Top 5     USS Abraham Lincoln’s visit to Thailand lifts hope and sex-tourism risk (Reuters) After a long deployment in the Middle East, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln will dock in Thailand’s resort city of Pattaya this week, raising hopes of an economic boost, even as local authorities cracked down on parts of the sex tourism destination.       The military’s ChatGPT is now live via the Pentagon’s GenAI platform (Military Times) The Pentagon’s secure artificial intelligence platform now has ChatGPT.       82nd Airborne soldiers have Middle East deployment extended out to a year (Military Times) Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division will remain deployed in the Central Command area of operations for a total of one year, according to a memorandum signed on Sunday.       Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigns on short notice amid reported friction with Hegseth (Military Times) Dan Driscoll, who has served as the Army’s civilian leader since February 2025, tendered his resignation Monday amid reports of heightened discord with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Military Times has learned.       Trial for accused mastermind of 9/11 attacks set for June 2028 (Reuters) A U.S. Air Force judge on Wednesday ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and three co-defendants to go on trial before a military tribunal in June 2028.   Operation Timeline     The human impact of policy changes at the DOD and VA (The War Horse) An ongoing timeline of the Trump administration’s actions focusing on the military and veterans.   Pentagon     Pentagon plays down report of Hegseth regularly overruling military advice (The Guardian) Response seeks to discredit Washington Post story that four generals and admirals advised against prolonging Iran war       Pentagon scraps public weapons testing reports amid oversight concerns (Military Times) Congressional leaders are demanding answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the independent office tasked with reviewing new military programs and weapons pulled all public reports from its website.   Congress & Politics     Military widows’ future stuck in partisan brawl over veteran benefits (Politico) A House brawl over veteran benefits could ruin the last, best chance for military widows to fix a decades-old law that penalizes them for falling in love again.   Your Military     US military has no plans to send troops to the polls in November, top general says (The Associated Press) The highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military says there are no plans to send troops to polling places during November’s midterm congressional elections, addressing concerns among Democrats that the Trump administration could use the military to interfere with the vote.       Barracks Task Force completes first housing at Washington naval base (Military Times) The housing installation at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton in Washington state has become the first of the Navy’s six major restoration and modernization projects funded through the Barracks Task Force to reach completion, according to a recent Navy Installations Command release.   Navy     Toilet paper and human error led to 11-hour USS New Orleans fire, investigation finds (Military Times) A U.S. Navy command investigation into a fire aboard one of its ships last year didn’t identify a root cause but said human error and poorly placed necessities exacerbated it.       Top Navy admiral holds ‘worldwide’ town hall; sailors ask about deployments, the future, health care and haircuts (Stars and Stripes) U.S. Navy personnel will not be returning to Bahrain soon, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt will be the next carrier to take up station in the Arabian Sea, the Navy’s top admiral said Monday during a “worldwide town hall” with sailors that also touched on pay, housing, health care and even the cost of haircuts.   AIr Force     Contamination prompts Wyoming air base to halt Minuteman III communications testers (Military Times) Units within the Air Force Global Strike Command were directed to cease use of a communications system at an intercontinental ballistic missile base after tests found residue of a carcinogenic chemical on one of the systems.   Cyber, Space & Unmanned     Russia’s Zircon may not be a hypersonic cruise missile after all (The War Zone) A new Ukrainian intelligence report details the complex production chain behind Russia’s shadowy 3M22 Zircon missile and identifies U.S.-origin electronics inside one of Russia’s most advanced weapons. New details also add weight to the theory that the weapon is a maneuverable quasi-ballistic missile rather than a true hypersonic cruise missile.       Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics get framework deals to surge Patriot, THAAD production (Defense News) The Defense Department on Monday announced two framework agreements between General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems and Lockheed Martin to boost production of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors.   Defense Industry     Israel signs $3.5 billion air defense deal with Greece (Reuters) Israel and Greece signed a €3 billion ($3.5 billion) defense deal on Monday under which Israel will build a multi-layered air defense system for Greece as Athens pushes ahead with a broader military modernization program.       