That’s according to Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman, who addressed service needs and quality of life concerns at a forum hosted by Military Officers Association of America this month.

With the back-to-back operational demands of the military intervention to capture and extract Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in January, followed by the airstrikes on and subsequent naval blockade of Iran, and amid ongoing drug interdiction operations around South and Central America, older force generation models are proving less effective, he said.

“So, one of the things we’ve learned is we’re going to have to come up with a different force generation model,” Perryman said. “... And so we think we can do better in our force generation model to generate the readiness that we know the department is going to consume. And so … let’s take a step back and really evaluate what that should look like.”

Throughout his career, he said, the force generation model had largely been based on a peacetime mindset.

“It’s like this conveyor belt that’s very prescriptive, and it executes on time,” he said.

For example, Perryman said, carrier strike groups deploy on three-year centers, meaning they cycle through training, deployment and maintenance every three years.

As recently as 2020, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday defended this structure amid proposals for change from then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper, saying the Navy had “made and are projecting into the future to continue to meet every commitment, every deployment that we’ve been directed to do.”

But the deployment of the Ford, which will have been deployed for more than 330 days when it’s slated to pull into port in Norfolk, Va., at the end of this month, has reopened the debate about how the Navy, which has historically had five- to seven-month pumps, should structure deployments and time at home, Perryman said.

The Navy, he said, was considering challenges ranging from acquiring enough spare parts, to building in appropriate time for reset and training.

“So really that’s what we’re taking away from this. And we’ve started to do, I think, some pretty transformative work in that area,” he said.

The Navy in late April marked a first in more than two decades with three aircraft carriers operating simultaneously in the waters surrounding the Middle East.

Three’s company: Trio of US carriers operating in Middle East for first time in decades

Perryman’s comments advance a proposition by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle in late April at the Modern Day Marine Symposium. Caudle suggested transitioning amphibious ships, also on a 36-month deployment cycle, to a 50- or 52-month cycle that would incorporate two deployments.

By getting two deployments out of the same training and maintenance phase, Caudle suggested the Navy could “reduce the overhead … [and] gain some efficiency,” Breaking Defense reported.

Army, Air Force reevaluate demands

Other senior enlisted leaders who spoke alongside Perryman also described the difficulty of adapting to operational demands and an uncertain timeline.

Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer said his service was working to develop “true readiness measurements” while also “trying to manage the current op tempo.”

At home, he said, the Army was working to modernize training ranges and align training more closely with current threats.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe said months of air sorties had left the service with “tired folks out there and some tired equipment that needs our attention.”

“Another thing we’ve learned is that when you put the resources and the parts forward with the aircraft, the aircraft fly at an amazingly high rate, right,” he said.

“So we’ve got some work to do in that department with, you know, stable and predictable budgets and making sure that we’ve got the parts and the resources that we need in the places that we need them,” Wolfe added. “We need to do a better job of that in garrison, when we’re getting ready for whatever is to come, whatever we’re asked to do.”

But all the enlisted leaders emphasized their troops were performing well. The senior enlisted adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, David Isom, said the number of troops who had returned to duty after combat injuries was “off the charts.”

Isom added that he’d visited the sailors onboard the deployed carrier Ford and found them “motivated, excited, mission-focused.”

“I think that kind of inspiration keeps people coming back and inspires the next generation,” he said. “And we do see a lot of propensity to serve.”

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, characterized the dissemination of the archives as an effort to achieve “complete and maximum transparency.”

“With these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’” the president wrote, adding, “Have Fun and Enjoy!”

The Department of Defense — in coordination with the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, NASA and the FBI — disclosed 162 files on its newly launched “UFO” website. Additional batches are expected to be released on a rolling basis as they are discovered and declassified.

“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement. “It’s time the American people see it for themselves.”

The Pentagon, however, cautioned that much of the material remains analytically indeterminate.

“While all of the files have been reviewed for security purposes, many of the materials have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies,” a caveat accompanying the files said.

In the initial release, accounts of unidentified objects were reported in the skies over Greece, Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, the United States and elsewhere.

One of the documents includes a transcript of a conversation between Mission Control and astronauts James “Jim” Lovell and Frank Borman during 1965’s Gemini 7 space mission. The transcript opens with Borman’s report of a “bogey” — a contemporary nomenclature for an unknown aircraft — as well as a debris field he said consisted of “very, very many [...] hundreds of little particles.” The record is accompanied by handwritten annotations documenting the encounter, including a note in the upper-right corner reading “UFO Sighting by Borman.”

A separate document contains an “unresolved” unidentified aerial phenomenon report from May 2022 over Kuwait, with an image showing an elongated area of contrast in the upper-left quadrant that appears to increase in intensity along its length.

The Trump administration’s disclosure comes in the wake of a viral moment in February, when former President Barack Obama appeared to lend credence to long-running public speculation by saying during a podcast appearance that aliens “are real.” He later walked back the remark.

Speaking on Wednesday, Obama clarified: “One of the things you learn as president is government is terrible at keeping secrets.”

“If there were aliens, or alien spaceships, or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about, seen, photographs, what have you, I promise you, some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend,” Obama asserted.

But at the time, Trump told reporters he “doesn’t know if they’re real or not,” while criticizing his predecessor’s comments as a “big mistake.” He subsequently pledged to release any files on UFOs and extraterrestrials citing the “tremendous interest” in the topic, a move that garnered bipartisan support.

During a White House ceremony marking the return of the Presidential Fitness Test awards, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the test will be mandatory in the DoD’s 161 K-12 schools across 30 military installations.

Recalling his childhood striving to earn the top award level, Hegseth said he hoped the requirement would serve as a “pilot for all of American education.”

“I remember it because it was something my country clearly elevated as important. We should be in shape; we should compete,” Hegseth said.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last July reinstating the test in public schools. On Tuesday, Trump signed a proclamation that reestablished the awards for those who meet age-level standards for three out of six exercises in the test.

“My administration is working very hard to defend Americas cherished athletic traditions and pass our values of excellence and competitiveness to the next generation,” Trump said during the signing.

Hegseth did not say when the test requirement will go into effect; the 2025-2026 school year is coming to a close this month, and school will restart later this summer.

The Presidential Fitness Test got its start under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 with the creation of a President’s Council on Youth Fitness. Gen Xers and Millennials may remember various iterations of the test, which included pull-ups, pushups, a run, rope climb and other challenges.

Beginning in the 1990s, the presidential sports councils began expanding recognition to engage all children, emphasizing wellness, nutrition and fitness.

In 2010, first lady Michelle Obama introduced the “Let’s Move!” campaign that promoted healthy eating and fitness to combat childhood obesity. The fitness test was retired two years later in favor of assessments that emphasized individual progress rather than competition with peers.

The new test includes three categories with two options within each category. Youngsters must complete either curl-ups (crunches) or planks; a one-mile run or 20-meter “beep” test; and “right angle” pushups, in which the athlete lowers themselves into a pushup until their elbows form a 90-degree angle, or pullups.

A beep test requires a runner to dash 20 meters back and forth on a track while keeping time with beeps.

To meet the standards, a 10-year-old boy must do 45 curl-ups, run a mile in 7 minutes, 57 seconds, and do 22 pushups; a 10-year-old girl must do 40 curl-ups, run a 9:19 mile and do 20 pushups.

Students who meet the targets, which differ for boys and girls, can receive a certificate.

A 2022 Pentagon study found that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver, with 11% of those disqualified for being overweight. The issue has long been considered a threat to recruitment and national security.

Noting the return of the Presidential Fitness Test, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who served in Trump’s cabinet during the president’s first term, said in a X social media that it was “great to see this test come back!”

