Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Trump pledged no forever wars. Now he risks forever talks with Iran. US, Iran talks conclude in Doha, focused on Strait of Hormuz Russia bombards Kyiv in major strike, at least 13 people killed Trump suggestion of a Syrian crackdown on Hezbollah confounds many in Mideast Syria's Sharaa appoints lawmakers, paving way for new parliament to convene Eurasia Review’s Neville Teller: The new US-Israel-Lebanon deal reshapes the fight against Hezbollah Europe learns it’s hard to start a trade war with China during a heat wave India, Japan sign pacts on AI, metals, and energy after Modi-Takaichi talks WSJ’s Sadanand Dhume: The AI race pushes India toward the West 3 bombings in Greece target members of governing party, officials say U.S. plunges trade pact with Canada and Mexico into doubt Europeans to fill almost all gaps left by US in NATO defence plansIn The News
Israel
It’s the 1,000th day of war since a Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Other conflicts have emerged in the region, and fragile ceasefires show scars of persistent attacks. Both Israelis and Palestinians are weary of the strain. – Associated Press
Israel and the United States signed an agreement on Wednesday to allocate land at the Allenby Complex for the construction of a permanent US Embassy compound in Jerusalem. – Agence France-Presse
The IDF safely located nine Israelis after being dispatched to the West Bank village of Mukhmas on suspicion of kidnapping or a security event, the military confirmed on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
The Knesset passed the contentious bill, advanced by the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, in its first reading on Wednesday, seeking to enshrine Torah study in the country’s Basic Law, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving at the plenum to vote in favor. – Jerusalem Post
Israel Police on Thursday clashed with protesters commemorating 1,000 days since the October 7 massacre outside the Knesset. Protesters told Ynet that police were attempting to disperse them violently. – Jerusalem Post
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview Tuesday night, claimed that he saved Israel from an Iranian nuclear bomb that they “already had obtained,” a claim that his election rivals dismissed as a falsehood told to scare the Israeli public. – Times of Israel
A Hamas commander who “posed a threat” to Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip was killed in a strike on Tuesday, the military announced, as it continued to launch attacks against targets it said were terror operatives endangering troops in the enclave. – Times of Israel
Israel Police and the Shin Bet announced Thursday that three Arab Israelis were set to be charged for assisting the terrorist who went on a shooting spree in central Israel early last month, killing one man and wounding several others. – Times of Israel
Iran
President Trump came to office promising an end to forever wars. He now finds himself bogged down in talks with Iran with no end in sight. It is a stalemate that favors Tehran’s well-worn playbook of drawing out negotiations and putting off any concessions that cross its redlines, geopolitical analysts said. – Wall Street Journal
After Iran and the United States traded a series of attacks across the Persian Gulf over the past week, the two sides appear to be turning back to diplomacy to try to stave off further escalation. – New York Times
Iran and the United States concluded a round of indirect talks on Wednesday with no sign they had made headway toward a lasting peace, focusing instead on issues that they said had been resolved when an interim agreement was announced two weeks ago. – Reuters
Iran is determined to win international recognition of its control over the Strait of Hormuz and ability to levy fees on ships entering or leaving the Gulf even if it has to do so by force, two senior Iranian sources said. – Reuters
Iran will deliver an immediate and powerful response to any threat against its people or leadership, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an X post on Wednesday. – Reuters
Senior Chinese lawmaker He Wei will attend the funeral of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Thursday. – Reuters
Mohammad Reza Morad Bahrouzi, a detainee held over alleged communication with opposition groups or groups affiliated with Israel, was left with broken ribs, broken hands, and facial injuries after he was attacked in Qazvin Central Prison, human rights groups said on Wednesday, sharing images of his wounds. – Jerusalem Post
Azeem Ibrahim writes: Trump’s approach stands in instructive contrast. Unburdened by ideological rigidity or excessive deference to conventional wisdom, he demonstrated the resolve to pivot when evidence mounted that continued escalation carried disproportionate costs and uncertain benefits. This pragmatism—recognizing battlefield complexities, reassessing ally-provided intelligence in light of new information, and acting to cut losses—is rare among political leaders. It prioritizes outcomes over optics and long-term American advantage over short-term alliance harmony. – The National Interest
Russia and Ukraine
Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s capital Kyiv in the early hours on Thursday, blasting apart residential buildings, killing at least 13 people and wounding scores. – Reuters
Military aviation operations in Poland’s airspace related to Russia’s strikes on Ukraine have ended, the Polish army said. “We would like to inform you that no violations of Polish airspace were recorded,” it said on X. – Reuters
Russia indicated that Ukraine may have used a ballistic missile in combat for the first time. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said air defenses shot down what it described as a “long-range operational-tactical missile” over the past 24 hours, alongside seven guided bombs and 602 fixed-wing drones. – Bloomberg
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cut short his visit to Dublin on Wednesday, warning that the Kremlin would soon launch a new large-scale attack on Ukraine. – Politico
Ukraine has turned its signature naval drone – the little boat that drove Russia’s fleet out of the western Black Sea – into a launch platform for first-person-view attack drones, putting Kyiv’s strike reach beyond the coast. – Defense News
Ed Verona writes: A considerable portion, if not fully half, of the exhibitors at the conference were in the military sphere, and most of those were Ukrainian. The range and sophistication of the weapons systems on display was ample evidence of Ukraine’s rapidly increasing military capabilities and reinforced one of the key messages of the URC, voiced repeatedly in the plenary session and various panel discussions. Ukraine has demonstrated an advantage over Russia in a broad range of battlefield technologies. Moreover, Ukraine’s increasingly effective long-range drones, some models of which were on display in Gdansk, have brought the war home to Russia. Ukraine looks increasingly like the winner in this war they did not start. – The National Interest
Syria
When the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon was threatening to unravel the U.S.-Iran peace deal, President Trump repeatedly floated an idea that took many in the region by surprise. Neighboring Syria, whose relatively new government is no friend to Hezbollah, could help subdue the Iran-backed Lebanese militia. – New York Times
Syrian authorities announced the names of 70 lawmakers on Wednesday appointed to a transitional parliament by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, paving the way to convene the body next week more than eight months after the process of forming it began. – Reuters
A startling minority of Syrians have confidence in the new People’s Assembly’s ability to represent the people or influence the government’s decisions, according to a survey conducted by the Arab magazine Syria in Transition. – Jerusalem Post
Iraq
The United States has resumed some air shipments of U.S. dollars to Iraq, several months after it suspended them in a bid to pressure the government to distance itself from Iran, according to two aides to Iraq’s prime minister. – New York Times
Lawyers for an American citizen, recently released from an Iraqi prison following a terrorism-related sentence, say the man has been newly detained in Turkey at the behest of the U.S. government. – Politico
David H. Petraeus writes: For too long, Iraq has been viewed primarily as an arena in which others compete: the United States, Iran, Turkey, the Gulf states, terrorist organizations and militia groups. But Iraq’s future will ultimately be determined less by those external actors than by whether its own institutions gradually become stronger than the informal networks that have so often overshadowed them. – Washington Post
Turkey
Turkey’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Wednesday that he met senior Iraqi oil and foreign ministry officials to discuss energy cooperation, including on the Iraq-Turkey Crude Oil Pipeline that runs from Kirkuk to Ceyhan. – Reuters
Turkey is interested in joining the European Union’s SEPA payments system, and related financial institutions are working on the issue, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday. – Reuters
When NATO leaders arrive at Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vast, 1,000-room complex in Ankara next week, the Turkish president is expected to tell them how vital his country is to a military alliance in trouble. It’s a separate event in the city, though, that will demonstrate that importance. – Bloomberg
Lebanon
Syria’s foreign minister travelled to Beirut on Thursday to meet Lebanese government leaders, in his first visit there since U.S. President Donald Trump raised the possibility of Syrian forces combating Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. – Reuters
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir met with US Commander of Marine Forces Central Command Lt.-Gen. Joseph Clearfield on Wednesday to promote Lebanon-related coordination mechanisms impacting Israel, the Lebanese Army, and Hezbollah, The Jerusalem Post has learned. – Jerusalem Post
