The British military is to be given new powers to shoot down drones that fly near its bases.
The Government said the move was necessary after the number of such incursions more than doubled last year.
Currently, military personnel do not have the legal authority to shoot down unmanned aircraft and must rely on the police to intervene.
From the surface of its flight deck, in the waters between Malaysia and Indonesia, HMS Prince of Wales is a vision of deadly splendour, the most advanced warship in the history of the Royal Navy.
Its radars can detect an object as small as a tennis ball 15 miles away. Its laser-guided Phalanx gun stands poised to blast out of the water any enemy who gets too close. Its fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter jets fly at supersonic speeds and land vertically like helicopters on its 280m-long deck.
Lord Kitchener thought the tank would never catch on. More than a century later, they’re still a vital weapon on the front line. Mark Urban salutes ten monstrous machines that rewrote the rules of war
When he was invited to a demonstration of a new secret weapon at Hatfield Park, Hertfordshire, in February 1916, the secretary of state for war was distinctly underwhelmed. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, having watched the prototype tanks chugging along at walking pace, left early, dismissing what he had seen as “a pretty mechanical toy, but without serious military value”.
To its advocates this new machine was an answer to the prayers of those fighting and dying in the trenches. The argument between sceptics and enthusiasts never stopped — indeed it is still going on today, as Ukrainian troops try to gain an advantage over their Russian invaders.
Ten years have passed since the Department of Defense initiated a social experiment with women in the military. Pentagon officials promised that female trainees headed for previously all-male combat arms units would have to meet the exact same standards as men. Has the experiment played out as promised?
We are about to find out. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s March 30 Memorandum calls for a 60-day review to achieve high, uncompromised standards in combat arms units such as the infantry, Special Operations, and other occupations with extraordinary physical demands.
Denmark is the latest country to introduce military conscription for women. On March 25, Copenhagen announced that young women who turn 18 after July 1 of this year could be drafted by national lottery starting in January 2026 if the military does not attract enough volunteers. The measure is being put into place two years earlier than planned amid rising geopolitical tensions in Europe.
Around 25% of voluntary recruits are currently women, according to the Danish Armed Forces. Compulsory military service, which was already in place for men, lasts between four and 12 months, depending on what recruits decide to do after their three-month basic training.
Drones have revolutionized modern warfare in the sky. Now defense companies and navies are betting they can do the same underwater.
The new underwater drones, with names such as Ghost Shark, Herne and Manta Ray, can typically dive thousands of feet below the surface and operate largely without human interaction for days on end. That ability makes them ideally suited to gather intelligence, protect undersea infrastructure and counter potential threats in the Pacific, advocates say.
In an era where traditional norms are under scrutiny, and the landscape of American defense policy is evolving, the integration of women into combat roles within the U.S. military presents both an opportunity and a challenge. As conservatives, we advocate for a strong national defense, personal responsibility, and the principles of equality and merit. It’s within this framework that the question of women serving in combat should be addressed, not through the lens of progressive agendas but through the conservative values of duty, capability, and national strength.
Pete Hegseth’s nomination to become Secretary of Defense has reopened the women in combat controversy because of the nominee’s views on the subject. Hegseth is a veteran of infantry combat in Iraq, and has expressed concerns about using women in combat roles, particularly in infantry and armor where close combat would be involved.
All of a sudden, the US Air Force is considering cancelling a multibillion-dollar effort to develop a new stealth fighter. Citing the high cost of the so-called “Next-Generation Air Dominance” programme and the competing demands of other projects, USAF leaders have warned they may have no choice but to cancel NGAD – and find other ways of winning control of the air in future wars.
It’s a startling development for advocates of American air power. For generations, the whole US military – not to mention the militaries of America’s closest allies – have depended on the US Air Force to achieve air superiority against even the most determined and sophisticated foe, affording freedom of action for troops on the ground and ships at sea.
The United States has completed the first full-scale at sea test of a futuristic new underwater drone able to hibernate on the sea bed.
The Manta Ray prototype, produced by US aviation giant Northrop Grumman, is part of a US Navy project to develop a new class of underwater drone capable of carrying out much longer missions.
US aerospace firm Boeing is still hoping to weaponise the new MQ-25 Stingray drone it’s building for the US Navy’s aircraft carriers. Sure, there’s a profit motive. But Boeing isn’t wrong. Adding missiles to the far-flying MQ-25 – the Navy’s first in service carrier-capable drone – is a really good idea.
Put simply, the MQ-25 is the only aircraft currently in development for the Navy’s carrier air wings that possesses the range to strike at Chinese forces without forcing the carrier itself to sail dangerously close to those same forces.
The U.S. military’s recruitment shortcomings have received significant coverage of late, and some of it is even informed. But much of that coverage has left unclear exactly why the military is facing this crisis at this time. The recurring suggestion that white recruits are opting out of service merely because of wokeness concerns struck me as insufficient, to put it mildly — so I reached out to two retiring Navy recruiters, Frank and Isaac, whose opinions I trust and with whom I have worked in the past.
Violent militarism and sexual desire always overlap
If history teaches us anything, it’s that you can’t be a warrior woman without some guy wondering what you’d look like going commando. According to Herodotus, after the Greeks defeated the Amazons, they loaded three ships with captives — only for the Amazon women to kill the ships’ crews and make landfall on coast of Scythia.
The F-16 jet fighter took its first ever flight in 1974, but it is still as important an aircraft now as it was then.
Were it not for one test pilot’s quick thinking 50 years ago, the entire F-16 programme might never have made it past its first fateful flight.
When pilot Phil Oestricher climbed into the cockpit of the General Dynamics YF-16 prototype at Edwards Air Force Base in California on 20 January 1974, his mission was a relatively straightforward one – a high-speed taxi test where the aircraft would travel on the ground under the power of its own engine.
At year’s end, lexicographers like to discuss the “word of the year”. Military lexicographers have no doubt that this year’s word is “drones”. And like all fashionable words, it means several different things. But there is no argument that the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have got war colleges everywhere scratching their heads over what it will mean for the future.