“Could really benefit the fitness and future habits of today’s youth. Especially important for the US Armed Forces given that 78% of young people today don’t qualify for military service, with obesity being a major reason. Get fit!” Esper wrote.

During the event Tuesday, Hegseth said it was important for young people to strive for excellence.

“The idea that competition is bad is the beginning of the decline of a nation,” Hegseth said. “Competition is critical to who we are and ensuring that America stays on top.”

The U.S. military is tightening its entry standards by shifting more than two dozen medical disqualifications to the earliest stages of the recruitment process.

U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command, also known as USMEPCOM, announced this week that it will prescreen prospective recruits for 28 medical conditions that have been deemed highly unlikely to receive enlistment waivers.

The change does not alter the current eligibility standards so much as it recalibrates the timing of judgement. Determinations that once emerged later in the process will now be flagged at the very first point of contact.

“This is a shift order,” Army Col. Megan McKinnon, USMEPCOM command surgeon, said in a statement. “Instead of doing complete processing and then handing it to the waiver authority, we’ve created a trigger on the front end for these specific conditions that requires additional Service sign off, because all Services agreed that they are unlikely to be waived on the back end.”

Officials say the goal is to conserve resources and reduce unnecessary medical evaluations, particularly in cases not expected to be approved.

The list, shared with Military Times, includes: any aortic anatomical abnormalities classified as congenital defects; surgical correction of the main cardiac vessels which are congenital defects; any heart valve replacement; Mobitz Type II second-degree atrioventricular block; bariatric surgery other than gastric sleeve; biopsy proved Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis; weight bearing joint replacement; cervical spinal fusion; current knee ligament rupture or repair within the past 12 months; stress fractures in any site within the past six months; pilonidal cyst or less than six months post-surgery; eczema or psoriasis requiring oral or injectable medications within the last 12 months; active malignancy; resolved malignancy; resolved malignancy with less than one year of remission; sickle cell disease; two or more unprovoked thromboembolic events; Marfan syndrome; fibromyalgia within the last 12 months; systemic lupus erythematosus; peanut anaphylaxis; implanted battery-powered devices; Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes; narcolepsy; parasomnias after the 18th birthday; use of antipsychotic or mood stabilizers; two or more lifetime suicide attempts; bipolar I or II with a documented episode of mania or hypomania; and previous discharge from any uniformed service for behavioral health conditions with the past 12 months.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also issued a memo in March directing a comprehensive review of military standards — including those pertaining to physical fitness, body composition and grooming — across all branches.

The new policy comes as President Donald Trump, speaking at an early Mother’s Day event at the White House honoring military moms, touted a recent uptick in enlistment. Fiscal 2025 marked the highest level of recruiting in more than 15 years, according to the Pentagon.

“Every branch is setting records in recruitment,” the president said on Wednesday. “I can say very confidently, at this moment, we have the highest recruitment, the most successful recruitment for the military — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Space Force, all of it."

“We have lines of people waiting to get in. We’re taking people based on their fitness and their quality,” he added.

The Military Spouse Small Business Recognition Act was influenced by the high unemployment rate for military spouses and the rate of spouses that are self-employed small business owners or are interested in entrepreneurship, according to a Thursday media round table.

“Spousal employment and financial stability are among the top factors for service member retention, and when military spouses can’t build businesses, that retention suffers and our war fighters suffer, and our national security posture suffers,” Eliza Levy, ELPR’s founder and CEO, said to reporters.

If passed, the act would waive Small Business Association loan fees up to $1 million; reduce equity injection requirements; designate military spouse-owned businesses as an 8(a) Disadvantages Category; and require the SBA to track military spouse participation in loan programs.

Patricia M. Barron, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Military Community and Family Policy, said to reporters that the biggest link between military spouse employment and military readiness is retention.

She highlighted how aspects of military life, such as frequent moving or career gaps, make it difficult to retain employment as a spouse.

Barron noted that after constant moves and unemployment, spouses and their military counterparts begin to think about leaving the force, especially if it makes more sense financially.

“If we want to keep this volunteer force, that retention piece is incredibly important,” said Barron. “And the Department of War and the Congress, they have made military spouse employment a mission readiness issue.”

“It is no longer just a quality of life issue, and that’s why it’s so important,” Barron continued.

Military spouses have an unemployment rate of around 22% according to a 2024 Department of Labor fact sheet — approximately five times higher than the national average, which sits at roughly 4.3% as of March.

In addition, 48% of military spouses are either self-employed or are interested in being, but a lack of access to capital is a barrier that this act hopes to remedy.

The act has not yet been introduced to Congress as the coalition is still gathering support from members. Stephanie Brown, CEO of the Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce that is leading the charge for the act, said they are hoping to announce the two co-sponsors of the bill by late Thursday.

If deemed the best way to propel this bill forward, the coalition intends to attach it to the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

The 16-page blueprint — the first issued since President Donald Trump’s return to office — describes the triad as “significant and pervasive” dangers to the homeland, to be addressed in phases.

During a conference call with reporters, Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism, declined to discuss classified details of the initiative but outlined its central objective as systemically eroding each group’s infrastructure. The plan includes identifying their networks; severing their access to weapons, financing and recruitment capabilities; and dismantling their operational capacity.

“We see a threat, we will respond to it, and we will crush it, whether it is the cartels, the jihadists, or violent left-wing extremists like antifa and like the transgender killers, the non-binary, the left-wing radicals,” he said. “We will take them on, head on.”

Gorka asserted that the administration sees a renewed wave of politically-motivated violence targeting Christians and conservatives, driven by what he characterized as “violent left-wing extremists” who have “espoused extremist transgender ideologies.” He cited the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk, as well as the mass shootings at Covenant School in Tennessee and Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota, as evidence of the trend.

The attackers in the latter two shootings, each of whom died at the scene, were transgender. The person charged with Kirk’s killing, Tyler Robinson, reportedly had a transgender partner. LGBTQ advocates, however, warn against collectivizing blame for such events to the trans community at large.

“We will not permit politically motivated violence in the United States from either side of the aisle,” Gorka said. “But the sad truth is, the left has far more politically motivated assassinations or attempted assassinations to its credit in recent years, not the right.”

‘Toxic’ politics increase terrorism, extremism risk, DHS official says

A 2024 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that right-wing attacks had killed 112 people over the past decade, compared to 13 people killed in left-wing attacks and 82 killed in jihadist attacks.

The report predated the killing of Kirk, which occurred in September 2025, but also of Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman of Minnesota, who was shot dead at her home along with her husband Mark in June 2025.

The Trump framework marks a sharp departure from the Biden-era counterterrorism strategy, which classified white supremacists and militia movements among the most consequential threats to U.S. national security.

“Our new U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy is a return to common sense and Peace through Strength,” the president wrote in the document. “As I said after our first successful counterterrorism mission, just days after I was sworn back in office — if you hurt Americans, or are planning to hurt Americans, ‘We Will Find You and We Will Kill You.’”

U.S. counterterrorism officials are set to meet with foreign counterparts on Friday to urge allies to take on a greater share of responsibility in confronting terrorist threats, including those in the Strait of Hormuz.

“We reject the concept of global police officer,” Gorka said. “We will measure your seriousness as a partner and ally by how much you bring to the table.”

Reps. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., and Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., both retired U.S. Army veterans and members of the House Armed Services Committee, are advancing a bill they dubbed the MISSION RX Act.

Their proposal is designed to allow Tricare beneficiaries and Department of Veterans Affairs patients to pay for prescription drugs at whichever is the lower of two prices: the rate negotiated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, or the cost offered through their existing coverage.