Pushing back against political opposition, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun defended the nation’s newly established structural blueprint with Israel on Wednesday, asserting that peaceful statecraft is the sole pragmatic path to avoid armed combat and dismissed allegations that the initiative compromises domestic self-governance. – Arutz Sheva
Neville Teller writes: Aoun has to tread very carefully in implementing this policy. Hezbollah commands considerable support among Lebanon’s Shi’ite community – roughly a third of the population – even if recent reports indicate a degree of disillusionment setting in. Memories of the 1975-1990 civil war are still fresh, and Aoun is determined to avoid reigniting it. He is also well aware that tens of thousands of the residents of northern Israel’s border are still displaced, and that Israel’s policy is to remove Hezbollah’s offensive capability – by military action if necessary – before a full return is possible. The Lebanese government is as anxious as Israel to see that day. – Jerusalem Post
Gulf States
It is the same across Dubai, the once-vibrant emirate of skyscrapers and strivers that unexpectedly found itself on the front lines of the Iran war. Dubai is at the beginning of a postwar recovery that many regional analysts believe will be long and arduous now that the drones and missiles have stopped falling and U.S.-Iran peace talks are under way to make a ceasefire permanent. – Wall Street Journal
US-Saudi relations have significantly deteriorated in recent months amid anger in Riyadh over Washington’s decision to launch a war against Iran that has caused massive blowback for the rest of the region, to the extent that the US is reportedly considering pulling troops from the Gulf kingdom. – Times of Israel
Seth Mandel writes: In the long term, Gulf energy producers will likely find ways to divert enough oil around Hormuz to render such closures unlikely. But until that happens, the Qataris will be remembered with favor by Iran. Which means Qatar’s export industry will have a leg up on competitors, making it even more valuable and enabling Doha to recoup its war losses. – Commentary Magazine
Middle East & North Africa
A vessel reported being approached by multiple small craft with several people on board bearing small arms, 76 nautical miles south of the Yemeni port of Balhaf on Wednesday, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. – Reuters
Voters in Algeria are casting ballots Thursday in parliamentary elections overshadowed by cost-of-living concerns and bans on candidates challenging the government. Nearly 25 million voters across Africa’s largest country by territory are choosing among 1,235 candidates for 407 seats with five-year terms in the lower house of Parliament. – Associated Press
Iraqi security forces arrested politicians and senior officials in overnight raids inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on Sunday, in one of the most visible anti-corruption operations Iraq has seen in years and an early test of Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi’s new government. – Jerusalem Post
Korean Peninsula
South Korea’s vice finance chief on Thursday said Seoul is closely communicating with Japan and other key allies on foreign exchange issues, and warned that the won has become significantly misaligned relative to economic fundamentals. – Reuters
Unstaffed coffee shops, ramen eateries and flower outlets are spreading across South Korea as owners turn to robots and self-service to overcome rising labour costs in a business model that relies on the widespread honesty of users. – Reuters
North Korea and Russia appear unlikely to open a road bridge connecting their countries in the near term, despite an earlier mid-June target, after satellite imagery showed Russian-side facilities unfinished, U.S. think tank 38 North said. – Reuters
China
European trade negotiators have suggested China is flooding the continent with too many goods. But state-media commentators in China are gleefully pointing out there is at least one product Europeans are eager to import more of: air conditioners. – Wall Street Journal
China’s covert military training of Russian forces last year was personally approved by President Vladimir Putin’s defence minister and directly involved at least four Russian and Chinese generals, according to two European officials and documents seen by Reuters. – Reuters
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged the U.S. to handle matters related to Taiwan with “the utmost caution”, during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, Wang’s ministry said on Wednesday. – Reuters
China has been installing wind and solar power faster than any other country. Yet coal-fired plants still supplied around 51% of China’s electricity in 2025, according to the latest data from the National Energy Administration. – Associated Press
The Chinese tech giant Alibaba will pay $600 million to resolve a dispute with the U.S. government over allegations that the Hangzhou-based firm sold and imported illegal pharmaceuticals, controlled substances, regulated chemicals, and pill-making equipment into the U.S. – Associated Press
China imposed new export controls Monday on 40 Japanese entities it says are contributing to the country’s “remilitarization,” as tensions with Tokyo rise. – Associated Press
