war

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has plans for a new radar to succeed the AN/TPY-2. The AN/TPY-2 is most commonly associated with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system, but it can also be used as a stand-alone sensor in a larger integrated air defense network. MDA’s main desire now is to find a more mobile radar system to make them less susceptible to enemy missile and drone attacks. Iran’s successful targeting of largely static missile defense radars this year, including the reported destruction of at least one AN/TPY-2, has been a wake-up call to just how vulnerable these prized assets have become already. TWZ explored this reality and its implications in a detailed feature earlier this year.

MDA put out a call yesterday for “innovative prototype concepts” for what it is currently calling the Forward-Based Mode (FBM) Radar Next. This notably came just ahead of the annual Space & Missile Defense (SMD) Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, that opened today and at which TWZ is in attendance.

The contracting notice stresses that the agency is currently in the pre-solication phase of this effort, but that it does have plans to eventually pursue these prototypes through an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement. OTA is a mechanism typically used to support rapid prototyping and other research and development work outside of a typical and often drawn-out contracting process. In its budget request for the 2027 Fiscal Year, which was released earlier this year, MDA also explicitly asked for funding for a pair of “next generation radar prototypes to prove out and mature emerging technologies for the future FBM Radar fleet.”

For some additional context, MDA uses the term FBM here to refer to a radar used to detect threats, traditionally ballistic missiles, after launch. Deployable radars like the AN/TPY-2 employed in this role are typically emplaced at semi-permanent sites. The U.S. military also has higher-end static strategic radar sites around the globe, along with space-based assets, to help provide additional layers of early warning detection.

FBM is one of two typical modes of operation for the X-band AN/TPY-2. The other is a terminal mode where the radar is used to cue interceptors to incoming threats. As mentioned, AN/TPY-2 is most commonly used in the terminal mode as part of the THAAD system, but it also has a demonstrated ability to feed data to Patriot surface-to-air missile systems.

At the time of writing, the U.S. military is publicly known to have two AN/TPY-2s deployed in the FBM mode in Japan, as well as three more at sites in Israel, Qatar, and Turkey. Additional AN/TPY-2 are also currently forward-deployed elsewhere globally as a component of the THAAD system.

AN/TYP-2s, as well as the generators needed to power them, are trailer-mounted and technically road mobile. However, they are not designed to be very rapidly relocated from one site to another. This brings us back to the FBM Radar Next.

“As adversarial missile capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, the need for agile, survivable, and highly precise forward-based sensors has never been greater. Current static or semi-mobile radars are vulnerable to counterattacks and lack the rapid relocation capabilities necessary for modern distributed operations,” the pre-solication notice explains. “FBM Radar Next will close this gap by providing a system that can be quickly transported, set up, and operated in austere forward locations while maintaining interoperability with existing Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) networks.”

In terms of transportability and deployability requirements, “the system must be capable of rapid deployment and transport via C-17 military airlift and tactical ground vehicles,” the notice says. “The radar must demonstrate rapid setup and teardown times (e.g., operational within specified hours of arrival, and tear down within minutes to maximize survivability).”

The next-generation radar must also be capable of “high-sensitivity detection, persistent tracking, and precise discrimination of advanced threats in high-clutter and contested electromagnetic environments,” the notice continues. MDA also wants “engineered physical, thermal, and electromagnetic signatures to
ensure platform survivability in contested environments.”

Furthermore, “the design must support remote operations, command and control integration, and automated system health monitoring,” the notice adds. Minimizing the onsite operator footprint is critical to improving personnel safety and increasing overall tactical flexibility.”

MDA wants the FBM Radar Next to be able to slot into more “versatile deployment architectures, with the capability to operate either as a highly integrated single aperture or as multiple distributed arrays to optimize geographical coverage, sensitivity, survivability, or electronic protection.” In line with this demand, there are additional requirements for a modular design with open architecture systems, as well as seamless integration with the existing Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) architecture.

The MDA video below highlights the general capabilities of the C2BMC architecture in the context of a notional engagement of a hypersonic threat utilizing the still-in-development Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI).

GPI Scenario Animation

A highly networked and distributed concept of operations could open the door to more novel radar configurations, including ones involving larger groups of smaller types, to succeed the AN/TPY-2. Smaller individual radars could also have reduced signatures, be easier to conceal, and be more readily relocatable, all helping to reduce vulnerability. This could also make the entire system more resilient in the event that nodes are lost or otherwise rendered inoperable for any reason.

There could be benefits in terms of unit cost and scalability of production from such an approach, too. Prime contractor Raytheon is understood to have only produced 16 AN/TPY-2s to date, in total, for all customers, not just the U.S. military. The unit cost of a single one of those radars is generally pegged at around $250 to $300 million, and these are long-lead-time items that take years to deliver.

“The system design must prioritize manufacturing ease, design-for-manufacturing-and-assembly (DFMA) principles, and cost-efficiency. It is critical that the prototype demonstrates a viable pathway to rapid, high-volume production at an affordable unit cost,” MDA’s FBM Radar Next notice makes clear. “This ensures the capability to quickly scale production and cost-effectively replace radar units in highly active forward-deployed environments.”

Regardless of the approach MDA ultimately decides to pursue, the threat ecosystem that is driving the FBM Radar Next plans is real now, and is not just limited to enemy missile attacks. Weaponized drones, especially long-range one-way attack types, present real dangers to high-value targets. This fact had already been driven firmly into the public consciousness by the ongoing war in Ukraine. It has now been further demonstrated by Iran’s aforementioned targeting of prized air and missile defense radars around the Middle East during fighting earlier this year. The ramifications of all of this go well beyond these particular conflict zones, too.

As we wrote back in March after Iran’s very deliberate targeting of U.S. and allied radars became clear:

“Strategic air and missile architectures, in general, exist in a world now where the threats they face are not limited to very-long-range standoff capabilities possessed only by peer or near-peer adversaries.“

“It used to be, generally, that you had to fire a ballistic missile or high-end cruise missile in an attempt to strike one of these systems. Now, long-range one-way-attack drones, as well as increasingly capable cruise and ballistic missiles, continue to proliferate steadily, including to smaller nation-state armed forces and even non-state actors. An attack could even come from a small drone with a C4 charge launched from a fishing trawler 10 miles away from one of these critical radar installations. The threat of these kinds of near-field attacks has largely been overlooked for years, even as the low-end drone threat has exploded and ‘democratized’ precision-guided weaponry, as they did not fit the established aerial threat matrix and the countermeasures used to repel those threats.”

…

“The scale and scope of Iran’s retaliatory attacks so far, while clearly threatening, pale in comparison to what one would expect to see in a major high-end fight between the United States and China in the Pacific. The overall ramifications would also be more severe.“

“Beyond the more immediate impacts of losing this kind of strategic radar coverage, there are far larger implications. In some cases, these radars are designed to provide critical early warning and verification of incoming nuclear strikes, or other large-scale attacks by a major adversary, targeting a nation’s home soil. They are critical parts of the nuclear deterrent. As such, losing these sensors can have major downstream impacts on strategic decision-making cycles based on concerns about what suddenly is not being seen. Fewer radars also means fewer ways to double-check that a track is not a false positive in a scenario where the total available decision-making time could be seriously truncated, to begin with. These are concerns TWZ explicitly highlighted after Ukraine’s attack on the Armavir Radar Station in Russia in 2024.”

During a panel discussion at the SMD Symposium today, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Richard Zellmann, Deputy Commander of U.S Space Command, further underscored the reality of the current threat ecosystem, including one-way attack drones layered in with traditional missile barrages. The general also highlighted the impact of more readily available space-enabled targeting and navigation capabilities.

“We see, I think, the low end on Epic Fury [the official nickname for U.S. operations against Iran earlier this year]. Sure, the missiles are more high-end, but we’ve seen our adversary employ a number of one-way attack systems that are coupled with these ballistic missile volleys,” Zellman explained. “We are really at this point in the history of warfare because of the democratization of space. Space isn’t a sanctuary. It’s no longer just the playground of nations with a lot of money.”

“The commercialization of space has created what many call essentially a transparent battlefield. And because I can see everything all the time with commercial ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; in this case primarily satellite imagery], it’s given our adversaries capabilities that they haven’t had in the past,” he continued. “That ISR, if you couple it with a platform that has access to GPS or some other PNT [Position, Navigation, and Timing] system, and then you add in another layer of over-the-horizon comms, like say from an Iridium or a Starlink [satellite communications terminal], and you have a pretty lethal asymmetric weapon system that our adversaries can get a hold of.”

Munitions that use GPS, or a similar form of navigation, alone for guidance are only employable against static targets. This, in turn, only drives home even more the importance of the transportability and deployability requirements that are at the heart of the FBM Radar Next plan.