The bottom line, the congressmen say, is that anyone covered by Tricare or the VA would pay the lowest government-negotiated price.

Right now, only people enrolled in Medicare get to pay the rate for certain drugs set by the CMS.

This option does not automatically extend to those who are part of other federal health programs. The basic framework to lower drug costs for Medicare recipients was part of the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden.

“After serving 25 years in uniform, I know firsthand the sacrifices our service members, veterans and military families make every single day,” Vindman said in an exclusive statement to Military Times. “The last thing any of them should have to worry about is whether they can afford the prescription drugs they need.”

“The veterans and service members I represent in Virginia’s Seventh District have earned every benefit this nation can give them. That’s why I’m leading this commonsense effort to reduce the crushing cost of prescription drugs for those who have served and sacrificed,” he added.

Vindman and Ryan’s push faces an uncertain future in the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. The bill has four co-sponsors so far, all of whom are Democrats: Reps. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Bill Keating of Massachusetts.

It also has the support of a number of key organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Marine Corps League, the Fleet Reserve Association, Air Force Sergeants Association and Commissioned Officers Association Public Health Service.

Before they entered Congress, Vindman and Ryan built their careers in the Army during the post-9/11 wars, each deploying to Iraq. Vindman began as a paratrooper and infantry officer, before going on to serve as a Judge Advocate General’s Corps attorney. Ryan, for his part, worked as an intelligence officer, earning two Bronze Star Medals.

“Military families have sacrificed so much for our country — it’s absolutely unacceptable that they’re being forced to pay more than other Americans for the same medication,” Ryan said in a statement.

“Our bill corrects this egregious oversight by ensuring that military families have access to the same lower drug prices that others do. Especially amid rising healthcare costs nationwide, leaving military families to bear the burden is simply un-American,” he continued. “They’ve stepped up and sacrificed for us — now we need to do right by them.”

The legislation, if enacted, would boost the savings for American taxpayers from lower drug costs. CMS already estimates that the original Biden-era measures could save $6 billion annually.

As first reported by Stars and Stripes, Army and Air Force budget request breakdowns describe increases to the extra pays earned by troops in harm’s way. Service members can earn either hostile fire pay or imminent danger pay, but not both. The payments are based on location and are calculated by the day — $7.50 per day up to a maximum of $225 per month.

Documents explaining the Air Force budget request describe allocations for “increases for military special and incentive pay, including hostile fire/imminent danger pay.”

While the service does not further detail the increase within budget justification documents, it does add that the Pentagon has “increased Hostile Fire Pay and Imminent Danger Pay rates to the maximum statutory threshold,” effective as of the start of Fiscal Year 2027.

According to U.S. Code, that maximum for those in hostile fire areas is $450 per month — double the current ceiling of $225.

The Army, in its documentation, describes hostile fire or imminent danger pay that “may not exceed $450 per month.”

A Pentagon official, who asked not to be named, said the Department of Defense had yet to commit to increasing pays for hazardous duties.

“The department continuously evaluates its policies to ensure that they are advancing its mission,” the official told Military Times. “At this time, no decision has been made to increase the current rates for hostile fire event or imminent danger pay.”

Meanwhile, a review commissioned through the last defense budget may result in the designation of even more regions as eligible for the stipend soon.

The Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law last December, mandated a review of the list of areas eligible for danger pay, as maintained by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

At the time, the last updates to the list were made in 2023, when the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait, Gaza Strip, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Ukraine were added.

The NDAA called for a 60-day review to begin no later than March 1, and began, for the first time, a routine review process that will consider the global conflict landscape every five years, beginning in 2031.

The current DFAS list includes 59 locations, some of them permanent and others provisional.

On Feb. 28, the list was updated to add 19 new regions, all of them connected to Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. campaign against the Iranian regime.

An appended note states that all these locations, from Diego Garcia to the Arabian Gulf, will keep their imminent danger designation until the end of the third month following the conclusion of the conflict. The designation could also extend to any follow-on operations directed by the president.

These additions do not appear to be linked to the NDAA-mandated review, however. Defense officials did not provide an update on that effort.

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 budget request calls for dividing defense health program funding into two: a Combat Operational and Medical Readiness account, or COMP, and a Private Sector Care Program section, or PSCP.

The COMP budget would pay for healthcare and medical readiness of active duty personnel and support military treatment facilities, while the PSCP would cover Tricare, the department’s private health program and other care that is not offered at military hospitals, according to budget documents.

The new structure would prevent one program’s costs from affecting the other, ensuring that “essential battlefield medicine and medical force generation is managed alongside other warfighting capabilities,” the budget documents state.

“By splitting out the cost of private sector care into its own account, the department is enhancing transparency and accountability, making it easier to track how resources are balanced between military medical platforms and the care through our civilian partners,” Space Force Lt. Gen. Steven Whitney, director of force structure, resources and assessment for the Joint Staff, said during a Pentagon budget briefing April 21.

The Defense Department initiated significant reforms of the military health system starting in 2017 as part of an effort to eliminate redundancy and duplication across the military health system.

The changes gave administrative oversight of military hospitals and clinics to the Defense Health Agency and were meant to align medical manpower to focus on active duty personnel and shed non-military patients to the private sector.

But the reforms have negatively affected the system, resulting in an overall degradation of capability at military hospitals and increased reliance on private sector medical care.

Service leaders said this year that healthcare access is one of the largest obstacles now facing service members and their families. In January, Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman told an audience at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Arlington, Virginia, that medical care is a top priority.

“I’ve been under the military and medical health system my entire life. The health system I am in today is a shadow of the thing I grew up with as an Air Force dependent,” Perryman said.

The sentiment was reiterated in February during a congressional hearing on military quality of life issues.

“What we’ve all seen over the length of our careers is a gradual erosion in the availability of that healthcare for our service members and their families,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe said during a hearing in February.

Efforts are now underway to recruit doctors and encourage patients to return to military facilities while managing adequate patient loads to sustain capabilities.

In late 2024, former Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks proposed that the system “re-attract” at least 7% of beneficiaries who get their medical care through Tricare, the military’s private health program, to military hospitals and clinics by the end of 2026.

Hicks said certain elements of the DoD’s health system overhaul, which was mandated by Congress in 2017, have left military treatment facilities, or MTFs, “chronically understaffed” and unable to deliver timely care to all patients.

Military medical leadership has not provided an update to the effort, however. In March, retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, sidestepped a direct question on the senior enlisted personnel’s concerns.

“We know there are a lot of problems out there, but certainly the primary purpose of our Military Health System is to have trained and ready medical personnel for combat operations,” Tata said at the 2026 AMSUS-Society of Federal Health Professionals annual meeting, according to a recording reviewed by Military Times.

The silence has also frustrated members of Congress who have sought answers on the progress. In April, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, an Air Force veteran and ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, called for increased oversight after Pentagon medical leaders abruptly cancelled an appearance at a hearing on the military health system on March 25.

In a letter to Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, Houlahan noted that an oversight hearing has not taken place in years.

“Despite many successes, the consolidation of authority in the DHA has been marked by infighting and dysfunction among the Military Departments and the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” Houlahan wrote. “The Military Health System is understaffed and unable to deliver timely care.”

The Defense Department has requested $45.7 billion for the military health system for fiscal 2027, a 5% increase from the 2026 budget. The request includes $20.3 billion for the COMP account, $22.2 billion for the private care account and $3.2 billion for medical infrastructure.

The department also has requested more than $1 billion for research, development tests and evaluation, down nearly $1.5 billion in fiscal 2026.

