The review will study whether the deal, signed by President Joe Biden's team in 2021, is "aligned with the President's America First agenda," the Pentagon said
Ukraine's president on Wednesday urged Western backers to speed up deliveries of air defence systems to counter Russian missile strikes and to help boost weapons production. The emphasis should be on US-made Patriot systems, President Volodymyr Zelenskky told a Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels. "These are the most effective way to force Russia to stop its missile strikes and terror, he said via video link, urging representatives of around 50 countries to make good on past pledges. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not attend, the first time a Pentagon chief has been absent since the forum for organising Ukraine's military aid was set up three years ago. Hegseth's predecessor, Lloyd Austin, created the group after Russia launched all-out war on Ukraine in 2022. His absence is the latest step that the Trump administration has taken to distance itself from Ukraine's efforts to repel Russia's full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022. M
Hegseth said he was imposing the restrictions to protect classified national intelligence information, or CNSI
Bedeviled by leaks to the media during his short tenure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a series of restrictions on the press late Friday that include banning reporters from entering wide swaths of the Pentagon without a government escort areas where the press has had access in past administrations as it covers the activities of the world's most powerful military. Newly restricted areas include his office and those of his top aides and all of the different locations across the mammoth building where the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Space Force maintain press offices. The media will also be barred from offices of the Pentagon's senior military leadership, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen Dan Caine, without Hegseth's approval and an escort from his aides. The staff of the Joint Chiefs has traditionally maintained a good relationship with the press. Hegseth, the former Fox News Channel personality, issued his order via a posting on X late on a Friday afternoon ...
According to National Public Radio, the Trump administration had begun a search for a new defence secretary after Hegseth's latest Signal controversy
The warning from John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesman, followed statements by three top officials who were reportedly fired amid inquiry into leaks
Every day over the past few weeks, the Pentagon has faced questions from angry lawmakers, local leaders and citizens over the removal of military heroes and historic mentions from Defense Department websites and social media pages after it purged online content that promoted women or minorities. In response, the department has scrambled to restore a handful of those posts as their removals have come to light. While the pages of some well-known veterans, including baseball and civil rights icon Jackie Robinson, are now back up on Pentagon websites, officials warn that many posts tagged for removal in error may be gone forever. The restoration process has been so hit or miss that even groups that the administration has said are protected, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots who served in a segregated World War II unit, still have deleted pages that as of Saturday had not been restored. This past week chief, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a video that ..
The Pentagon's intelligence and law enforcement arms are investigating what it says are leaks of national security information. Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs in the the latest such inquiry by the Trump administration. A memo late Friday from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's chief of staff referred to recent unauthorised disclosures of such information, but provided no details about alleged leaks. Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump rejected reports that adviser Elon Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China. If this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorised disclosure," then such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal entity for criminal prosecution, according to the memo. At the Homeland Security Department, Secretary Kristi Noem pledged this month to step up lie detector tests on employees in an effort to identify those who may be leaking informati
Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison for leaking highly classified military documents, is scheduled to begin his court-martial on additional charges Monday. Teixeira pleaded guilty last year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, following his arrest in the most consequential national security breach in years. In his court-martial, Teixeira faces charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice. At a hearing last year, military prosecutors said a court-martial is appropriate given that obeying orders is the absolute core of the military. But Teixeira's lawyers argued that further action would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense. The court-martial panel is convening at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. The leaks exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia's war in Ukraine, including information about .
Hegseth has neither canceled nor delayed any cyber operations directed against malicious Russian targets
The Pentagon is sending about 3,000 more active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border as President Donald Trump seeks to clamp down on illegal immigration and fulfil a central promise of his campaign, US officials said Saturday. His defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has ordered elements of a Stryker brigade combat team and a general support aviation battalion for the mission, the Pentagon announced. The forces will arrive along the nearly 2,000-mile border in the coming weeks. The Defence Department's statement did not specify the size of the deployment, but it was put at about 3,000 by the officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Strykers are medium-armoured wheeled personnel carriers. Already, about 9,200 US troops in total are at the southern border, including 4,200 deployed under federal orders and about 5,000 National Guard troops under the control of governors. The new troops will reinforce and expand current bor
The newly deployed troops will help set up barriers, transport detainees, and provide intelligence and logistical support
The Defense Department provided equipment capable both of detecting drones and disabling them
Since last year, China's military has undergone a sweeping anti-corruption purge
Pentagon Press Secretary Major General, Pat Ryder, in a press briefing, clarified that none of the drones were assets of the US Department of Defence
Hegseth has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California
Fox News personality and Army National Guard veteran Pete Heseth has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump as Defence Secretary, his association with military extremism raises concerns
President-elect Donald Trump's choice for defence secretary is still up in the air, but it is a sure bet he will look to reshape the Pentagon and pick a loyalist. During his tumultuous first term, five men held the job as Pentagon chief only to resign, be fired or serve briefly as a stopgap. While he has yet to announce a decision, the names of potential Pentagon chiefs stretch from the well-known such as Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to an array of former administration loyalists, including retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who held national security posts during Trump's first term. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been floated, but Trump said on social media Saturday that Pompeo would not be joining the new administration. Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida had also been mentioned, but he's now been tapped to be Trump's national security adviser. Some decisions may linger for days as candidates jostle for attention and officials wait for the
Russia and Ukraine exchanged scores of drone strikes Wednesday as North Korea's top diplomat arrived in Russia for talks after his country reportedly deployed thousands of soldiers to help Moscow's war efforts. Ukraine's air force said that Russia launched 62 drones and one missile overnight, adding that 33 of them were intercepted and 25 were jammed. The drones struck a residential building and a kindergarten in Kyiv, injuring nine people, including a child, according to the city administration. "Russian drones did not change their constant tactics they approached the capital from different directions, at different heights, it said. Russian attacks also targeted other regions of Ukraine, killing at least four and injuring about 30 others over the past 24 hours, authorities said. At the same time, Russian forces have pressed their slow-moving offensive in eastern Ukraine. In Moscow, the Defense Ministry announced the capture of the village of Kruhlyakivka in the Kharkiv region. T
The audit, intended to assess the Defense Department's oversight of military aid to Israel, will unfold amid continuing international criticism of the Israeli military's conduct in the Gaza conflict