It’s also important to note that, like AN/TPY-2 now, FBM Radar Next will still be just one part of a larger air and missile defense architecture. In our analysis earlier this year, we noted that Iranian attacks on radars in the Middle East had reinforced arguments for new layered defenses to protect those and other prized assets and for migrating more early warning and missile tracking capabilities into space. There is still a question of how much of that functionality will be shared and eventually ported over into orbital sensing capabilities. As Lt. Gen. Zellmann pointed out today, threats to space-based capabilities continue to grow, and that domain can no longer be considered a sanctuary, either. Having a layered, redundant, and flexible mix of terrestrial and orbital sensing for ballistic missile tracking will remain highly important for the foreseeable future.

What exactly a successor to the AN/TPY-2 looks like in the end remains to be seen. What is clear now is that very real missile and drone threats have prompted a major rethinking on the part of MDA about how future missile defense radars will need to be employed to ensure they can survive going forward.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Monday expressed hopes for resumption of diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea to ease animosities on the Korean Peninsula, as President Trump’s order to cut military exercises with South Korea caused concerns it might hurt the allies’ readiness against North Korean threats.

Trump cited his good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the decision, a likely bid to reengage with Kim, who views U.S.-South Korean military exercises as invasion rehearsals. But experts say the North Korean leader, now emboldened by his advancing nuclear arsenal and expanding military cooperation with Russia, won’t likely return to talks unless he is assured of serious U.S. concessions.

The 11-day, summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises began Monday morning as scheduled and it wasn’t known which parts of the training were being downsized. Trump’s announcement baffled many in South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia where national security is a top priority due to threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trump orders military to ‘substantially reduce’ drills

Trump said in a social media post that the exercises are not only costly but “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his time in the White House.

Trump instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the exercises. He added that he recently asked President Lee Jae Myung if South Korea would join the U.S. in the “denuclearization” of Iran, “and they said, ‘No thanks!’”

Trump’s move is the latest example of the American president appearing to turn against an ally in favor of a leader cast by previous administrations as an adversary. Trump and others in his administration also have railed against NATO allies over a perceived lack of support for his war against Iran, even as they seek to confront an increasingly aggressive Russia in the Baltic region.

The trust many South Koreans have in the U.S. has eroded following a tariff war instigated by Trump’s administration and his transactional approach to security.

South Korea hopes for talks between U.S. and North Korea

The office of South Korea’s president said later Monday that the government hopes “friendly relationship” between Trump and Kim would lead to “meaningful dialogue” between the U.S. and North Korea and start discussions on promoting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. It said that South Korea will make necessary diplomatic efforts for that.

South Korea and the U.S. are closely discussing practical and military contributions that can be made to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, according to South Korea’s presidential office.

Lee is a liberal who espouses improved ties with North Korea. Since taking office last year, his government has taken proactive steps to improve ties with North Korea, including turning off front line loudspeakers that blared K-pop music and world news. On Saturday, Lee offered to hold talks to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The conservative People Power Party, the main opposition party, lambasted Lee for allegedly “turning a blind eye on the public’s security concerns” caused by Trump’s announcement and prioritizing hopes for U.S.-North Korea diplomacy.

North Korea has shunned any talks with South Korea and the U.S. and accelerated weapons testing activities since Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump broke down in 2019. Kim also has bolstered his diplomatic credentials by aligning with Russia over its war against Ukraine and taking steps to deepen cooperation with China.

In September 2025, Kim suggested he could resume talks with the American president if the U.S. drops “its delusional obsession with denuclearization” of North Korea. Experts say Kim likely aims to use his enlarged nuclear arsenal to win major concessions like extensive sanctions relief.

“Trump’s recent social media posts about Kim Jong Un suggest a willingness to reengage, but North Korea is busy profiting from Russia’s war against Ukraine while modernizing its own military,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

Downsizing the U.S. and South Korean drills “can damage alliance coordination, slow the process of South Korea taking on greater responsibility for its own defense, and weaken deterrence against possible conflicts in Asia,” Easley said.

Duyeon Kim, a senior analyst at Washington’s Center for a New American Security, said “reducing joint drills weakens military readiness over time against another potential North Korean attack.”

Military drills test tactics and anger North Korea

South Korea’s military earlier said the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises this year would be similar to previous years in scale, with about 18,000 South Korean soldiers taking part.

The U.S. military said the drills would incorporate lessens from recent conflicts such as North Korea’s battlefield experiences in the Russia-Ukraine front, while including a live-fire exercise to test joint precision targeting and maneuver, a wet gap crossing and distribution of prepositioned military equipment.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday accused the U.S. and South Korea of plotting more provocative drills this year and vowed to respond with “a new level of a deterrent.” Earlier this month, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in a likely protest of the drills.

Duyeon Kim, the analyst, said North Korea uses U.S.-South Korean drills “for domestic propaganda purposes to create a false narrative of a hostile America and justify its nuclear weapons program.”

This is not the first time Trump has sought to suspend the drills. After his first summit with Kim in 2018, Trump unilaterally announced the suspension of the U.S.-South Korean summertime exercises, calling them “very provocative” and “tremendously expensive.”

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korea feels less urgency to return to talks with the U.S. and South Korea now than when it entered talks with its rivals in 2018, but is unlikely to completely ignore Trump’s overture.

He predicted North Korea will likely say it has noted Trump’s post but will wait for further action showing the U.S. intends to drop hostilities against North Korea.

Kim writes for the Associated Press.

During the two most recent major Middle East conflicts it has been involved in, the U.S. Army swatted down more than 1,400 Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officer in charge of the Army’s air and missile defense. The figures provided by Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, and Joint Task Force-Gold, offer new context about the number of Army interceptions during these fights. His comments also come amid concerns about the tremendous expenditure of U.S. interceptors that has exacerbated the stress on America’s magazine depth of these high-end defensive weapons, an issue that TWZ has raised frequently for years. 

“For the last 14 months,” the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC), based at Fort Bliss, Texas, “has been in the largest air and missile defense fight in U.S. history,” Rafferty said during a panel at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium (SMD) in Huntsville, Alabama, attended by TWZ. “Over the 12-day war [between Iran and Israel], they successfully engaged 125 ballistic missiles, and during Operation Epic Fury, over 1,200 ballistic, cruise and UAS threats have been neutralized.”

The 32nd AAMDC, which is responsible for all U.S. Army air and missile defense in the region, “adapted and innovated to overcome advanced threats,” Rafferty added. “The THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense], the Patriot, and our counter-UAS systems are the envy of the world, and that’s due in no small part to some of the efforts of the organizations that are represented by the leaders in the front row here, but also by the contributions of many of our industry partners and industry teammates here.”

Though he didn’t mention how many interceptions were performed by the U.S. Navy’s ship-launched SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, or Air Force air-to-air missiles and rockets, Rafferty’s comments added insight into the extent of the U.S. military’s defense of the region during numerous Iranian missile and drone barrages. It represented just a part of a much larger regional effort involving several nations that came under Iranian attack.

In May, Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), testified before Congress that Epic Fury “validated, at full scale and in actual combat, a combined Middle East Air Defense (MEAD) network – a concept the region had exercised for years but never fully operationalized.”

“During OEF, for the first time in history, U.S. air defenders stood shoulder to shoulder with partner air defenders across national systems… Over the course of the operation, this integrated architecture intercepted over 6,000 one-way attack drones and more than 1,500 ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. forces, Israel, and our Arab partners.”

Cooper did not break down how many interceptions were carried out by each country, but the figures provided by Rafferty suggest that the Army was responsible for about 16% of all of them. CENTCOM declined our request for the numbers of interceptions carried out by the Navy and Air Force.

As a result of this intense air and missile defense activity, partner nations, minus Israel which uses its own systems, have had their missile stocks backfilled by the U.S. due to the massive consumption of interceptors. It’s also worth noting that it is common to use multiple interceptors against each target to increase kill probability, so one target often doesn’t mean one missile was used to shoot it down.

LIVE: Head of Central Command testifies before Senate committee on Iran war

As for the 12-Day War, Iran fired about 550 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones at Israel, according to the IDF. About 90% were intercepted by the U.S. and Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported at the time. While the Army engaged 125 Iranian missiles, the U.S. Navy played a large role in swatting down these threats as well. It is unclear just how many interceptions the Navy performed during that conflict, but former acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby told the Senate Appropriations Committee in June 2025 that the service fired interceptors at incoming Iranian threats “at an alarming rate.”

As we noted earlier in this story, we have been sounding the alarm about magazine depth for years, especially in regard to America’s air and missile defenses. In fact, we laid out in detail these exact concerns and how they would be a major issue in war with Iran just prior to the conflict starting in a feature you can read in full here.

The U.S. has burned through hundreds of THAAD and Patriot interceptors since a shaky ceasefire went into effect on April 8, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) latest assessment. CSIS was updating a previous analysis of munitions expenditures during Epic Fury that you can read more about here.

According to CSIS, the U.S. had about 2,300 Patriot interceptors in its inventories before Epic Fury, 1,030 by the time the ceasefire was agreed to, and between 759 and 827 as of July 27.

As for THAADs, there were 452 interceptors in the U.S. inventory before Epic Fury, between 232 and 262 on the date of the ceasefire, and between 234 and 278 as of July 27.