Work is underway in Congress on the fiscal 2027 Defense Appropriations Act — the legislation that will fund the department next year. House and Senate Republicans have voiced support for the proposed infusion of $1.5 trillion for the fiscal 2027 defense budget, although Senate Defense Appropriations Committee Chairman Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has questioned using a budget reconciliation strategy to cover $350 billion of the cost.

The House plans to mark up the defense appropriations bill on June 24. The Senate has not announced its schedule for introducing the legislation.

Since the truce took hold, Iran has mounted more than 10 attacks on American forces, Caine told reporters at a Pentagon press briefing. But he characterized the hostile actions as “all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.”

Demarcating that threshold is “a political decision above my pay grade,” Caine said, before adding, “It’s low, harassing fire right now. It feels like Iran is grasping at straws.”

Caine also sounded a warning, saying: “No adversary should mistake our current restraint for a lack of resolve.”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was speaking in the wake of the Army’s AH-64 Apache and Navy’s MH-60 Seahawk helicopters reportedly destroying six small Iranian boats on Monday. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had threatened both U.S. and commercial ships with cruise missiles, drones and fast boats, Central Command said.

A senior figure in the Islamic Republic, however, has accused the U.S. of undermining the ceasefire and insisted that Tehran has yet to fully mobilize its capabilities.

“The new equation of the Strait of Hormuz is in the process of being solidified,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Iranian parliament, wrote in a post on X.

“The security of shipping and energy transit has been jeopardized by the United States and its allies through the violation of the ceasefire and the imposition of a blockade; of course, their evil will diminish,” Ghalibaf continued. “We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America; while we have not even begun yet.”

The latest salvo between the two adversaries comes as the Trump administration unveils “Project Freedom” — a separate initiative from Operation Epic Fury, according to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — aimed at securing the free flow of commerce through the vital waterway.

Pentagon officials said that more than 22,500 mariners aboard over 1,550 commercial vessels were effectively stranded in the Gulf, awaiting transit through the strait.

As part of the naval operations, CENTCOM has established a layered defensive posture over the Strait of Hormuz, integrating Navy warships, Army attack helicopters, Air Force fighter jets and 15,000 service members deployed across the region.

Hegseth described the operation as America’s “gift” to the world, while emphasizing the mission’s impermanence for U.S. forces.

“Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope and temporary in duration, with one mission: Protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression,” he said. “We’re not looking for a fight. But Iran also cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway.”

“We expect the world to step up at the appropriate time, and soon we will hand responsibility back to you,” the defense secretary asserted.

Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said in a social media post on Tuesday breaches of the four-week-old ceasefire by the United States and its allies had endangered shipping and energy transit through the vital waterway.

“We know well that the continuation of the current situation is unbearable for the United States, while we have not even begun yet,” he said.

The fresh volleys of missiles and drones came after U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new effort to get stranded tankers and other ships through the strait, the vital energy-trade chokepoint that has been virtually closed since the U.S. and Israel began attacks on Iran in February, a war that has killed thousands of people across the region.

On Monday, several merchant ships in the Gulf reported explosions or fires, the U.S. said it had destroyed six small Iranian military boats, and an oil port in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts a large U.S. military base, was set ablaze by Iranian missiles.

Trump gave scant details about his new effort, which he called “Project Freedom,” to assist stuck ships in getting through the strait when he announced it on social media, two days after a legal deadline under U.S. law for him to get authorization from Congress for the war.

Trump told Congress the war was “terminated” and the deadline was moot, a claim disputed by some lawmakers.

It was the first apparent attempt to use military force since last month’s ceasefire announcement to unblock the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said can only happen with its permission.

The cost of shipping insurance has also skyrocketed. For weeks, the U.S. Navy has blockaded Iran’s trade by sea, which Iran says is itself an act of war.

But Trump’s latest move, at least initially, appeared to have backfired, bringing no surge of merchant ship traffic while provoking a promised show of force from Iran, which has threatened to respond to any escalation with new attacks on its neighbors hosting U.S. troops.

Major shipping companies said they were likely to wait for an agreed end to hostilities before trying to cross the strait.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Monday’s events showed there was no military solution to the crisis. He said peace talks were progressing with Pakistan’s mediation while warning the U.S. and the UAE against being drawn into a “quagmire by ill-wishers.”

“Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” he wrote on social media.

Nonetheless, the U.S. military said two U.S. merchant ships made it through the strait, without saying when, with the support of Navy guided-missile destroyers.

While Iran denied any crossings had taken place in recent hours, Maersk said the Alliance Fairfax, a U.S.-flagged ship, exited the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz accompanied by the U.S. military on Monday.

The commander of U.S. forces in the region said his fleet had destroyed six small Iranian boats, which Iran also denied. Admiral Brad Cooper said he “strongly advised” Iranian forces to keep clear of U.S. military assets carrying out the mission.

Iranian authorities released a map of what they said was an expanded sea area now under their control, extending far beyond the strait to include long stretches of the UAE’s coastline.

South Korea reported one of its merchant ships, HMM Namu, in the strait suffered an explosion and fire in its engine room, though no one aboard was hurt, and a spokesman said it was unclear if the fire was caused by an attack or originated internally.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO reported two ships had been hit off the coast of the UAE, and the Emirati oil company ADNOC said one of its empty oil tankers was hit by Iranian drones.

IRAN SETS UAE OIL PORT ABLAZE

After reported drone and missile attacks inside the UAE throughout the day, including one that caused a fire at Fujairah, an important oil port, the UAE said Iranian attacks marked a serious escalation and it reserved the right to respond.

Fujairah lies beyond the strait, making it one of few export routes for Middle East oil that does not require passing through it.

Its government also said that it was implementing remote learning for school students for safety reasons.

Iran’s state television network said military officials had confirmed they attacked the UAE in response to the “U.S. military’s adventurism.”

Earlier, Iran said it had fired on a U.S. warship approaching the strait, forcing it to turn around. An initial Iranian report had said a U.S. warship was struck, but the U.S. denied this and Iranian officials later described the fire as warning shots.

Reuters could not independently verify the full situation in the strait on Monday as the warring sides issued contradictory statements.

Iran’s unified command has told commercial ships and oil tankers that they needed to coordinate with its armed forces.

“We warn that any foreign armed forces, especially the aggressive U.S. Army, will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz,” it said.

The U.S. and Israel suspended their bombing of Iran four weeks ago, and U.S. and Iranian officials held one round of face-to-face peace talks. But attempts to set up further meetings have failed.

Iranian state media said on Sunday that the U.S. had conveyed its response to a 14-point Iranian proposal via Pakistan, and Iran was reviewing it. Neither side gave details.

The Iranian proposal would postpone discussion of Iran’s nuclear energy and research programs until after an agreement to end the war and resolve the standoff over shipping. Trump said over the weekend he was still studying it but would probably reject it.

The latest U.S. intelligence shows limited damage to Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is a purely peaceful civilian nuclear program, since the war began, officials told Reuters.

Iran’s nuclear facilities were bombed by the U.S. and Israel in attacks last year. Trump wants to remove Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium to prevent Iran from processing it further to the point where it could make a nuclear weapon.

U.S. Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of Central Command, declined to comment on whether he thought a ceasefire begun on April 8 remained in effect. But he acknowledged ongoing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps efforts to “interfere” with President Donald Trump’s operation to open the critical waterway to commercial traffic.

“The IRGC has launched multiple cruise missiles, drones, and small boats at ships we are protecting. We have defeated each and every one of those threats through the clinical application of defensive munitions,” he said.

