Top 5     Iran attack on base in Jordan damaged American military aircraft, US official says (Reuters) Iranian strikes damaged multiple American military aircraft this week on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, a U.S. official told Reuters.       Iran likely to reverse-engineer captured US underwater drone (Defense News) Iran’s capture of a U.S. military underwater drone gives Tehran an opportunity to study and potentially reverse-engineer the vessel, delivering a setback for the Pentagon and drone maker Anduril.       Trump departs DC on Qatar-gifted Air Force One after emergency slide accidentally deploys (Military Times) U.S. President Donald Trump departed Washington, D.C., for Texas on Wednesday aboard the Air Force One plane gifted by Qatar after an emergency slide was accidentally deployed and was removed.       Anthropic says it blocked misuse of its AI that could have supported biological weapons (The Associated Press) Anthropic said Thursday it has blocked efforts by bad actors to use its artificial intelligence models for malicious activity such as cyberattacks, surveillance, and research that could have led to biological weapons.       US absent as western powers meet on wartime protections for civilians (Defense One) Three years ago, the Defense Department led an ambitious international effort to better protect civilians during combat, a movement built on the bloody lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq.   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 in talks to get into AI infrastructure funding with a $5 billion loan (The Wall Street Journal) Fluidstack, an AI infrastructure company, is being advised on the loan by the bank started by Palmer Luckey, an early supporter of Donald Trump The Pentagon is in talks to lend roughly $5 billion to AI cloud-computing startup Fluidstack, according to people familiar with the matter, adding the U.S. …   Congress & Politics     Rubio signals shift to working with allies to fight drug trade as latest boat strike kills three (The Guardian) Rubio visits Ecuador and welcomes cooperation after campaign of unilateral strikes on alleged ‘narco-terrorists’   Your Military     Sailors, marines deploy long-range missile systems to Norway for drills (USNI News) The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps recently deployed the sea service’s long-range Containerized Launching System and Strike Master Coastal Defense System to Norway as part of Operation Atlantic City 26 and NATO’s Arctic Sentry enhanced Vigilance Activity.       Preparing for war, US and allied chaplains train across faiths and under fire (Stars and Stripes) Chaplains in camouflage crawled on the ground, carried stretchers and counseled fellow service members amid a barrage of explosions and gunfire, part of a drill meant to prepare them to care for military personnel during large-scale combat.       Top Air and Space Force leaders will gather amid unresolved Iran war, budget uncertainty (Defense One) Just three days after top military leaders left the Air and Space Force Association’s February conference in Colorado, the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, commencing Operation Epic Fury. Now, more than six months later, service officials are scheduled to gather again outside Washington D.C. to pitch their top budget priorities as the unresolved war wages on.   Army     Army family to receive $11 million settlement for daughter’s brain injury suffered during birth (Stars and Stripes) The Justice Department agreed to pay $11 million to an Army family whose daughter lives with a permanent brain injury incurred from negligence during her birth at Fort Campbell, Ky.   Navy     Navy must ‘start killing manned programs,’ defense official says (Military Times) The Navy may be making some investments in unmanned vessels, but it needs to get a lot more ruthless to bring the fleet into the future, a top leader of the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit said Wednesday.       Navy installing advanced nuclear microreactor at Indiana command (Military Times) The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Navy is planning to install Indiana’s first advanced nuclear micro modular reactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane by September 2028.   Cyber, Space & Unmanned     ‘We have to throw technology at the cyber problem,’ Pentagon CIO says (Nextgov) The Pentagon is shifting its cybersecurity posture to rely more on new capabilities to maintain its digital defenses rather than just bolstering its operational manpower, the department’s IT head said on Wednesday.       Bad actors in China and Russia are already weaponizing Anthropic’s AI (Politico) Killer drones. Mass surveillance. Bioweapons.   Defense Industry     US radar maker Echodyne mulls European production as drone warfare fuels demand (Defense News) U.S. radar maker Echodyne has announced that Norway’s Kongsberg has selected its MESA radar platform for a broad range of air and surface applications.   International     Russia sends bones of medieval warrior prince to Ukraine front to boost morale (Reuters) Bone fragments from the sword hand of a medieval Russian prince who won a famous victory over the Mongols have been sent to the front in Ukraine to raise army morale in the Russian Orthodox Church’s latest show of support for President Vladimir Putin’s war.       Iran-backed Houthi rebels take strategic port city in Yemen, raising threat to Red Sea shipping (The Associated Press) The Iran-backed Houthi rebel group on Thursday took over Yemen’s port city of Mokha, an area vital to controlling shipping through the Red Sea, Houthi and Yemeni officials said.       3 killed in strike on alleged drug boat (USNI News) U.S. forces with Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere struck a go-fast vessel in the Caribbean, killing three people, U.S. Southern Command announced late Wednesday.       NATO allies foil Russian subsea cable sabotage plot (Reuters) Deep in Arctic waters near the remote Svalbard archipelago this spring, NATO allies caught Russian subs training to unleash a secret weapon designed to disable critical undersea cables without leaving any fingerprints.       Pakistan says no military response discussed under Mecca pact over Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia (Reuters) Pakistan said on Thursday that there were no discussions about a military reaction ?from Islamabad under the Mecca agreement in response to ?the Houthis' attacks on Saudi Arabia, but added that Pakistan would act when the "time comes".       US forces face renewed attacks as Iran conflict widens (Stars and Stripes) Iran targeted U.S. forces in the Middle East on Wednesday, including with a ballistic missile barrage aimed at a Jordanian air base used by the American military, as fighting intensified across the region.   Video     Marine Corps wants to add thousands of new troops over the next five years (Defense News) The force looks at add 6,500 Marines in a variety of jobs, growing the force by 5% by 2032.   Commentary & Analysis     Should $500M companies compete with service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses? (Military Times) Washington has spent decades encouraging veterans to become entrepreneurs, and Congress backed that with contracting programs meant to give service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses a meaningful chance to compete. A new SBA proposal could unintentionally weaken that commitment.       Russia’s AI blueprint exposes an authoritarian playbook (The Cipher Brief) Russia, China, and Iran are all sharing the same playbook for corrupting Western elections. The United States is on track to be the next target this November.       Automating the action officer: Between bureaucracy and technology (War on the Rocks) If there is a revolution brewing in the automation of white-collar work, you wouldn’t know it at the Pentagon.       Trump says the Iran war is worth the price. The bill keeps growing. (Politico) The war with Iran is now more than a half-year old with no signs of ending, and there’s precious little talk lately from President Donald Trump and his administration that a negotiated conclusion is imminent.       China’s challenge to Western alliances (The Cipher Brief) At the 25th anniversary session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed an alternative model to Western alliances.       The assessment gap in US counter-terrorism strikes (War on the Rocks) For eight years I helped decide whether American counter-terrorism money was working.       What Russia is really up to in Europe (The Atlantic) On Russian state television, the Kremlin’s propagandists have for years threatened to bomb European capitals, even while the country’s diplomats insist that no such war is imminent. Lately, the denials have gotten hard to sustain, as European intelligence agencies have ascribed hundreds of clandestine sabotage operations—cyberattacks in Italy, arson in the United Kingdom, undersea-cable ruptures in the Baltic, severed pig heads left outside French mosques—to Russia.       The Pentagon is using polygraphs to hunt leakers, but the tests are more theater than fact (Defense One) In August, government investigators subjected roughly 50 military officers and civilian employees on the Joint Staff to polygraph tests as part of an inquiry into press leaks  about the Iran war and depleted U.S. munitions, according to The New York Times. The newspaper described the scope of the investigation as unprecedented in the modern military.