During the SMD panel, Rafferty addressed magazine depth concerns but did not provide any granularity about the number of interceptors used. The bottom line, he said, is that THAAD and Patriot munitions are just one part of an overall defense.

“I cannot add anything to the emphasis on magazine depth… or for the need for cheaper and wide-ranging mix of interceptors,” he explained. “I mean that couldn’t be made more loud and clear from the highest levels of our government. But I do want to highlight the need that interceptors alone won’t do it, right? We need more of a comprehensive missile defeat strategy that focuses on interceptors, equally so on non-kinetic effects, both electronic warfare and directed energy.”

“And the type of targeting C2 enabled by a data strategy, and a cross-domain solution that works that helps us take data from TS [top secret], move it down to secret, and even down to CUI [controlled unclassified information], that’ll enable us to use that data to make decisions to engage targets faster,” he continued. “That’s the kind of comprehensive missile defeat strategy that isn’t just about more interceptors. It’s about integrating other capabilities, non-kinetics, and also decision-making into that.”

For the moment, things have calmed between the U.S. and Iran, with no major attacks against each other for several weeks. Media reports have suggested that President Trump has shifted to economic, rather than military pressure against Iran in large measure over concerns about the ability to sustain a conflict with greatly diminished magazine depth.

Still, Trump has been unable to compel Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, pare its ballistic missile stocks or stop supporting proxies like the Houthis and Hezbollah. Given that, it remains possible the notoriously impatient president could resume hostilities at any time. So too could the Iranians, who have done it before.

Meanwhile, the heavy use of these expensive, hard-to-build, long-lead-time weapons raises additional questions about how the U.S. can defend itself from another major threat, and especially should a war break out with China. 

Rafferty didn’t bring up concerns about whether the supply of air defense munitions and general capacity was sufficient for a China fight, nor was he asked about it in the ensuing question and answer session. Still, he did imply that the U.S. Army’s air defenders were under significant stress battling Iran.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The nearly nine-month extended deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East has triggered a mental health crisis among the crew so intense that some sailors have tried to jump overboard, according to some US media reports.

Family members of the exhausted military crew on board the flagship aircraft carrier, reportedly located in the Gulf region, say there are food shortages, while broken toilets and showers have contributed to unsanitary conditions and poor health.

More than 5,000 staff members have been on board the vessel, which has been conducting maritime security and blockade operations at present around the Strait of Hormuz, for that time. It set sail on November 21, 2025 from its homeport of San Diego for an extended deployment to the Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Since then, the ship has made just one single-day port stop at Naval Base Guam from December 11-12. The lack of port stops is a major issue for a ship the size and complexity of the USS Abraham Lincoln, experts say.

As US President Donald Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, declare the United States is ready to continue an “indefinite” blockade on Iranian ports in the Gulf, we look at how this compares with other lengthy aircraft carrier deployments.

What is happening on board the USS Abraham Lincoln?

Reports by two US publications that cover military affairs, the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes, last week quoted family members of military personnel on board the vessel who said they were suffering from declining mental health and morale, and cases of suicidal ideation.

The Navy Times spoke on record with one sailor’s wife, identified as Annabelle Loma, who said he had attempted to jump overboard amid what she described as “severe burnout”.

The reports prompted urgent questions from US lawmakers. On Sunday, Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), reportedly visited the USS Lincoln.

He praised the crew and stated on social media that “service at sea for long periods isn’t for everyone, while claiming the ship has the lowest number of mental health-related cases of the navy’s 11 active aircraft carriers. “It is uniquely challenging and tough, and every single one of us, including me, reacts to stressors in different ways,” he said.

But there is growing concern among Republican and Democratic lawmakers over what they see as a lack of accountability after Hegseth dismissed mental health reports last week as “completely misrepresented”.

When Trump was asked last week whether the USS Lincoln had been at sea for too long, he told reporters: “No, not nearly long enough.”

The USS Lincoln mission was supposed to end in May but has been extended repeatedly since then.

Last week, it emerged that another ship, the USS George Washington, has been rerouted from its position in the Pacific and will arrive in the Gulf within a week to take over duties from the Lincoln.

How long can US aircraft carrier deployments be?

The longest aircraft carrier deployment since the Vietnam War was the USS Gerald R Ford’s 326-day mission, which began in June 2025, under Trump’s second term in the White House.

That mission included NATO exercises in the Mediterranean, support for the US military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and operations in the Red Sea during the US-Israel war on Iran.

After beginning its mission as a routine deployment to the Asia Pacific region, the Ford then moved into the South China Sea for security operations, before being deployed to the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman to help the US enforce its naval blockade of the Iranian ports.

During this time, the USS Ford met several technical problems, including an onboard fire, which also triggered congressional scrutiny back home.

Lengthy deployments during the Vietnam War

Some of the longest aircraft carrier deployments in US history took place in and around the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War, with the USS Midway operating for 332 days, the USS Coral Sea operating for 329 days and the USS Saratoga operating for 308 days.

Similar to the USS Lincoln, they faced issues as well. Reports said the intense flight schedule of the active air combat during the Vietnam War pushed crew and operations to their limits.

While there are a number of lengthy aircraft carrier deployments from other countries, they pale in comparison to the US Navy’s record.

Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov conducted a five-month mission to the Syrian coast which began in October 2016, but suffered several technical breakdowns, including aircraft losses.

The United Kingdom’s HMS Queen Elizabeth completed a seven-month deployment in 2021, which included combat strikes on targets in Iraq and Syria, despite significant breakdowns due to engineering issues.

Why is this issue so critical?

Many lawmakers have raised questions over whether the US can maintain an “indefinite” blockade in the Gulf if conditions on board a flagship aircraft carrier are so dire.

In a letter to Hegseth last week, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal raised the alarm over reports of deteriorating mental health on board, as well as shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, an increase in safety incidents and even disruptions to mail services, through which those on board receive care packages.

“These reports warrant immediate attention, but they also raise a broader question: whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of its carrier force, particularly as this administration repeatedly commits US forces to conflicts of its own choosing and increasingly relies on aircraft carriers to sustain those operations,” Blumenthal wrote.

Experts say the lack of port stops is a major issue for the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Harlan Ullman, a retired senior naval officer and chairman of the strategic advisory firm Killowen Group, told Al Jazeera that ships require onshore care to keep advanced technology operational over long periods.

“Ships need maintenance, particularly ships that are extremely complicated with very advanced weapon systems such as nuclear-powered carriers with very advanced systems, and there are things that you cannot do in terms of maintenance under way,” Ullman said.

“There are lots of things that you can do at sea, but there are far more things that can only be done in port,” he pointed out.

Ullman noted that extended deployments “erode the readiness and capability of that ship the longer it’s at sea, and it lacks the ability to repair and extend maintenance”.

He added that the Trump administration must prioritise naval readiness over politics, saying “this is a national issue, not a local one; and the administration should not be so defensive. It should say, ‘OK, we’ll see what’s going on, and then if there are some issues, we’ll take care of them.’”

What are the drawbacks of deploying aircraft carriers?

Aircraft carriers are built to be on deployment for many months at a time. However, that comes with a high cost, as extended cruises increase the risk of technical breakdowns and can also lead to reduced staff morale and mental health concerns.

Large aircraft carriers are expensive. The USS Abraham Lincoln cost $2.2bn to build in 1989, and it costs tens of millions of dollars to operate on a daily basis.

Recent conflicts in the Red Sea have also underscored the vulnerability of large aircraft carriers. Houthi rebels, who do not possess a formal navy, have nevertheless managed to put significant pressure on large US Navy aircraft carriers operating near the limits of their missile range.

At one point during the US-Israel war on Iran, the USS Gerald Ford was forced to sail hundreds of miles away from the Iranian coast to reduce the risk of being hit by missiles, limiting its effectiveness.

WASHINGTON — Approaching six months of war with Iran after predicting a six-week campaign, President Trump has few options before him to bring the conflict to a close. But some experts believe a new strategy emerging from his administration could avert a more consequential defeat.

The president has repeatedly flirted with broadening the assault, hoping yet another round of bombardment might force Iran to yield. Yet he has ultimately resisted, once again stepping back this month from options to expand strikes across Iran’s critical infrastructure and leadership. And he has refrained since the beginning of the war from ordering a ground operation that would expose U.S. troops to direct attack, faced with dwindling U.S. munitions stockpiles and an entrenched Iranian government willing to retaliate.

The result has been a U.S. campaign that has failed to achieve any of Trump’s stated war aims — of regime change in Tehran, the elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile and naval capabilities, and the end of its nuclear program — but has also avoided the costs of uncontrolled escalation, experts said.

In remarks Friday, Trump said the United States was still in the process of “defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated.”

“We have the blockade. No ships get through,” he said. “They still have missiles, but not a lot. They still have drones, but just a fraction of what they had. But their manufacturing is largely gone.

“We’re winning big with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added. “Nobody has any idea how successful we are — they don’t want to write it. But they know. You know who knows how well we’re doing? Iran.”

In an interview published last week, Trump explained his decision not to proceed with expanded strikes, telling Axios, “we are low-keying it.”