Cooper said he “strongly advised” Iranian forces to remain well clear of U.S. military assets as it launches the operation, which he said involved 15,000 U.S. troops, U.S. Navy destroyers, over 100 land- and sea-based aircraft and undersea assets.

“The U.S. commanders who are on the scene have all the authorities necessary to defend their units and to defend commercial shipping,” he said.

Asked if the U.S. military was escorting ships, Cooper said there were no traditional escorts but rather a larger, multi-layered defensive arrangement that included ships, helicopters, aircraft and electronic warfare to defend against Iranian threats.

“If you’re escorting a ship, you’re playing kind of one on one. I think we have a much better defensive arrangement in this process,” he said. “We have a much broader defensive package than you would have ever if you were just escorting.”

Cooper said a U.S. blockade of Iran, which prevents ships from going to Iran or departing Iranian territory, also remained in effect and was exceeding expectations.

Boeing’s VC-25B Bridge aircraft is currently being painted in the red, white and blue livery that President Donald Trump initially sought after during his first term in 2018, according to a Friday Air Force release.

Plans to replace the current Air Force One aging planes with two new VC-25B aircrafts have been in effect for about a decade, but a lack of properly cleared workers and supply chain issues caused the plans that were originally scheduled for a 2024 delivery to be delayed.

Now, the aircrafts are expected to be delivered in 2028.

“With the Boeing VC-25B deliveries delayed past its initial 2024 target and VC-25A heavy maintenance cycles extending, an interim capability became an absolute imperative,” the release says.

Although Trump has voiced his dissatisfaction many times with Boeing’s delays, the defense company has expressed their determination to complete the transformation of 747-8 aircraft into VC-25Bs.

In the meantime, Trump will use the luxury jet that was donated by Qatar in May 2025.

The decision to use this aircraft raised national security concerns along with worries over the amount of time and money it would require to renovate the aircraft to be appropriate for presidential use.

In June 2025, the Air Force said it would cost roughly $400 million to modify the aircraft, far less than the $1 billion aviation experts and lawmakers previously speculated.

To make the plane suitable for a president, the plane’s defense would have to be reinforced with countermeasures, encrypted communications and other necessities installed.

The release did not specify what type of capabilities the Air Force installed. Aviation experts conjectured in the past that updating the aircraft to fit those capabilities would last into the 2030s.

“To meet the VC-25B Bridge accelerated timeline, the Air Force leveraged unique industry partnerships and a creative acquisition strategy, utilizing multiple 747-8 airframes from around the globe to support both the final aircraft and the training pipeline,” the statement reads.

L3Harris Technologies, a defense contractor company, was selected to modify the aircraft in collaboration with Boeing, who provided engineering data to support the required updates, according to the release.

This collaboration “catapulted” the operational readiness ahead of the initial schedule, the release noted, with the Air Force creating an at-scale mockup of the aircraft’s interior to allow for White House staff to complete early commissioning activities.

“This platform provides the Air Force with invaluable lead time to mature our training pipelines, synchronize our supply chains and solidify sustainment frameworks,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in the release.

“We are building the ecosystem necessary to ensure this fleet remains mission-ready for the next 30 to 40 years,” Meink concluded.

Currently, Trump is using the VC-25A, a version of the Boeing 747 that has been in service as the primary Air Force One aircraft since 1990.

Even though the VC-25B is on track to be delivered to the Presidential Airlift Group by this summer, it is unclear when the president is slated to begin flying in it.

Trump had threatened a drawdown in forces earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said on Monday the Iranians were humiliating the U.S. in talks to end the two-month-old war and that he did not see what exit strategy Washington was pursuing.

A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said recent German rhetoric had been “inappropriate and unhelpful.”

“The president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks,” the official said.

The Pentagon said the withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months. Germany is home to some 35,000 active-duty U.S. military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe.

The official said the drawdown would bring U.S. troop levels in Europe back to roughly pre-2022 levels, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a buildup by then-President Joe Biden.

The official also cast the decision in terms of the Trump administration’s push for Europe to become the main security provider on the continent. But it is nonetheless another potent reminder of Trump’s willingness to respond to perceived disloyalty by allies.

Reuters exclusively reported last week an internal Pentagon email that outlined options to punish NATO allies that Washington believes failed to ​support U.S. operations in the war with Iran, including suspending Spain from NATO and reviewing the U.S. position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands.

GERMAN TIES FRAY

Trump has singled out Germany even as he has chastised other NATO allies for not sending their navies to help open the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict.

The waterway, a chokepoint for global oil shipments, has remained virtually shut, causing market turmoil and unprecedented disruption in energy supplies.

Merz has said Germans and Europeans were not consulted before the U.S. and Israel started attacking Iran on Feb. 28, and that he had conveyed his skepticism about the conflict directly to Trump afterwards.

“The president has been very clear about his frustrations about our allies’ rhetoric and failure to provide support for U.S. operations that benefit them,” the senior Pentagon official said.

Trump has long wanted to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Germany. He pushed for a reduction at the end of his first term, but that cut was never enacted. Trump lost the election and Biden reversed the plan.

Trump’s Wednesday announcement that he was reviewing U.S. troop levels in Germany surprised German military officials who spoke to Reuters, citing what they called constructive meetings at the Pentagon earlier in the day.

They argue that Germany has done more than other allies to support the U.S. war in Iran, including allowing the use of bases and giving permission for overflights. Germany is also home to a huge military hospital in Landstuhl.

As part of Trump’s withdrawal decision, a brigade combat team now in Germany will be pulled out of the country and a long-range fires battalion that the Biden administration had planned to begin deploying to Germany later this year will no longer deploy, the official said.

His nomination now goes to the Senate for confirmation. If approved, Schiess would become the Space Force’s highest-ranking officer and only the third person to hold the title of chief of space operations.

He would take over for Gen. Chance Saltzman, who is expected to retire this year after serving four years in the role.

”If confirmed, I will focus on sharpening our lethality and accelerating the delivery of space capabilities to the warfighter, keeping the Space Force ahead against any adversary," Schiess said in a statement.

Schiess is currently the deputy chief of space operations, a role in which he’s responsible for developing and implementing policies for the service’s global operations, sustainment, training and readiness. He transferred from the Air Force into the Space Force in 2022.

Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink described space as an “increasingly contested domain.” Recent U.S. military operations in Iran and Venezuela “have underscored Guardians’ ability to deliver combat-ready, asymmetric advantages from space,” the statement reads.

Schiess has previously warned that China remains America’s top threat in space and is catching up to the capabilities of the U.S. military at an “incredible pace.”

“China is definitely our biggest threat,” he said during the annual Air & Space Forces Association conference in September.

Included in the roster of partnerships — intended for “lawful operational use” — are SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the department said in a statement.

“Together, the War Department and these strategic partners share the conviction that American leadership in AI is indispensable to national security,” it continued.

Under the agreements, systems will be rolled out within the department’s Impact Level 6 and Impact Level 7 network environments, where they are intended to streamline data synthesis, elevate situational understanding and augment decision-making in complex operational environments.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the financial terms of the contracts.

Notably absent from the announcement is the AI frontier lab Anthropic, which the Department of Defense designated a supply-chain risk to U.S. national security in March. The move was the first of its kind against an American firm.

The dispute is predicated on Anthropic’s refusal to grant the Pentagon unrestricted access to its Claude models for use in fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.

At the height of the furor, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X, declared that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner” doing business with the Pentagon may engage in any commercial activity with the company.

Anthropic subsequently filed two separate lawsuits in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., asking federal judges to overturn the Trump administration’s order. The case remains ongoing.