New Zealand ground forces drill to dock onto larger armies (Defense News) The whump of exploding 105 mm artillery rounds reverberate across the “battlefield” as Kiwi soldiers in NZLAV 8x8 armored vehicles race across a valley to assault a network of enemy trenches.       Sweden signs French warship order to boost defense (Reuters) Sweden signed an order for four Naval Group frigates during a ceremony in Stockholm on Monday attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.   Ukraine     Russia’s jet-powered drones bring empty Kyiv supermarket shelves and rattle Ukrainians (The Associated Press) Russian forces relentlessly battered Kyiv and cities in the region around the Ukrainian capital for a fifth straight day on Monday, leaving some supermarket shelves bare after repeated strikes on warehouses, as Ukraine reels from attacks with jet-powered drones.   International     UAE denies Al Minhad Air Base was targeted after Iran says it attacked base (Reuters) The UAE denied reports that ?Al Minhad Air Base had been targeted by missiles, saying in a ?defence ministry statement that the ?reports were false.       US Air Force chief of staff discusses ‘regional situation’ with Israeli military officials (Military Times) U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Ken Wilsbach met with Israeli military leaders last week to discuss what Israel Defense Forces called the “regional situation” of the Iran war just before the conflict passed its six-month mark.       First US military attacks on Iran in a month prompt retaliation (The Guardian) U.S. attacks Iranian rocket launchers on island in Strait of Hormuz and Tehran targets U.S. bases in Jordan and U.A.E.       Indonesia and US launch annual military exercises (Reuters) The United States and Indonesia launched their annual joint military exercises on Monday, the first since announcing a new defense partnership this ?year, with drills from tactical airborne jumps and missile firing to ?jungle training and cyber defense.   Video     See a drone spread concealment smoke for troops and armor (Defense News) Check out the “Screening Obscuration Module” from concealment training at Fort Stewart.   Commentary & Analysis     Germany is stepping up on defense — and Washington should celebrate (Defense News) The Pentagon’s review of U.S. force posture in Europe has many NATO allies asking questions about the future of America’s military footprint on the continent, even as CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow to reportedly warn the Kremlin not to attack alliance members.       What six years as an Iran hostage taught me about the regime (The Cipher Brief) Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, I have watched and listened to nearly every piece of news coverage and analysis from U.S. policymakers, pundits, and the media. What continues to puzzle me is how often the Islamic Republic is treated as a rational government operating under conventional norms. The Islamic Republic is a cult, not a predictable government.       Information overload and cognitive fatigue: Preparing society for the next battlefield (Small Wars Journal) The contemporary information environment is characterized by unprecedented levels of connectivity, exposure, and competition for human attention.       Ukraine is no longer the country Russia thought it was (The Cipher Brief) Understanding a country's strategic culture helps assess how it will react to crisis, negotiation, and national security events. Strategic culture generally is static and when it evolves, it happens slowly, as history, events, and culture accumulate over generations. In 2021, the prevailing view of Ukraine’s strategic culture was that it was a country focused on securing its national identity and sovereignty apart from Russia and it was a country prone to rely on negotiations and diplomacy. The balance between these two themes was about even with Ukraine leaning toward diplomacy and multilaterism over sovereignty when pushed by the international community. Most students of strategic culture did not assess that Ukraine would react to a Russian invasion with the military force that it has. Now students of strategic culture see the theme of independence and sovereignty as the key aspect of Ukraine’s strategic culture with a growing theme of being modern day military experts. The rapid transformation of the assessment of Ukrainian strategic culture is astounding. Either strategic culture academics got Ukraine wrong, or the Russian invasion changed Ukraine cataclysmically. I suspect it is a bit of both.       We can buy more weapons. We can’t buy more time. (Defense One) The munitions shortage caused by the Iran War is real and growing. While the precise magnitude of the shortfall is uncertain, the question now is how quickly the window of vulnerability can be closed. With no apparent path for passing a supplemental or regular appropriations bill by Oct. 1, the Pentagon will likely spend at least the first quarter of fiscal 2027 under a continuing resolution. The debate over what happens next will naturally focus on how much funding Congress ultimately provides, but for the munitions the military urgently needs, money is only one scarce resource. The other is time, and the two are fundamentally different. After the election, Congress can fund what it did not in FY 2026, but it cannot buy back the time lost.       Here’s what Trump’s new ‘Space Academy’ could mean for the US military (GovExec) President Donald Trump’s mandate for a new “Space Academy” puts defense leaders under a NASA-led initiative that could mean military service requirements for the future school's graduates.