“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” he said. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”

It is a shift from an instinctual posture to one of restraint uncharacteristic of a president who launched the war in February after consulting a mere handful of people, including Israel’s prime minister and fewer than a dozen of his closest aides.

The current approach — an economic choke hold on Iran — is being led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was not involved in Trump’s prewar deliberations.

“The options are escalating militarily, conceding Iranian victory through a phony negotiation, or continuing the economic pressure we have in place. The president’s problem is that he can’t simply choose — the ayatollah gets a vote,” said Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat who served under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, as well as under Trump in his first term.

“Trump has to choose now between sticking to the blockade and the risks it brings — including high oil prices and a loss in the midterm elections — or accepting defeat by Iran and the risks that brings,” he added, “to our friends and allies and to his own reputation.”

White House officials are betting the risks to Tehran, from soaring inflation and a shortage of goods, are greater than the political costs Trump will incur at the ballot box in November during the midterm elections, with oil prices holding stable under $100 a barrel since mid-July.

“We have the ability to accept costs because our resources are great. Iran does not, because theirs are few,” said Barry Posen, a political science professor at MIT.

And while restraint may not end the conflict on Trump’s preferred terms, it could prevent the kind of open-ended escalation that pulled the United States deeper into costly quagmires in Vietnam and Iraq, said Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program.

“He has resisted that temptation so far,” O’Hanlon said. “In this regard, he is showing greater humanity and greater thoughtfulness than either of those two American presidents during the Vietnam War. And he has avoided the mistakes of George W. Bush in launching big ground wars without adequate planning or preparation.

“It’s troubling, and far from victory,” O’Hanlon added, “but also far from quagmire or defeat.”

Trump’s reluctance to escalate has so far averted a high U.S. casualty count in the war. According to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System, 18 U.S. service members have been killed and hundreds have been wounded since the start of operations against Iran.

But his reticence to deploy additional U.S. troops within striking distance of Tehran — and the need to protect those already stationed across the region — has forced the administration to rely on long-range weapons systems that cost tens of millions of dollars and require complex international supply chains to produce, leading to critical shortages of drones, missiles and defense systems as the conflict continues longer than planned.

“Even limited operations, such as the air wars over Kosovo and Libya, dragged on much longer than policymakers expected, and the U.S. ran short of critical precision guided weapons,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. “What really differentiates the current situation with Iran is that Tehran can hold U.S. forces in the region at risk with its long-range missiles and drones.”

Karoline Leavitt, the president’s outgoing White House press secretary, said the United States has “more than enough firepower” to carry out any operation the president wishes to order.

But Defense officials acknowledged to The Times that a protracted campaign, and the risk of an escalation that prompts Iran to expand its targeting of U.S. assets and allies in the region, could further stretch weapons systems to dangerously low levels.

A “low-key” campaign will mitigate the threat of dwindling supplies and high casualties, without necessarily providing Trump with a path to victory, said Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public policy at Columbia University.

“The issue with Iran isn’t how long the war has lasted, though it’s already lasted longer than the Trump administration apparently expected,” Biddle said. “The issue is how we’ll get out of it with our interests intact. The administration has no viable plan for doing that, and none is immediately obvious.”

POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE — For nearly 60 years, warring camps have battled one another for the soul of a wind-swept peninsula with breathtaking hills, rugged cliffs, granite outcroppings, oak forests and wide expanses of pasture land and beach.

Jutting off the coastline like an upside-down ice skate, the Point Reyes National Seashore is separated from the mainland by the San Andreas fault, which runs like a skate’s blade edge separating the Pacific and North American plates. The peninsula covers about 110 square miles — roughly five times the size of Manhattan.

Elephant seals and sea lions bark and breed on its sandy coves. Whales and sharks breach and hunt in the waters beyond the thick kelp forests that tickle its edges. And in its forests and on its grasslands, tule elk and mule deer graze, while bobcats and coyotes hunt for rabbits and mountain beavers.

But the peninsula 20 miles north of San Francisco also has been home to agriculture since the 1800s and is the site of one of the state’s fiercest land disputes — one that, contrary to the usual red-versus-blue scenario, pits Northern California liberals against other Northern California liberals.

On one side: beef ranchers and dairy operators who advocate sustainable and organic food and land practices; they note the seashore was established, in part, to preserve their way of life.

On the other: environmentalists who say the taxpayer-funded park is no place for commercial farming, and that the seashore should protect its rare and diverse wildlife and welcome the visitors who bicycle, hike and camp on its beaches, oak forests and grasslands.

For seven weeks last year, it seemed the interminable battle over the seashore had finally come to an end.

The family dog guards poultry at Niman family farm at the Point Reyes National Seashore.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

In January 2025, a settlement was announced with the National Park Service laying out how the park would function going forward. Natural landscapes and wildlife would take priority over agriculture. Eleven of 13 historic ranching families would leave and be made whole for their losses.

While no one involved really loved the deal or got everything they wanted, many were satisfied, said Jeff Miller, senior conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups involved in the settlement. “The ranchers walked away with a few million dollars and the tule elk get to stay.”

Then this year, the two remaining ranch and dairy families sued. The goal: to upend the deal announced in the waning days of the Biden administration.

The Trump administration, with its pro-meat, pro-cattle agenda, is taking notice.

Since 1962, when the seashore was established, there have been grumblings. The ranchers said the park service saddled them with excessive rules and regulations. The environmentalists said the ranchers brought in invasive plants with their feed, and that cattle fouled the soil and waterways.

But nearly everyone agrees that it was in 2012 when things really began to boil over. That year, the park service moved to shut down a local oyster farm, whose lease was expiring. In his decision to shut it down, Ken Salazar, then secretary of the Interior, promised the ranchers they could remain.

“These working ranches are a vibrant and compatible part of Point Reyes National Seashore,” he wrote in a memorandum, “and both now and in the future represent an important contribution to the Point Reyes’ superlative natural and cultural resources.”

But four years later, environmentalists sued the park service. They argued the cows had degraded the seashore with manure pollution and soil erosion, harming the native wildlife. The iconic tule elk, some of which were fenced in on the northern part of the peninsula to keep them from competing for grassland with cows, were dying off.

The environmentalists demanded the park service establish a new management plan.

They won. But the new plan, issued in 2021, favored the ranchers, extending them 20-year leases, and allowed for the killing of elk if they interfered with cattle.

A tule elk calf is seen with its herd along the Tomales Point Trail, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Once again, the environmentalists — the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project — sued.

That’s what led to the settlement and the departure of the 11 ranch families and their workers. Each family is believed to have received between $2.5 million and $3 million, but exact amounts have not been divulged because of a nondisclosure agreement.

The 17,000 acres they vacated would be dedicated to conservation and ecological restoration — with a few cattle remaining to feast on invasive species.

But the two litigious families that did not join the settlement — the Evanses and the Nimans — have a different vision.

David Evans, who declined to be formally interviewed, told The Times while moving cattle in the seashore on his ATV that he hadn’t known anything about the settlement. The Evans clan has been running cattle on the peninsula for 150 years.

The other family, headed by Bill Niman and Nicolette Hahn Niman, came to their land comparatively recently.

Born in Minnesota, Bill Niman found himself in Bolinas in 1969, where he befriended lefty intellectuals who were critical of factory farming. In 1978, he and Orville Schell — who later became the dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism — bought land and co-founded the Niman-Schell Ranch. They dedicated their business to raising pigs, and then cattle, in a humane and environmentally sound way.

Niman said he and Schell also wanted to preserve the land from developers and “wealthy people from the Central Valley,” who were moving to the area to build second homes, golf courses and four-lane highways.

In 1984, Niman and Schell sold their 206 acres to the National Park Service for $1.3 million and the promise that they could stay on the property until Niman, Schell or Niman’s older sister all died. They’re now at ages 81, 86 and 90.

Schell did not respond to a request for comment.

“Orville and I concluded that mortals should not own land like this,” Niman said. “It belongs in the hands of the people, because it’s too valuable to cut up and develop.”

The business, which Schell left in 1997, flourished: Alice Waters, at Chez Panisse, bought pork exclusively from Niman, as did Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. In 2009, he merged his company into Natural Food Holdings, which was later bought by Perdue Farms.

Bill Niman and Nicolette Hahn Niman sued the federal government to upend a settlement that paid other ranchers and dairy owners to leave Point Reyes National Seashore.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

In 2007, Niman and Hahn Niman started BN Ranch, specializing in organic, grass-fed beef and heritage turkeys. The company, which was bought by Blue Apron in 2017, has operations across the world. Niman later founded Bill Niman Farm LP, which raises grass-fed cows and chickens.

On a recent afternoon, sitting on the back porch of the Bolinas ranch house that Niman built, with a view of the Pacific in the distance, Niman and Hahn Niman — who is 22 years his junior — spoke about their decision to file the lawsuit, which argues the park service was negligent in its rule making.

The Nimans say the seashore’s founders explicitly included agriculture in their vision of the park. They noted that, according to the original charter, Congress could not take the land without the consent of landowners “so long as it remains in its natural state, or is used exclusively for ranching and dairying purposes.”