Tahir Imin writes: Pressure on China to end its atrocities against Uyghurs must never relent. But what the Uyghurs need from the global community is changing. If the world can’t stop what’s happening in China, governments and private organizations must recognize that a unique slice of human culture faces extinction — and provide funding and institutional support for the Uyghur communities within their borders who are fighting to prevent that. – New York Times
South Asia
India and Japan signed pacts on Thursday to boost their cooperation in artificial intelligence, metals, energy, and prepared a joint roadmap for economic security, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after talks with his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi. – Reuters
India has asked WhatsApp to justify the implementation of a planned feature covering usernames and to freeze the rollout in its biggest market, escalating a crackdown on messaging anonymity that began with Telegram, according to a government letter reviewed by Reuters. – Reuters
The government of India’s national capital territory of Delhi has announced a spate of measures to curb air pollution during winter, months ahead of the annual season when the city often becomes the world’s most polluted. – Reuters
Kyrgyzstan asked Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to help ensure stable fuel supplies late on Wednesday, amid concerns over potential shortages linked to Ukraine’s drone strikes against Russian oil refineries. – Reuters
Sadanand Dhume writes: Most foreign investment in India’s tech industries—including about $67 billion committed by Microsoft, Google and Amazon, among other things to build data centers and enhance cloud capacity—comes from American and Western-aligned companies. Geopolitics also pushes New Delhi away from Beijing: China actively claims Indian territory and tries to slow Indian progress by holding up exports of equipment and discouraging Chinese engineers working for Taiwanese firms from passing on know-how to Indians. China is also the chief patron and arms supplier of Pakistan. “India may have a trust deficit with the U.S.,” Sameer Lalwani of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says in a phone interview. “But with China, there’s zero trust.” – Wall Street Journal
Asia
Super Micro said on Wednesday that two workers at its Taiwan unit had been detained pending a court hearing and two others released on bail after being questioned by Taiwanese prosecutors investigating the alleged illegal export of advanced AI servers containing Nvidia chips. – Reuters
Taiwan needs a “hornet’s nest” of drones to help deter conflict and provide security, the top U.S. diplomat to the democratically governed island said on Thursday. – Reuters
Australia fell into a surprise trade deficit in May as exports dropped the most all year, with imports extending a streak of gains caused in part by high fuel prices and data center demand. – Bloomberg
Hal Brands writes: There are steps the US should be taking to prepare. Trump should conclude a planned $14 billion arms sale to Taipei, showing he won’t appease Xi at the cost of Taiwan’s security. The US needs to refine options for hitting China’s economic pressure points, such as further constricting its access to jet engine components and advanced semiconductors. It should intensify preparations with Japan and other partners to assist Taiwan in a crisis. To its credit, the Trump administration is expanding such military cooperation through more ambitious multilateral exercises, deploying missiles and other advanced capabilities, and other means. And while hugging the Lai government tight, Washington should also discourage hot rhetoric in the election campaign. Firm deterrence and prudent diplomacy will both be necessary if “constructive strategic stability” turns into the next great Taiwan crisis come 2028. – Bloomberg
Europe
Three makeshift bombs went off within minutes of each other in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki early on Wednesday morning, in what senior officials described as a campaign targeting members of Greece’s conservative governing party. – New York Times
A group of traditionalist Catholics consecrated four bishops on Wednesday in defiance of a plea from Pope Leo XIV, creating the biggest internal crisis of his young papacy and setting the stage for the first major schism in the Roman Catholic Church this century. – New York Times
Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said on Wednesday there were still “issues” to resolve before the European Union’s trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc can be ratified, though he said he was confident they could be overcome. – Reuters
Military aviation operations in Poland’s airspace related to Russia’s strikes on Ukraine have ended, the Polish army said. “We would like to inform you that no violations of Polish airspace were recorded,” it said on X. – Reuters
Britain’s police watchdog said on Wednesday it was investigating two officers over their handling of a student who was handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer falsely alleged a racist attack. – Reuters