Signs of rapprochement, however, have emerged in recent weeks. President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles and other senior officials met with Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei at the White House on April 17.

Following the meeting, Trump told CNBC that a deal with the firm was “possible,” adding, “They’re very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people. I like high-IQ people, and they definitely have high IQs.”

The Department of Defense uses location-specific surveys and price and military spending data to set cost-of-living allowances, known as COLAs. In a report released on Thursday, the Government Accountability Office found that the department used a mix of unsound sampling practices and inconsistent processes to set COLAs, raising questions about whether payments reflect local expenses.

Service members stationed in places like Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, Germany and Virginia — where the cost of living is often higher — receive COLA, or additional payments, to help offset costs. The total amount a service member receives is also based on the number of dependents in the household.

The vast majority of those payments, the GAO said, are sent to soldiers stationed outside of the continental U.S., or OCONUS, versus those stationed inside the continental U.S., CONUS. The watchdog highlighted inconsistencies between how the department calculated COLA payments for OCONUS versus CONUS duty locations.

The auditors also found discrepancies in the amount of and type information local commands provided soldiers in areas that receive COLA, and in some cases, service members reported confusion about what they were entitled to or why it might change.

In the report, investigators noted that some Defense Department personnel said changes to COLA payments made it hard for them to budget for their households.

“In nine of the 17 discussion group summaries we held in locations that receive a COLA, participants mentioned that COLA fluctuates so much that they cannot rely on it as part of their budgets,” the report said, later giving an example where a high-ranking officer in Japan linked issues with COLA to problems with readiness.

“Eating a beans and rice diet has a direct impact on our ability to fight,” he told auditors.

The office included several recommendations for the Defense Department to fix its findings, including aligning the CONUS and OCONUS payments for dependents and applying its processes for location-specific costs more consistently.

The Defense Department concurred with both recommendations, but did not agree with a separate suggestion to use random sampling for service member’s shopping patterns.

The auditors also recommended requiring local commands to give information about COLA to service members, a suggestion the department only “partially concurred with,” arguing that the Defense Travel Management Office maintains publicly available information and that the department does not have a central point of contact for COLA inquiries.

During a hearing Thursday on the Defense Department’s $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 budget request, Hegseth said he supports the Maj. Richard Star Act — a bill that would give roughly 54,000 veterans their retirement pay and VA disability concurrently.

“As I have said in the past to other organizations, we support the Richard Star Act,” Hegseth said during questioning by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

Blumenthal is a lead sponsor of the bill who repeatedly has tried to pass the legislation, most recently, calling in March for a Senate vote. The legislation has the support of 79 Senators and 323 House members.

But it has been blocked by some Republicans over concerns of funding. In March, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., objected to Blumenthal’s call for a floor vote, saying the legislation would cost more than $70 billion over the first 10 years of enactment.

Lingering cost worries cloud plans for veterans disability reform bill

The $70 billion Johnson cited is the total estimated cost of eliminating the offset for all 250,000 military medical retirees, and according to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, the Richard Star Act only applies to medical retirees eligible for Combat Related Special Compensation.

Under those requirements, the committee estimates it would cost $11 billion over 10 years.

The legislation is a top priority for major veterans groups including the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans.

Because of its cost, under current congressional rules, lawmakers must find a way to pay for it. One proposal set forth by the VFW is to use the federal Military Retirement Fund, which finances military retired pay and has more than $1.7 trillion in assets.

The legislation was named for Army Reserve Maj. Richard Star, who died in 2021 from lung cancer after being exposed to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since 2004, veterans who earned military retirement for serving at least 20 years and who quality for VA disability benefits receive full pay for both if they have a disability rating of at least 50%.

But veterans who retired early from service as a result of military injury or illness are subject to dollar-for-dollar offsets in their military disability and VA disability benefits, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars in lost income.

Blumenthal implored his fellow legislators to support the bill.

“It will eliminate this wounded warrior tax,” Blumenthal said.

The benefits of U.S. troops here include deterring adversaries, combat training with allies on European terrain and absorbing lessons from nearby Ukraine, they told Reuters and a small group of other media visiting the U.S. Army’s only combat training center outside the U.S., located in Hohenfels, southern Germany.

The handful of officers who spoke either did not comment on President Trump’s remarks, or declined to.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on how a troop reduction would impact activities in the country.

Germany is the U.S. military’s largest footprint in Europe, with some 35,000 active-duty military personnel, and serves as a key training hub.

That includes the Hohenfels facility, which spans some 163-square kilometers of forest. The area hosts large-scale combat training for U.S. troops as well as other NATO and partner nations.

On Thursday, a U.S. armored unit was a week into a grueling 10-day long exercise, which included evading an opposing force and its arsenal of surveillance and attack drones.

The brigade is at the end of a nine-month deployment in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe as part of a U.S. Army-led initiative to support NATO while building readiness and enhancing bonds between ally and partner militaries.

Their presence in Europe shows potential adversaries that in the event of a conflict “that they’re going to face the most ready, trained, lethal fighting force, and not just the United States, but the United States and its NATO allies,” said the brigade’s commander, Col. Michael Ziegelhofer.

“The fact that we’re out here represents, you know, really our country’s support for NATO and our allies,” he said.

‘FIGHT TOGETHER’

Training with other nations is “incredibly important,” said Ziegelhofer, standing on the edge of a small mock town. “If a crisis were to take place over here, we’d be in the fight together, so training like this helps us to build the interoperability, not just with the equipment that we have, but between the people and the systems and the processes in our unit.”

The brigade has also been learning about drones during their deployment in Europe, added Ziegelhofer.

“We worked all the way from learning how to fly them to getting pretty sophisticated in understanding the systems and processes,” he said, “both in using them ourselves and how to counter the enemy’s use of those since we’ve been over here.”

LESSONS FROM UKRAINE

The evolution of drones and electronic warfare are among the lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war being incorporated into training, said Lt. Col. Michael Cryer, commander of the opposition forces permanently assigned to Hohenfels training area, known as the “warrior” battalion.

“It’s been a cat-and-mouse game, as you’ve seen in Ukraine,” he said. “Where one side develops this capability, another side develops a countermeasure.”

One of the biggest challenges, according to the officer, is maintaining options for offensive maneuvers while being constantly surveilled by aerial drones.

“It is nearly impossible to hide,” Cryer said. “Across the Army, we haven’t totally come to grips with that.”

U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith told audience members at Modern Day Marine in Washington on Thursday that the demand for ARG-MEUs has exceeded the 3.0 presence he previously called for.

“I won’t say how many of the ARG-MEUs our combat commanders asked for, but it is well north of three,” he said. “Like double that.”

Calls for ARG-MEUs are coming from the U.S. military’s Southern Command, European Command, U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command.

A 3.0 presence indicates a three-ship ARG-MEU deployed at all times: one out of the East Coast, one out of the West Coast and the 31st MEU delivering periodic deployments out of Okinawa, Japan.

Currently, the 22nd MEU is participating in Operation Southern Spear and the 31st MEU is in the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury.

The 11th MEU is reportedly en route toward the Middle East to support Operation Epic Fury, but as of this week was conducting routine patrols around the southern Philippines.

Smith labeled ARG-MEUs the most flexible tool in the Defense Department inventory, providing humanitarian assistance, non-combatant evacuation operations and key strike capabilities.

The ARG-MEUs in recent years have been more relevant than ever before, Smith added, but sustaining the pace proved difficult. This struggle emphasized the Marine Corps’ and Navy’s need to return to a permanent 3.0 ARG-MEU presence.