Hahn Niman also noted, at least five times over two interviews, that Point Reyes is a “seashore” and not a “park,” and therefore doesn’t have as many rules governing preservation. For instance, you can drive an off-road vehicle at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, but off-roading in Yosemite could land you in jail.

The Nimans hope that, should they win or settle, farmers and ranchers would again be allowed in the seashore. Their vision: a test kitchen of sorts that models how farming can, and should, be done.

“We’re really talking about a kind of agrarian model and a use of land that basically keeps this land in its natural state, where agriculture is practiced in harmony with wildlife and nature’s cycles,” said Hahn Niman, who wrote three books, including “Righteous Porkchop” about her work in the early 2000s as an environmental attorney for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance.

The view from Chimney Rock at Point Reyes National Seashore, which covers about 110 square miles and includes a variety of habitats.

(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)

Elephant seals gather below Chimney Rock in Point Reyes.

(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)

Hahn Niman said she has spoken with Kennedy about the park, and he supports agriculture in the seashore. She added that Albert Straus, a private equity-backed organic dairy processor in Petaluma, also reached out to Kennedy.

“Straus made efforts to involve [Kennedy], because he was really trying to get help anywhere … and he knew Bobby and I had this connection,” Hahn Niman said. It was Straus who believed legal action might keep agriculture on the peninsula and suggested the Nimans consult an attorney.

According to media reports, Kennedy directly reached out to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy heads, did not respond to requests for comment on Kennedy’s involvement.

The more important contacts, Bill Niman said, have been political appointees in the Interior Department, including Karen Budd-Falen, the agency’s No. 3, who built her legal career advocating for western ranchers, and Brenda Younkin, a senior advisor to the Bureau of Land Management who worked closely with western ranchers on federal livestock grazing issues.

“We were able to have deep and meaningful conversations because the two people that are on the point of this effort, Karen and Brenda, they understand ranching, pastoral relationships, and how to manage government lands in the best of ways,” he said.

Early this spring, a town hall was held at an elementary school at Point Reyes Station. Hundreds of people crammed into the school gym that April evening, and the debate over Point Reyes agitated into a low boil.

There was no agenda or presentation. Instead, the park service, Nature Conservancy, the Nimans’ and Evanses’ lawyers, a representative from the Coast Miwok tribe — the people who lived on the land before the ranchers — and about a dozen other interest groups handed out pamphlets, answered questions and displayed maps at folding tables ringing the hall.

It was hard to hear above the din. Apple Watches around the room warned of “dangerous” noise conditions.

Foodies and farmers railed against the settlement, saying the park’s new plan would destroy the food scene in west Marin County and kneecap the already struggling agrarian community.

“These aren’t factory farms. This is real amazing quality local food,” said Bronte Edwards, a Sonoma County-based sheep farmer. And she made this observation, Edwards said, “as a liberal-facing queer person that believes in climate science.”

Settlement critics noted that the pact meant that ranch employees, many of them Latinos with moderate incomes, lost their homes along with the ranch owners.

They also complained that the settlement was negotiated in secret among the park service, environmental groups and ranch families.

A male tule elk is seen along the Tomales Point Trail, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

“It was all hush-hush,” said Stephanie Moreda-Arend, an ag-aligned podcaster.

Others at the town hall, however, expressed fury that the two remaining ranching families were now trying to upend the deal.

“I understand people have been here a long time. People fear change. I understand that feeling,” said Center for Biological Diversity’s Miller. But the settlement, he added, is done. The seashore is “not their property.”

As residents, activists, farmers and journalists squeezed and jostled through the crowd, holding court in one corner was Budd-Falen, the high-ranking official with the Interior Department.

Budd-Falen, a rancher from Wyoming, has stated publicly that grazing regulations are her passion and that she aims to increase the number of grazing allotments handed out to western ranchers on BLM land, and to no longer declare areas as critical habitat for endangered species.

Though she described the settlement as a done deal, she obliquely suggested changes might still be afoot. “How is it managed from this point forward?” she said of the pact. “You can’t create a good management idea unless you talk to the citizens and see what people want.”

She did not answer questions about the Nimans’ and Evanses’ suit, but when asked why she came to the gathering, she said, “I started hearing about the controversy. Then I started making calls to lands [the Bureau of Land Management] and then to the park service and saying, ‘You know, there’s lots of grumbling, what is going on?’

“And they told me, and I was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like an interesting project, something that we ought to be involved in, and really listen to these locals. And how can I help?’”

Backing the remaining ranchers in Point Reyes and their organic beef, cheese and butter is consistent with an administration that places the commercial cattle industry at the center of its public lands agenda and meat at the center of nutrition policy.

But local politicians and parties to the settlement say scrapping the Biden-era pact would require years of federal review and public engagement. Even if the ranchers have some political pull right now, incarnating their vision within the seashore “would be really difficult,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael).

“They would have to change the law” that established the park and the park system, Huffman said, or “find many millions in funding to subsidize” a new process or management plan that would take on the Nimans’ and Evanses’ vision of model farm.

Given the administration’s zeal to push legal boundaries, especially when confronting perceived enemies — such as California environmentalists — he said, “You don’t want to put anything past them.”

Theresa Harlan, a Coast Miwok descendant who runs the Alliance for Felix Cove — an area in the park where her family had a home until ranchers kicked them out in the 1950s — said the effort to upend the settlement “is just opening up the wound” that had finally started to heal.

Rancher Bill Niman walks along his property at his ranch in Bolinas, Calif.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Now that the cattle are gone, she’s seeing all kinds of native plants, such as coastal strawberries, Yerba Buena Blue-eyed grass and the Douglas iris with their stunning lavender petals. Some of them she hadn’t seen since she was a child.

Ken Boulay, the CEO of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, said it’s time to move forward and imagine what the park could be like without cattle and private ranches.

He noted the peninsula had once been home to animals such as pronghorn, sea otter, North American porcupine, Humboldt marten, gray wolf, American black bear, grizzlies, northern fur seal and Steller sea lion.

And it could be again — well maybe not the grizzlies or wolves. His organization is already restoring native plants and rebuilding natural waterways in parts of the peninsula.

“It’s time to stop thinking about cheese and yogurt,” he said.

Niman, driving his Rivian across the golden, wind-swept fields, said he has some concerns with the way Trump is dealing with foreign policy, immigrants and some broader environmental issues. But the administration “gets it” when it comes to Point Reyes and public lands.

And he’s heard they’re going to do something about it soon.

Romania’s Defence Ministry didn’t specify the origin of the drone but has previously blamed Russia for similar incidents.

Russian strikes on Ukraine have killed at least one person and wounded seven more while a Spanish jet has shot down a drone that entered Romanian airspace.

A woman was killed and six others wounded in a missile and drone attack on Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the region’s governor said early on Sunday.

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital also said Kyiv was “under ballistic missile attack” late on Saturday, with one person wounded and fires sparked at non-residential sites in the Obolonsky and Holosiivskyi districts.

Separately, Romania’s Defence Ministry reported on Sunday that a Spanish F-18 fighter jet pilot on a NATO air policing mission to Romania had shot down a drone illegally breaching its national airspace.

It is the fourth drone shot down in Romania this year.

Romania’s Defence Ministry did not specify the origin of ‌the ‌drone.

In July, a Romanian jet shot down a suspected Russian drone, and in May a stray drone injured two people in the Romanian city of Galati when it collided with a building.

Romania shares a 634km (394-mile) border with Ukraine and has repeatedly seen Russian drones breaching its airspace as Moscow escalates its bombing campaign against Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure.

Escalating long-range strikes

Russia has maintained near-daily missile and drone strikes across Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in early 2022, with areas far from the front lines frequently coming under attack.

The war’s impact has also spread to key regional shipping lanes, with reports of mines and unmanned sea drones found floating in the Black Sea.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine hit their highest level since 2022 this July, with at least 437 killed and 2,610 injured, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission.

Meanwhile, in Russia on Sunday, authorities reported a large-scale drone incursion from the Ukrainians.

Moscow officials said they had downed more than 100 drones heading towards the capital overnight.

Emergency services were deployed to sites where debris fell, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, adding that three people were wounded.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted military, industrial and logistical facilities deep inside Russia, arguing its strikes are a response to Moscow’s ongoing bombardment of Ukrainian towns and infrastructure.

Israel kills 11 in deadliest attacks on Lebanon since June truce as Iran and Oman continue talks on Hormuz.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s war against Iran is stretching the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.

The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support the war in Iran.

The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.

“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.

American allies in the Pacific are unsettled over the unpredictability of the Trump administration, Poling said, while China “is quite happy with U.S. distraction, with the frustration of U.S. allies and partners.”

China may take advantage

Beijing sees the U.S. military presence in the region as a threat to China’s rise and an obstacle to its ambition to seize Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its own. But the United States has argued that the Pacific region is too important economically to lose.