Britain hopes to reschedule a summit with the European Union after the summer to press on with a reset in relations and demonstrate that closer ties are “crucially important” in volatile times, its EU negotiator said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition reached an agreement on a set of reforms for Germany’s pension system, labor market and income tax, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. – Bloomberg
The European Union rolled out two measures to protect its steel industry and limit e-commerce small parcels on Wednesday as the 27-nation bloc grapples with its staggering trade imbalance with China. – Associated Press
Editorial: Yet Mr. Starmer’s defense spending “falls well short of what is required” for British security and military readiness, his own Defense Minister John Healey warned this month as he and others resigned in protest of an earlier version of this plan. They don’t want their names on a policy that leaves their country vulnerable. Yet even these honorable departures failed to get Labour to reconsider. Mr. Starmer’s plan defers tough choices until after 2029, when Britain will have to hold new general elections. Pray the world avoids a security crisis before then. – Wall Street Journal
Rosa Prince writes: Labour’s track record on gender equality at the very top continues to disappoint. For the sake of the country, I hope Burnham can mark a break with the endless churn, and return to a more stable era when prime ministers stuck around long enough to actually get stuff done. But he must also put equality at the heart of his government — and when it does come to succession planning, do everything in his power to ensure a woman finally heads the party of the people. – Bloomberg
Africa
South African police arrested more than 900 people during nationwide anti-migrant protests on Tuesday that were mostly peaceful but at times turned violent, with shops looted, police said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Ugandan health authorities have confirmed an isolated case of Marburg virus disease, a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever, while conducting surveillance for an Ebola outbreak, Africa’s top public health agency said on Wednesday. – Reuters
The West African country of Niger has arrested at least 16 people after introducing prison sentences and fines for same-sex sexual acts, a judicial source told Reuters. – Reuters
Ebola could shave more than $1 billion from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s economy, push almost 1 million more people into poverty and ripple across neighboring states as authorities struggle to contain an outbreak spreading through one of Africa’s most fragile regions, a United Nations assessment found. – Bloomberg
Three senior commanders of Sudan’s paramilitary forces were named in a new report from rights group Amnesty International accusing them of overseeing war crimes during the siege and capture of el-Fasher in North Darfur in October. – Associated Press
Joshua Z. Walker, Reagan Miviri, and Jason K. Stearns write: For now, despite the many ceremonies, declarations, and photo ops, the conflict in Congo remains deadlocked. None of the belligerents have an immediate interest in compromise, and Washington’s approach to balancing its roles as mediator and economically interested party has begun to reach its limits. And by needlessly antagonizing the United States’ traditional partners, including European countries, South Africa, and the United Nations, Washington has made it even more difficult to coordinate policy in ways that have been useful in advancing past peace processes. – Foreign Affairs
The Americas
The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it had designated the Ecuadorean gang Chone Killers as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, imposing sanctions on a group Washington accused of carrying out attacks on civilians and public officials. – Reuters
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would win a potential second-round run-off vote in the October presidential elections against opposition Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, an AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll showed on Wednesday. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States will not let China take over the Panama Canal. – Reuters
North America
The U.S. declined to extend its signature trade pact with Mexico and Canada on Wednesday, setting up a decadelong review process that casts uncertainty over businesses that move goods across the world’s busiest export borders. – Wall Street Journal
A top Cuban official acknowledged that pressure from Washington has isolated the island, forcing foreign investors to leave the country, but warned the Trump administration against underestimating the Communist government’s resolve. – Wall Street Journal
Dozens of medical students organized a protest on Wednesday to demand that the government relocate and reopen one of Haiti’s largest public hospitals, noting they need to train there to become doctors. – Associated Press
Three Cuban nationals, including a man the Trump administration says spent more than a decade working for a Cuban government influence organization in the United States, were apprehended by federal agents this week after Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated their legal status. – Fox News