“This is our number one priority and it remains my personal north star as a commandant,” Smith said.

US Marine Corps, Navy join forces to combat insufficient amphibious fleet size

The Navy’s current inventory of amphibious ships, however, is not enough to address this goal, according to Smith.

The Navy holds an inventory of 32 amphibious warfare ships, but half of the fleet is in poor condition and poorly maintained, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

A defense official told Military Times in August 2025 that the readiness rate of amphibious ships had dropped to 41% despite the Marine Corps previously stating that the amphibious readiness rate needed to remain at 80% or higher to complete missions.

To remedy the ongoing issue, the Marine Corps is focusing on optimizing maintenance schedules, investing in service life extensions and procuring new ships.

Expeditionary Warfare Director Brig. Gen. Lee Meyer told reporters Tuesday at the Modern Day Marine exposition that the Navy recently completed a study on Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, which led to the service life extension of the USS Wasp.

Meyer said the Navy and Marine Corps would also study other amphibious assault ships to see if they could extend their lifespan, with the services expecting a completed study of amphibious dock landing ships in the next several days.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps recently partnered to launch the Amphibious Force Readiness Board, which will seek to tackle the best pathway forward to maintain, modernize and build the service’s amphibious fleet to prioritize availability.

The board wasn’t a study group, according to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, who spoke at Modern Day Marine Thursday. It was a platform to produce action, he said.

“Far too long amphibious readiness has absorbed the cumulative effects of aging systems, deferred maintenance, supply chain, friction, workforce shortages and high operational tempo,” said Caudle. “So, we are attacking the problem directly.”

Hegseth argued that the pause in hostilities freezes the ticking clock that would otherwise require the president either to get agreement from lawmakers or to end military operations after 60 days.

“We are in a ceasefire right now, which [in] our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops,” Hegseth told Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Kaine, who was Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, strongly disputed Hegseth’s interpretation.

“I do not believe the statute would support that,” Kaine said, adding that he has “serious constitutional concerns and we don’t want to layer those with additional statutory concerns.”

The 60-day threshold is delineated in the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The most relevant part of that law makes no mention of a ceasefire, stating instead that a president needs to inform Congress within 48 hours of hostilities commencing. After such a report, the law states that “within sixty calendar days” the president must “terminate any use of United States Armed Forces” unless Congress consents to an extension.

Friday marks 60 days since the Trump administration notified Congress that it had launched strikes on Iran. The law gives the president the option to ask for a 30-day extension, though it is unclear whether Trump intends to do so.

A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the White House’s position, told Military Times that for the purposes of the War Powers Resolution, the conflict that began on Feb. 28 is now considered “terminated.”

The official pointed to the ceasefire brokered on April 7, emphasizing that there has been no exchange of fire between U.S. and Iranian forces since it took hold.

Washington and Tehran are now locked in a high-stakes stalemate. Trump has responded to the Islamic Republic’s effective seizure of the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s oil typically flows — by ordering a blockade on all vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports.

After the president suggested the blockade could persist for months, the global oil price hit a wartime high on Thursday, with Brent crude briefly topping $126 a barrel.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump has been “transparent with the Hill since before Operation Epic Fury began, and administration officials provided over 30 bipartisan briefings for members of Congress to keep them apprised of military updates.”

Kelly added: “The president’s preference is always diplomacy, and Iran wants to make a deal.”

Hegseth’s remarks came during his second consecutive day on Capitol Hill, where he testified under oath that, eight weeks into the war with Iran, America’s top adversary is not any foreign nation — but instead the “reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.”

The Pentagon chief repeatedly cast those members of Congress as undercutting the U.S. military’s performance in Iran, while criticizing them for their failure to acknowledge the achievements of Operation Epic Fury.

“President Trump has had the courage, unlike other presidents, to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and that their nuclear blackmail never succeeds,” Hegseth said in his opening statement.

He blasted “defeatists from the cheap seats who, two months in, seek to undermine the incredible efforts that have been undertaken, and the historic nature of taking on a 47-year threat with the courage no other president has had, to great success and great opportunity for preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”

The hearing quickly devolved into confrontation when a protester interrupted the proceedings, shouting, “Pete Hegseth, you’re a war criminal,” before being swiftly escorted out by Capitol Police Officers.

Attention then shifted to Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, who accused Hegseth of overstating the U.S. military’s accomplishments.

“The problem with your statements, Mr. Secretary, is they are dangerously exaggerated,” Reed said. “Iran’s hardline regime remains in place. It still retains stockpiles of enriched uranium, and its nuclear program remains viable.”

Reed asserted that the Islamic Republic is far from depleted. Iran retains, he said, enough combat effectiveness to sustain a protracted impasse; an arsenal of missiles and drones that constitutes a more serious threat than the secretary has publicly conceded; and a demonstrated ability to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz when it chooses.

“I am concerned that you have been telling the president what he wants to hear, instead of what he needs to hear,” Reed continued. “Our military has performed heroically, but military force without a sound strategy is a path to long-term defeat.”

Of that $24.8 billion requested, $22.6 billion is slated for the Air Force, while $2.2 billion is meant for the Space Force, according to U.S. Air Force budget documents.

The budget includes funding for items such as depot maintenance, software updates and engine overhauls, according to the department’s posture statement.

The program is a part of the overall Operation and Maintenance portfolio, which has seen a 23% increase and $9.9 billion allotted for the flying hour program to boost pilot flying hours to over a million.

In a Thursday House Appropriations Committee budget hearing for the Air and Space forces, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said that Operation Epic Fury increased pilots’ flight hours through their support of Air Force and Joint Force troops.

“Our mobility machine has been operating marvelously through the last operations but in particular through Epic Fury,” Wilsbach said in the hearing.

He said that the ability to continue these additional flight hours and operations will rest on the Weapons System Sustainment fund of around $22 billion for the Air Force.

The general said that as the force brings back the aircraft used in Operation Epic Fury, the service will need to refurbish them and allow them to extend their lifetime.

Operation Epic Fury utilized a variety of combat and support aircrafts such as the A-10 attack aircraft, B-1 bomber, F-15E striker and B-52 bomber.

The general did not specify the total number of flying hours the operation added to the service, but the operation reported more than 13,000 targets struck by the Joint Force over 38 days.

U.S. bombers flew at least 18 missions with each one lasting over 30 hours in duration, according to data from the National Defense Transportation Association.

For fiscal 2027, the budget also calls for funding for 1.1 million flying hours in the Flying Hour Program, which is the “maximum executable level for the total force.”

The document highlights that even though this amount is below the department’s goal of 1.3 million flying hours, the service is working to address the issues that limit flying hour capacity such as pilot shortages and aircraft difficulties.

“Recognizing the intrinsic link between aircraft availability and pilot training, we are making simultaneous, targeted investments in Weapon System Sustainment and the Working Capital Fund to increase aircraft readiness rates,” the budget document reads.

The department’s total budget request for fiscal year 2027 is $338.8 billion. Hearings on the budget’s components began mid-April, with formal approval by Congress expected closer to or after Oct. 1, when 2027 fiscal year begins.

The service’s fiscal 2027 budget request includes $996.5 million in procurement funding to begin production of Increment 1 Collaborative Combat Aircraft, plus $150 million in advance procurement for FY28.

Combined with roughly $1.37 billion in continued research and development, up from $827 million in FY26, the total program request reaches roughly $2.37 billion, according to Pentagon comptroller documents released April 3.

The CCA procurement line stands out as the single largest new addition to the Air Force’s $30.64 billion aircraft procurement account, the clearest sign yet that the program is moving from the test range into the operational fleet.