No one expects China to invade Taiwan just because an American aircraft carrier has left the region. But the carrier’s absence gives the Chinese another opportunity to show its strength, said Bryan Clark, a former Navy submariner who is a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.

“They’re using this as part of the narrative to demonstrate to the Philippines, to Japan, to Indonesia and others that the U.S. is not the big dog in the western Pacific anymore,” Clark said. “They would just prefer that countries in the region decide that China is the bigger power and the U.S. is not able to guarantee their security anymore.”

China conducted naval exercises this week with Indonesia and recently has shown signs of aggression toward Japan and the Philippines, two key U.S. allies that also have territorial disputes with Beijing.

China carried out military drills this month near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Both China and the Philippines have claims over the shoal. Last month, a Chinese guided-missile destroyer conducted a live-fire exercise off Japan’s southernmost island of Okinotori.

Adm. Frank Bradley, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, has been trying to reassure regional allies of Washington’s commitment. He was in Manila on Thursday, telling his Filipino counterparts that U.S. special operations forces are ready to step up joint exercises to strengthen the countries’ alliance. He also is expected to travel to Japan.

Evan Sankey, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute who focuses on U.S. policy toward China, said aircraft carriers provide psychological assurance to U.S. allies. The absence of carriers in the region, he said, “adds to the general sense that the U.S. is distracted by events in the Middle East.”

Trump has relied on aircraft carriers for military actions

Trump has relied heavily on aircraft carriers to support his numerous military operations during his second term. The USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during which it supported the U.S. fight against Iran and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Ford had experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left hundreds of sailors without places to sleep.

The USS Lincoln has been at sea 268 days as of Saturday, a record deployment without a port visit, as the Ford had. Democratic lawmakers and families of the sailors have been calling for investigations and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship, which is preparing to return to its home port in San Diego.

Warships and their crews can handle only so much, said Robert Farley, who teaches national security and diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and often writes about aircraft carriers.

“People don’t get enough rest. It’s psychologically exhausting. And R&R is part of keeping the crew healthy,” Farley said. “Sometimes it’s framed as, ‘These people haven’t had a vacation.’ But we are dealing with well-known limits on the capacity of a crew to operate at top efficiency over time. And that just declines.”

Clark, of the Hudson Institute, said the squeeze on the nation’s aircraft carriers stems from the lack of preparation and planning for the Iran war.

“If we were going to mobilize to do this kind of conflict, and we anticipated it might go this long, we might have done some changes to the carrier schedule to make sure more would be available,” Clark said.

Clark said the Navy has 11 aircraft carriers and typically deploys two or three at a time. But it could soon deploy four if the USS Theodore Roosevelt leaves San Diego for the Middle East, allowing the Washington to return to Pacific.

But the massive warships will need maintenance, probably causing a bottleneck at the nation’s only two carrier shipyards.

“We’ll end up with a maintenance debt that needs to be paid for the next few years,” Clark said. “We’ll probably have less carrier presence than we’ve had in the previous years because carriers will be lined up to get into the shipyard.”

Role in modern warfare

Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s East Asia Program, questions the future need for aircraft carriers as warfare rapidly changes.

Carriers can be more easily targeted with drones and missiles, particularly by an adversary such as China, Swaine said, while smaller ships and submarines can be as effective in striking targets as the fighter jets that launch off a carrier.

Top Navy officials have indicated a desire to move away from a heavy reliance on carriers. Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told the Associated Press in February that he wants to convince commanders to use smaller, newer ships and other assets instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers.

Finley and Tang write for the Associated Press.

As the conflict in Yemen rages on and spills over into the Red Sea, developments in recent weeks reveal a new trend worth pondering. The Houthis group, which for years almost monopolised the advantage of drone warfare, has begun facing fire from the same weapon used by its opponents on multiple fronts.

This does not mean that the balance of power has shifted, or that the Houthis have lost their missile and drone superiority. However, the increasing use of this type of warfare by the forces loyal to the internationally recognised government may change the nature of the confrontation, especially if it shifts from scattered operations to an organised and sustained capability.

For years, the Houthis were able to use drones as one of the most important weapons of asymmetric warfare. They were able to monitor their opponents and strike their gatherings, command centres and facilities far from the lines of contact, while government forces were mostly in a position of defence and interception.

Today, the equation is no longer that simple.

Forces affiliated with the government have announced in recent days the use of drones against Houthi positions in Marib, al-Jawf, Taiz, Hajjah, al-Dhalea and other fronts – and have shown video of a number of those operations.

It is not yet possible to speak of parity in drone power. The Houthis have years of experience and a more advanced missile and drone infrastructure. However, the government does not necessarily need full parity in order to bring about change on the battlefield.

It is enough for Houthi gatherings, vehicles, artillery, reinforcements and command centres to become vulnerable to strikes for them to be forced to change their patterns of deployment, movement and supply. In war, forcing the enemy to change its behaviour is in itself a military achievement.

It would be wrong to say that the Houthis have moved onto the defensive. They are carrying out broad offensive operations: they have struck Marib and Hadramout, repeatedly targeted al-Makha (Mocha), escalated against Saudi Arabia and once again moved their operations to the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb.

But there is a difference between the group being on a strategic defensive and beginning to act on some fronts as though it must prepare for a possible attack.

Here, the geography of the recent strikes becomes more important than their number.

Marib, Taiz, al-Makha and the western coast are not random fronts; they represent key gateways for any potential ground war.

Marib is the gateway to the east and one of the government’s most important military and political centres of gravity. Striking camps and movements there not only causes losses, but can also expose deployments, defences, response speed and sources of reinforcement.

Taiz is the central and coastal junction. Activating its fronts can pin down large forces and prevent their easy redeployment towards the western coast or other fronts.

Al-Makha and the western coast carry a different significance. South of the city lies Bab al-Mandeb and to the north the road extends towards Hodeidah. Therefore, the repeated targeting of al-Makha with missiles and drones can also be seen as a test of a front that could become very important if a ground operation begins along the coast.

When we combine what is happening in Marib, Taiz, al-Makha, al-Dhalea, al-Jawf, Saada and Hodeidah, it becomes difficult to view each front as a separate incident.

This does not mean that the decision for a ground war has been made, but it does mean that the parties have begun to act as though this possibility must be taken seriously.

For this reason, the most important indicator in the coming period will not be the number of missiles or drones, but the movement of forces and reserves, and the transfer of ammunition.

When this movement begins to concentrate on a specific axis, we will have moved from testing the front to preparing the front.

It is precisely in this context that the recent statements of Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad al-Alimi should be understood.

Al-Alimi offered the Houthis the option of laying down their arms and participating in the political life of the country, but he also said that from now on, no Houthi action would go without a response or comprehensive deterrence. He defined the strategic objective as restoring state institutions, stressing that sustainable peace is based on the state’s monopoly over arms and sovereignty.

If these statements hadn’t been accompanied by action, they could have been seen as escalating political rhetoric only.

But what gives Al-Alimi’s latest message its weight is what is happening on the ground: government drones have entered the confrontation openly, artillery is operating on more than one front, military readiness is increasing and the government is speaking more clearly about deterrence.

The real test for the government would be whether these moves turn into a sustained operational doctrine, whereby any Houthi attack incurs a direct cost, or the old pattern is maintained where government forces absorb strikes and issue limited responses.

All of this is happening within a larger regional context. The turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz and the US-Israeli war on Iran are raising the strategic value of the Red Sea. The less secure Hormuz becomes, the more important Saudi energy and trade routes to the west become.

Here, the value of Bab al-Mandeb automatically rises as a power card in the hands of the Houthis.

The geographic equation is highly complex: Iran can exert pressure on Hormuz, the Houthis have the ability to threaten Bab al-Mandeb and Saudi Arabia is strategically positioned between the two corridors.

In return, Riyadh is working on arrangements to protect the Red Sea, while Yemeni government forces are showing greater activity on the ground.

This may lead to a formula different from the previous war: Yemeni forces taking on the bulk of the ground confrontation, while Saudi Arabia and its partners provide support, deterrence and protection for maritime routes.

The danger is that everyone is now approaching the brink of war: the Houthis are testing how much pressure they can exert on Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government, and international navigation. Meanwhile, government forces are testing new tools and their ability to regain the initiative and Saudi Arabia is trying to build a new deterrence, while the US-Iranian confrontation continues in the background. This widens the margin for strategic error that could lead to an open war.

WASHINGTON — A person has been arrested in connection with vandalism at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S. Atty. for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced Friday.

Pirro announced on X that her office was filing two felony charges against Melissa L. Farris. Pirro said the felony charges are “Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials.” The offenses carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

On Thursday, the words “Clean hands dirty $” were found painted on the monument and bubbles filled a fountain.

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro wrote.

A woman identified on her Facebook page as Melissa Lovewell posted a video Thursday in which she is seen taking cans of spray paint from her bag and then painting the monument.

“I will wait here to be arrested for spraying our veterans’ fountain,” she says. “It was me, I’m doing it, it’s on camera.”

In a video posted Friday, the woman, who in a separate post said she had been in Washington for three weeks, said she was turning herself in.