United States
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his acting spy chief has wide permission to declassify records, including any tied to the 2020 election, even though his close ally is only at the intelligence helm for a short time. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures last year, showing how Trump now derives most of his income from digital assets that have benefited from his policies, according to a review of his latest financial disclosures on Tuesday. – Reuters
The New York City Council on Tuesday passed a law meant to protect schools from protests, part of legislators’ broader plan to combat antisemitism in the city. – Times of Israel
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is facing a new legal challenge in the United States after the families of five Venezuelan men filed a civil lawsuit accusing him of overseeing a Venezuelan police unit responsible for extrajudicial killings and torture during his presidency. – Fox News
Editorial: Israel excels at going from concept to fully funded combat capability—a U.S. weakness. Mr. Bowman rues the seven years the Pentagon took to adopt Israel’s Trophy system to defend U.S. tanks, a delay whose cost can be measured in the lives of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The eminently sane Mr. Smith understands the need to shorten such timelines to better deter China. “When I first looked at [the provision], I just saw it as good for us,” he says. He still does, but anyone can see that the politics of Israel have changed in the Democratic Party and even among some Republicans. The rising anti-Israel obsession is a gift to U.S. adversaries. – Wall Street Journal
Theodore R. Johnson writes: The U.S. at its semiquincentennial must decide what the Declaration asks of a nation it was never written to fully describe. Through politics, it evolved from a document defined by its complaints to one in which rights and opportunity became beacons for a new America. Today, the Declaration’s challenge is to construct a nation where the consent of the governed is more of a reality. The Dream can no longer be just a question of equal protection and opportunity; it must be one of fair representation, too. The task at 250 is to make the republic more democratic, further thinning the barriers that shield representatives from the will of the people. – Washington Post
Cybersecurity
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has developed a prototype for a handset-like device designed to reshape how humans interact with artificial intelligence that SpaceX has shown investors recently. – Wall Street Journal
Google has exceeded a five-year target to invest $1 billion in Africa, it said on Wednesday, as it made public initiatives on infrastructure and development of AI to accelerate the continent’s digital growth. – Reuters
OpenAI has begun preliminary discussions about giving the US government a 5% stake in the ChatGPT-developer, the Financial Times reported, citing two people familiar with the talks. – Bloomberg
Defense
NATO is set to announce at next week’s Ankara summit that its European members have filled almost all the gaps left by the United States in the alliance’s defence plans, a NATO source told Reuters on Wednesday. – Reuters
The U.S. military is closing in on its high-energy laser weapon of choice for counter-drone missions. Now it needs the vehicles to support it. With the demise of its Stryker-based Directed Energy-Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (DE-MSHORAD) program, the U.S. Army has focused its ground-based laser weapon efforts on light tactical vehicles. – Defense News
The U.S. and partner nations on Wednesday wrapped up Exercise Valiant Shield 2026, which involved 10 days of training that saw anti-submarine warfare, cutting edge drone testing and a multinational maritime strike. – USNI News
One aircrewman is missing after an MH-60S helicopter assigned to USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) made an emergency landing on Wednesday in the Arabian Sea. – USNI News
Stavros Atlamazoglou writes: The US defense industrial base has historically been split between many different states, rather than remaining in any one region of the country. There are obvious benefits to this diversification, but cynics have suggested that there is a political aspect to it as well: if every state makes parts for a certain aircraft, it gives every state (and its elected officials) an incentive to keep the aircraft funded, even if it faces production delays or its effectiveness is questioned. – The National Interest
Stavros Atlamazoglou writes: The Army’s massive order is part of a larger effort to increase the depth of its layered air defense capabilities and ensure it has sufficient interceptors to support sustained combat operations against near-peer and other adversaries. In its Fiscal Year 2027 budget request, the Army has asked for 857 THAAD interceptors. The aim is to create a robust air defense network that can deal with any threat, including enemy aircraft, missiles, and unmanned aerial systems. – The National Interest