Unlike traditional remotely piloted drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper, Collaborative Combat Aircraft are jet-powered, semi-autonomous systems designed to operate alongside crewed fighters such as the F-35, F-22 and future F-47. The pilot in the manned jet serves as mission commander, while the CCAs, the “loyal wingmen,” use onboard autonomy for navigation, maneuvering, sensor fusion and weapons employment.

Increment 1 CCA will focus primarily on air-to-air and strike missions, with electronic warfare and ISR variants planned for later increments. The Air Force has previously signaled interest in acquiring 100–150 aircraft in Increment 1 as part of a longer-term goal of hundreds to low thousands across multiple increments.

The CCA program was developed to address a core operational problem. Crewed fighters alone cannot generate sufficient combat mass against a peer adversary like China. CCAs are designed to be affordable enough to lose, capable enough to fight and numerous enough to matter, accepting risks that would otherwise fall to crewed fighters.

The Air Force’s notional plan calls for each manned fighter to command two CCAs, though testing and simulation suggest one pilot can effectively manage three to five, potentially more.

The FY27 request backs that vision with real procurement dollars for the first time. It commits the service, industry and Congress to treating CCA as a permanent part of the future fleet rather than an experiment.

That shift, however, forces several key decisions the Air Force has not yet made: where the aircraft will be based; who will maintain them; how pilots and maintainers will be trained; and how they will integrate into existing fighter squadrons.

Despite those challenges, the increased R&D funding signals that Increment 1 is only the beginning. Nine vendors are already under contract for Increment 2 prototypes, and service officials have indicated wargaming favors larger numbers of lower-cost CCAs for a Pacific fight.

A final production decision for Increment 1 is expected this summer. General Atomics’s YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A are the lead competitors, with Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A in testing for later phases. Budget documents do not specify exact CCA quantities for the FY27 lot, but analysts estimate roughly 30 airframes, depending on final unit costs.

Col. Timothy Helfrich, the program’s portfolio acquisition executive, said during a Defense One panel on March 25 the program is currently tracking below the original $30 million per-unit target.

While beating cost targets is a welcome development, production transitions are seldom without hiccups. Autonomy software, supply chain maturity and integration with manned platforms remain works in progress. Whether to aggressively scale Increment 1 or accelerate Increment 2 could prove a challenging balancing act, and how CCAs will be fielded across active-duty, Guard and Reserve units remains unclear.

Those operational questions will ultimately be shaped in large part by Congress, where approval itself remains another hurdle.

While the CCA procurement request sits squarely in the base budget, offering a cleaner path than items pushed through reconciliation, lawmakers have already requested detailed briefings on mission sets, human-machine interfaces, production scaling and integration plans. Any push for minimum quantity language or additional oversight is likely to appear in the FY27 markup.

While the program waits on Congress, an outside vote of confidence has already arrived. On April 23, the Netherlands became the first ally to commit funding for two Increment 1 CCAs. Under the partnership, the aircraft will remain U.S. property and operate with the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit at Nellis AFB, with Dutch personnel embedded to help develop concepts of operations.

“The future fight will be fought with allies and partners,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in an April 23 statement. “By aligning our approaches early, we ensure interoperability and shared advantage in the era of human-machine teaming.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will also participate in the briefing, the official said.

The official did not disclose the range of options that will be discussed but said the briefing was expected to be focused on actions needed to compel Iran to negotiate an end to the conflict.

U.S. Central Command and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Hegseth and Caine will be testifying before the Senate at 11 a.m. EST, with questions expected to focus on the conflict launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28. The White House briefing was expected to take place following that hearing.

Axios reported on Thursday that Central Command had prepared a plan for a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on Iran, likely including infrastructure targets as well as another one for taking over part of the Strait of Hormuz to reopen it to commercial shipping.

Such options, however, have long been part of the U.S. planning and it did not appear that Axios was suggesting any departure from such planning.

The Iran war, which remains unpopular in the U.S., has shaken markets and raised oil prices.

The war has brought traffic close to a standstill through the ​strait, a chokepoint for about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.

A hearing on the Pentagon’s $1.45 trillion budget request for fiscal 2027 became a hotly contested debate on Iran, with House Armed Services Committee members asking how long the secretary expected the operation to last and Hegseth bristling at those who questioned the administration’s decision to go to war.

Committee members praised the work of the U.S. service members currently deployed to the Middle East, but they also wanted Hegseth to address the ultimate outcome.

Ranking committee member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked Hegseth where the war was going. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., said the military had executed the war with “tactical success” but called the administration’s strategy an example of “incompetence.”

The comments struck a nerve with Hegseth, who argued that President Donald Trump is the only U.S. leader to decide to physically stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said, addressing Garamendi and others who have opposed the operation.

“Shame on you calling this a quagmire two months in the effort,” Hegseth added.

When the U.S. and Israel launched combat operations in Iran on Feb. 28, Trump said the goals were three-fold: destroy Iran’s missile capability; “annihilate” their navy; and ensure that the country would never have nuclear weapons.

The operation killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several key leaders, destroyed Iran’s navy and wiped out key military installations. In retaliation, Iran launched missiles and air assaults on U.S. military facilities, killing 13 and damaging U.S. bases across the region, as well as civilian targets in Meddle East countries.

Hegseth noted that the Iranian navy has been destroyed, but Iran continues to have nuclear ambitions despite losing capabilities as a result of Operation Midnight Hammer last summer that Hegseth said “obliterated” facilities.

“You have to stare down this kind of enemy who’s hell bent on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to a point where they’re at the table giving it up,” Hegseth said.

The questions over the war’s future come as a 60-day deadline approaches Thursday under the War Powers Act. The legislation requires the president to seek congressional authorization to continue the operation or withdraw troops.

The law allows Trump to request an extension if the time is needed to safely withdraw U.S. troops.

According to testimony, the Iran war has cost $25 billion to date, with the highest costs coming at the beginning of the conflict as a result of the use of thousands of bombs and missiles.

Iran war has cost $25 billion so far, Pentagon official says

The Defense Department’s $1.45 trillion budget request for fiscal 2027 is 44% higher than the Pentagon’s current budget — the highest in modern history. It would fund an increase in military end-strength of 44,000 service members, provide a 5% to 7% pay raise to troops depending on rank and boost procurement funding by 76%.

“Under the leadership of President Trump our builder-in-chief, we are reversing … systemic decay and putting our defense industrial base back on a war-time footing,” Hegseth said.

During the hearing, lawmakers raised concerns about the firing of former Army Chief of Staff Randy George and the decision to remove general officers from promotion lists, with several praising the former’s 40-years of service and dedication to soldiers.

“Let’s talk about a guy who is a patriot. Someone who everyone on this dais has huge admiration for,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., an Air Force veteran, referring to George.

In his response to Houlahan, Hegseth hinted that he fired George as part of a war on “woke” — Hegseth’s efforts to eliminate diversity or equity initiatives in the services.

“Out of respect for these officers, we never talk about the nature of their removal, but every one of them, including myself, knows that they serve at the pleasure of the president,” Hegseth said.

But, he added, “it’s very difficult to change the culture of a department that has been destroyed by the wrong perspective.”

During testimony, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine remained above the political fray, declining to answer questions he perceived as political.

“My duty is to ensure our civilian leadership has a comprehensive range of military options and the associated risks that to those leaders who make the nation’s hardest decisions and offer my military advice privately,” Caine said.

“My blueprint for this role is Gen. George C. Marshall. His commitment to civilian control of the military and nonpartisan military remains a constant standard, and something I borrow from often,” he added.