The arrest warrant filed in the case indicated that witnesses took pictures of the vandalism occurring, which were circulated among U.S. Park Police officers.

One officer recognized the suspect as someone they arrested Aug. 10 “for unlawfully camping on federal property” just blocks away. She livestreamed that arrest, the warrant said.

The suspect was identified by her Kentucky driver’s license as Melissa L. Farris, of Elizabethtown, Ky.

Farris was expected to be arraigned Friday. The public defender’s office said she was not yet listed in the system and had not been assigned an attorney.

The incident sparked harsh rebukes from Pirro and President Trump and comes after the president blamed damage to the nearby Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on vandals, without providing evidence. That case prompted charges against multiple people, which were dropped when Pirro said evidence showed the damage came from botched repairs after Trump’s renovation at the site.

“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals,” Trump said on Friday on his Truth Social site. “First the Reflecting Pool, now this.”

The Interior Department said that the U.S. Park Police were on the scene following the Thursday vandalism and an investigation was ongoing. “The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act,” the department said.

The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the site, said: “There are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism “an act of profound disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed and to the families who carried that burden at home.”

A former Olympian was charged in late July with deliberately damaging the Reflecting Pool, but the Justice Department later moved to dismiss that case, saying evidence prosecutors had received refuted the idea that vandals were to blame.

Trump sharply criticized Pirro’s assessment that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work of vandals, as he claimed.

The case dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump’s claims and billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark, a pet project of Trump. Pirro’s decision to drop the case was also a rare moment during Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.

Fields writes for the Associated Press.

US president’s words come as Treasury chief says US will use economic measures against Iran that have ‘never been seen’.

Aug. 13 (UPI) — A section of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. was vandalized Thursday, with red graffiti and mountains of soapy bubbles.

The bubbles were in and around the fountain at the memorial, which is on the National Mall. The graffiti spelled out “Clean hands diary $,” and red and green paint was thrown on some granite stonework.

“The vandalism that occurred is an utter disgrace and will not be tolerated,” the Department of the Interior said in a statement. “Our U.S. Park Police are on the scene and the investigation is ongoing. The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act.”

The nonprofit Friends of the National World War II Memorial, which is dedicated to preserving the memorial, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the incident.

“Whatever the intent, defacing a place dedicated to the service and sacrifice of the World War II generation is unacceptable,” the organization said in a statement. “A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”

The memorial draws around 5 million visitors each year.

The site underwent a nearly $4 million renovation, which was completed in May. It was closed for several months while aging infrastructure was updated and other repairs were made. The upgrades included new lighting in the fountain and the replacement of in-ground pillar lighting.

A series of Houthi attacks in recent weeks, which are among the deadliest in years, is raising fears that Yemen could be sliding back towards all-out war as conflict spreads across the Middle East.

A 2022 truce led to the end of heavy fighting between the pro-Iranian Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces, which had been ongoing since September 2014.

But a series of clashes over the last month between the two sides – intensifying in the last two weeks – has led to civilian and military casualties and threatened to reignite the war.

Here is what we know.

What are the latest attacks?

The Houthis have killed a number of civilians in a series of attacks on the government-controlled west coast port of al-Makha, also known as Mocha.

There was also an attack on a commercial vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, which Yemen’s coastguard said killed six people and injured 10 others. The Houthis said the vessel was carrying weapons.

It followed the Houthis targeting Yemeni government military sites in eastern Yemen with drones and rockets, killing at least 30 government soldiers and causing further clashes. The Houthis have also attacked Saudi Aramco’s Jazan oil refinery.

In response, Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), said the internationally -recognised government would not accept “a new truce that reproduces previous experiences”.

“No action by the Houthi militias will go unanswered or unchecked,” al-Alimi said, according to Yemen’s Saba news agency.

But he also appeared to leave space for a political way back, saying the Houthis could still “lay down their arms, engage in political life and compete through the ballot box on an equal footing with all other Yemenis”.

What is behind the latest tensions?

The Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014 and have since fought a war with the government for control of the country.

Although the intensity of the war declined significantly after the 2022 truce, no comprehensive peace settlement followed.

The fragile status quo came under increasing pressure after the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28 .

On July 13 , Yemeni government forces – which are backed by Saudi Arabia – attacked Sanaa airport, reportedly to prevent an Iranian aircraft carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The government accuses Iran of arming the Houthis.

The rebel movement responded by launching missiles towards Saudi Arabia. Then, on July 20 , the Houthis announced a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, threatening oil shipments diverted towards the Red Sea and attacking Saudi Aramco facilities in Jizan and Yanbu.

Is Saudi Arabia changing its approach?

As the attacks have intensified, Saudi Arabia has begun to take a more proactive approach to its security – both in Yemen and across the region, according to experts.

Some analysts believe the prospect of the Houthis ultimately blocking Bab al-Mandeb – the narrow strait connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean – may have helped push the Saudis to change their strategy.

Saudi Arabia was somewhat insulated from Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz because it could use its East-West Pipeline to transport oil from fields in the east to the Red Sea, bypassing the strait.

If the Houthis were to severely restrict shipping through Bab al-Mandeb, that would threaten the Red Sea route for one of the world’s largest oil exporters.

Last month, Riyadh announced a new international alliance intended to protect shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks. Dozens of countries were invited, with the kingdom saying 13 had agreed to participate.

It is also deepening its security relationships with Pakistan and Turkiye through a new joint defence agreement, while Saudi coordination with Washington also appears to be strengthening.

The Saudi Defence Minister, Khalid bin Salman, recently met US Vice President JD Vance amid reports that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had secured US support for potential military action against the Houthis.

But in Yemen, the shift in the Saudi position may have been more visible when the Saudis intervened against the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) at the end of last year. That allowed Yemen’s fractious anti-Houthi coalition to coalesce around the Yemeni government and present a more united front against the rebels.

Simon Mabon, professor of international relations at Lancaster University in the UK, said Saudi policy on the issue has changed significantly.

“After years of attempting to de-escalate and work towards an accommodation with the Houthis, Riyadh appears to have concluded that approach is no longer viable,” Mabon told Al Jazeera.

“Saudi Arabia’s concern has become particularly acute because conflict around the Strait of Hormuz has increased the importance of alternative oil and shipping routes through the Red Sea.”

But rather than trying to totally defeat the Houthis and retake the capital Sanaa, Mabon said Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government now appear to be focused on pushing Houthi forces away from the coast.

“That’s a marked shift from what we had been seeing previously,” he said.

Could Pakistan and Turkiye be drawn into the war?

The Saudi-Pakistan-Turkiye agreement potentially raises the stakes of any further Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry, reporting from Sanaa, said the latest attacks were being interpreted by some experts as a direct defiance of the new defence pact.

Pakistan has been directly affected by the recent escalation. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said three Pakistanis were killed and another person injured in a Houthi attack on a vessel in the Red Sea.

“Pakistan strongly condemns the Houthi attack on a non-combatant commercial vessel,” Dar said, adding that the government was in contact with Saudi and Yemeni authorities.

But experts say the defence pact does not mean that Pakistani or Turkish troops will join the war in Yemen on behalf of their ally.

Wolfgang Pusztai, a security policy and defence analyst, told Al Jazeera that the agreement so -far is “just ink on paper”.

What role is Iran playing?

Iran has long cultivated a so-called “axis of resistance” of governments and groups opposed to Israel and the United States, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, armed groups in Iraq and Syria and the Houthis in Yemen.

The Houthis supported Iran towards the end of March by launching attacks towards northern Israel and have since threatened to expand their operations in the Red Sea.

Last month, Iran reportedly asked the Houthis to prepare to close the Red Sea oil route if the US attacked Iranian power infrastructure.

A source close to the Houthis told Reuters that missiles and drones had been positioned near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in Yemen’s highlands overlooking Hodeidah and the Gulf of Aden.

Mohammed Albasha, a Yemeni American analyst and former spokesperson for Yemen’s embassy in Washington, said the Houthis’ attacks on Saudi Arabia should therefore also be understood within the broader US-Iran confrontation.

“By threatening Saudi shipping there, the Houthis can increase pressure on both Riyadh and Washington, while supporting Iran in its wider confrontation with the United States,” Albasha said.

Is another all-out war imminent?

Analysts say the crucial question is whether the latest attacks are intended to pressure the Saudi and Yemeni governments, or whether the Houthis believe they are simply taking the initiative in a new potential ground war.

The Houthis also say Saudi Arabia is using the port of al-Makah to reinforce and resupply government forces and believe Riyadh and its Yemeni allies are preparing an offensive against Houthi-held territory.

Nadwa Al-Dawsari, Associate Fellow at the Middle East Institute, said those fears may be fuelling the current escalation.

“Since January, there has been significant progress towards bringing Yemen’s different government forces under a more unified command,” Al-Dawsari told Al Jazeera.

“Government forces have also demonstrated growing air capabilities, carrying out air and drone strikes against Houthi missile and drone launchers and other military sites.”

“The Houthis’ objective in this recent escalation is to disrupt these preparations before government forces are ready, degrade their capabilities and force them onto the defensive.”

