, had been reported to the Defense Department Inspector General for appearing on an episode of The Berm Pit in which one of the co-hosts joked about wanting to put “six bullets” into Hegseth’s head.

The IG opted not to open an investigation into the matter, and it’s not clear whether any administrative action was taken.

Wyden’s statement highlights a March 2023 appearance by Siverts on the podcast, since removed from the internet.

“Siverts’s participation in a podcast whose hosts espouse such bigotry raises serious questions about his character and professionalism, which are both relevant to his promotion to Brigadier General,” Wyden wrote. “To date, the Marine Corps has not provided me with a copy of this podcast episode to verify the nature of his participation in this podcast, nor has Siverts publicly apologized or expressed regret for his association with this podcast.”

A co-host of The Berm Pit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wyden told Military Times that he didn’t know how the nominations for Noble, MacNeil and Siverts made it out of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The military should not promote officers who violate military codes, were involved in war crimes, or fail to live up to the U.S. armed forces standards. Our country is stronger and more secure when military leaders are promoted based on their qualifications and records, and held accountable when they fall short of those standards,” he said. " … I won’t shortcut the Senate process to help unfit personnel lead our servicemembers and degrade the fitness of our armed forces."

Citing multiple U.S. officials, the Post report suggested ground operations could involve both conventional infantry and special operations elements, but would not yet rise to the level of a full-scale invasion.

Decisions on whether or not to green light operations, which would put U.S. troops at substantially more risk to Iranian threats, now rest with President Donald Trump.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement provided to Military Times. “It does not mean the president has made a decision.”

The Post’s report comes as U.S. military assets continue to flood the region. On Friday, U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in U.S. Central Command waters.

The group, which is led by the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and includes the embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, departed earlier this month from its homeport of Sasebo, Japan.

The Pentagon has also confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are slated to deploy to the Middle East. Based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

The report also comes on the heels of an Iranian missile and drone attack on Friday that injured a dozen U.S. service members at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Two of the 12 injuries are considered to be serious.

The strike also reportedly damaged multiple U.S. aircraft, including an E-3 Sentry AWACS and multiple KC-135 tankers.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Prior to Friday’s attack, 10 U.S. troops remained in serious condition.

A dozen U.S. service members were wounded Friday in an Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

Two of the 12 personnel, all of whom were reportedly inside an installation building at the time of the attack, are in serious condition.

Attempts to contact U.S. Central Command had not been returned as of publication.

Friday’s strike, which reportedly damaged multiple U.S. refueling aircraft and involved Iranian drones as well, comes as the U.S. military continues to pour assets into the region.

The Pentagon on Wednesday confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are slated to deploy to the Middle East.

The 82nd, based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

U.S. Marines and sailors with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which includes up to 5,000 personnel and several warships, are also reportedly heading toward the Middle East after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a request from CENTCOM to help curtail Iran’s regional attacks.

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, has also been rumored to serve as a potential reinforcement. The group deployed in recent weeks and is currently operating in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations in the eastern Pacific.

Marines and sailors with the 11th MEU carried out a large-scale amphibious assault exercise on March 2 aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, prior to steaming toward open water.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Prior to Friday’s attack, 10 U.S. troops remained in serious condition.

Military Times reporters Eve Sampson and Riley Ceder contributed to this report.

Hegseth’s actions are in line with the broader Trump administration’s attacks on efforts across the federal government to support and promote the concerns of minority populations — what President Donald Trump and Hegseth have derided as “DEI,” which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell disputed the Times’ reporting, telling the Guardian, “Under Secretary Hegseth, military promotions are given to those who have earned them. Meritocracy, which reigns in this Department, is apolitical and unbiased.”

Neither the Defense Department nor the White House has offered an explanation based on the officers’ performance or record for Hegseth’s decision. About three dozen officers remain on the promotion list, according to the Times; the majority are white men.

“This moment should not be separated from a broader, documented pattern,” Jose Vasquez, executive director of Common Defense and an Army veteran, said in a statement. “Since taking office, Hegseth has fired generals, renamed ships, and systematically targeted women and people of color in uniform. He is not making our military more lethal. He is making it more loyal to him and that is the true threat to national security and military readiness.”

The names of the four officers have not yet been released, but they include a Black armor officer who was singled out for having written a paper about Black officers’ choices to serve in support roles rather than front-line combat, according to the Times. One of the women targeted for exclusion from the promotion list was struck because she served during the U.S. military’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, the outlet reported. It is not clear why the other two officers were removed from the list.

Under retired four-star Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, the first Black defense secretary, the Department of Defense made efforts to promote women and minorities into visible positions of power. Austin’s tenure during the Biden administration saw the elevation of Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti to chief of naval operations, the first woman to serve as the Navy’s top officer and the first to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Air Force Gen. CQ Brown to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second Black man to hold that position.

“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons — based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” Hegseth said in a speech to high-ranking officers in November.

Brown and Franchetti, among other top military officers, were fired by Trump in February 2025. That decision left no women in the top ranks of military leadership. In July, Hegseth reassigned Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the first female head of the U.S. Naval Academy, and fired Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield from her position as the U.S. military’s envoy to NATO’s military committee last April, according to the Guardian. He also dismissed Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short from her job as senior military assistant to the defense secretary in early 2025.

“The depth of Secretary Hegseth’s prejudice is only overshadowed by the breadth of his incompetence,” said Richard Brookshire, co-founder and co-CEO of the Black Veterans Project. “The Trump administration is intent on instituting a caste system across our military, whereby anyone who isn’t white, male, straight and Christian is deemed less capable and deserving of leading our troops. Americans must all reject his bigoted, nonsensical and dangerous beliefs.”

It’s unclear whether Hegseth overstepped his authority by removing the names of the four from the promotion list himself, according to the Times. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and other Army leadership reportedly refused to remove the names when Hegseth requested they do so. Ordinarily, promotion lists are either accepted or denied in full by the defense secretary, then sent to the president for review before heading to the Senate for confirmation, according to the Times.