Ultimately, she said, the Houthis are trying to shape the rules of any coming confrontation so that “if escalation takes place, it happens on their own terms”.

While a Saudi-led ground offensive is not inevitable, the Houthis have also shown over the past decade that they cannot be defeated by air power alone, Mabon said.

“Yemen’s mountainous terrain makes a ground campaign exceptionally difficult, while Riyadh has little appetite to become trapped again in a prolonged war,” he said.

A Saudi-backed offensive led by Yemeni government forces is still more plausible than a large Saudi ground deployment, he added.

The consequences of major fighting on the ground between the two sides will inevitably mean that civilians will suffer most.

“Amidst all of this, the tragedy is that people in Yemen are paying the price,” Mabon said.

“It wasn’t long ago that Yemen was facing one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War. People are struggling, and continued fighting will make it far worse.”

Iran continues to deny claims by the United States that it controls the Strait of Hormuz as talks aimed at negotiating a peace deal between the two sides falter.

US President Donald Trump repeated his claim that the US is in “total control” of the critical waterway on Wednesday, but was met with angry denials from Iran, which has stated that it will not reopen the strait until demands regarding US aggression, reparations and sanctions are met.

“Claims and repeated posts by US officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality,” Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) posted on X on Wednesday.

“The Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted,” it added.

Here’s what we know about the latest developments in the strait, through which one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies are shipped during peacetime, and the prospects for ongoing talks.

What’s the latest on the US-Iran standoff?

Iranian forces are currently preventing ships that do not have its express approval from navigating through the narrow strait, which passes through territorial waters of Iran and Oman.

Despite Trump’s claim that the US has control over the strait, shipping traffic through the key waterway has dropped to a one-week low as a result of Iran’s blockade.

Meanwhile, the US is operating a naval blockade on Iranian ports both in and around the strait. On Tuesday, US forces targeted a Panama-flagged vessel they said was headed for an Iranian port, in the Gulf of Oman, and which they alleged had failed to respond to warnings.

On Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US “has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures”, including when launching its war on Iran, which it did alongside Israel with strikes on Tehran on February 28.

In a post on X, Araghchi said Washington’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz were “an even bigger miscalculation”.

“Worse than fake news is fake intelligence,” he said.

Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb, the commander of the paramilitary Basij Organisation – an affiliate of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – reiterated that the strait is “under Iran’s control and management”.

“Today you see that the Strait of Hormuz is under the management and control of the Islamic Republic, and our country continues on its path in complete security,” Taeb said on Thursday, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

“The Americans saw the power of the Islamic revolution,” he added.

What do we know about Iran-Oman talks?

Iran says it is not talking directly to the US about the strait. Instead, it says it is holding talks with Oman, which it proposes to share in the future management of the strait.

Following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US on June 17, under which Iran undertook to keep the strait open for 60 days, there were soon disagreements about control of the waterway and the routes that ships should take. Iran fired on some ships it said had not followed its permitted route, leading to a renewal of hostilities with the US.

Iran also disagreed with the US over whether it could charge fees to ships passing through the strait. As a result, the strait – which was fully and freely open to all shipping before the US launched its war on Iran – has become the main obstacle to the progression of wider peace talks.

Now, talks between Iran and Oman are aimed at ironing out these issues.

On Tuesday, Qatar said negotiations between Iran and Oman over the strait had reached “an advanced stage”.

“As mediators, we want the Strait of Hormuz reopened as soon as possible,” Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said during a news conference.

Negotiators are trying to reach a compromise that would allow commercial shipping to resume while addressing the security concerns of both Iran and Oman.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said talks with Oman are focused on “establishing safe inbound and outbound shipping lanes” that “uphold sovereign rights while also addressing the national security considerations of both Iran and Oman”.

Last week, Iran said it had agreed on the coordinates for these shipping lanes with Oman.

What do we know about broader peace talks between Iran and the US?

Iran says it is not speaking directly to the US because it has violated the June 17 MoU by restarting strikes on Iran in July.

Now, Pakistan is making efforts to mediate peace talks. It said on Tuesday it was working to bring the US and Iran “to the negotiating table”, as Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi held talks with senior Iranian officials in Tehran.

In April, the US and Iran held face-to-face negotiations, with US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf attending talks in Islamabad. On June 17, the two sides remotely signed the MoU, which was supposed to kick-start a 60-day negotiation process. However, various disagreements prevented that process from getting off the ground, and talks have stalled since then.

Alan Eyre, a distinguished diplomatic fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera earlier this month that the only important negotiations taking place right now are Iran-Oman talks over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran says it is not worth talking directly because it “can’t count on anything the US says”, Eyre said.

Commenting on the possibility of future talks between the longtime foes, Negar Mortazavi, senior fellow at the US-based Center for International Policy, said the key question is whether the escalatory rhetoric from both sides is “opening negotiating positions or actual red lines”.

“If both sides are prepared to compromise, there is still a path towards ending the conflict and reopening the strait,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

“If they are not, Hormuz could remain restricted, and the confrontation risks becoming another prolonged, open-ended conflict in the Middle East.”

What are the latest demands from Iran and the US?

At the end of last week, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council set out new conditions it says the US must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can fully reopen.

The six conditions include an end to US threats against Iran and insults to what Zolghadr described as the country’s national and religious values; a permanent end to attacks against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq; the lifting of the US naval blockade and withdrawal of naval and air forces from around Iran; compensation for damage from what he called two “imposed wars”; the lifting of sanctions; and the unconditional release of frozen Iranian assets.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that his administration was going to seek payment for “50 years” of damage caused by Iran, framing the move as a direct response to Tehran’s claims.

The payments, he said, would cover deaths among US forces in the region as well as civilian protesters in Iran, claiming that 52,000 people have been killed in Iran in the past four months. Tehran says some 3,117 people died in antigovernment protests that swept the country in January, prior to the launch of the US-Israel war. In February, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported about 7,000 deaths, including 6,500 protesters.

On Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Assidi reported, citing observers, that Iran is focused on two primary issues.

“First was the security assurances Iran sought, ensuring that a reached deal could pave the way for a period of stability in the country,” Assidi said.

“Second were economic concerns, primarily articulated in demands for the US naval blockade to be removed and sanctions frozen, which represented the key demands coming from the Iranian side,” he added.

Despite the rhetoric from Trump, analysts have told Al Jazeera that the US may have to concede to some of Iran’s demands as it faces growing pressure domestically to avoid another escalation.

The US media have reported that concerns over dwindling defensive munitions have contributed to Trump’s decision not to carry out his threatened large-scale strikes against Iran.

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US went to war with Iran in February.

Russian forces have struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire, authorities said, a day after Kyiv pounded Russia’s Novorossiysk port.

In a statement on the Telegram app early on Thursday, the Izmail Regional State Administration said Russian forces struck “port infrastructure”, causing damage and a fire.

It said emergency personnel were at the scene to extinguish it.

Izmail, close to the Romanian border, is home to Ukraine’s largest Danube port, handling grain and other commodities.

The attacks came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that the country needs 5 percent of the United States’s Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10 percent to destroy all of Russia’s ballistic projectiles.

Russia has recently been firing barrages at the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, roughly once a week, killing civilians and damaging or destroying homes.

In one attack, Ukraine failed to intercept any of the 28 ballistic missiles launched at it.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine this year “had two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025”.

“Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before,” he said. “This year, I’m asking American partners to sell me 5 percent of missiles [that] they have in their stocks.”

“If they sell us 5 percent, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives,” he added. “If they can sell us 10 percent, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1 percent.”

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in February, diverting supplies of the advanced systems.

Ballistic missiles are much harder to intercept than cruise missiles or drones because they move faster and follow steep trajectories.

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s air force said it would stop publishing detailed figures on Russian ballistic missile strikes as Ukrainian forces struggle to intercept Russia’s heightened attacks.

The restrictions concern “the number of targets launched, shot down, suppressed or those that failed to reach their targets,” air force communications chief Yurii Ihnat said on Facebook. Real-time warnings would continue unchanged, he added, and the air force would keep providing generalised figures on Russian missile launches.

Last month, Russia fired more than 450 missiles at Ukraine, nearly 200 of them on ballistic trajectories.

Asked if the US had responded to his requests, Zelenskyy said he hopes that he gets the interceptors.

“From 1 percent to 5 percent, I have some months and millions [of] phone calls and anything else,” he said. “I do some things which I can’t even share. It doesn’t mean that it’s out of the law. But I can’t speak about it.”

President Trump again insists the US has ‘total control’ of the strait, while Tehran is resolute that Washington must meet its demands.

If European states seize vessels with Russian cargo, Moscow will respond in kind ‘wherever necessary’, says Putin.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has threatened to seize European vessels if European states follow through on plans to seize more commercial ships with Russian cargo.

Putin delivered the warning on Wednesday while on board a Russian cruiser off the Pacific island of Sakhalin, where Russia’s navy was conducting a drill. He said Russia would be ready to carry out its own seizures “wherever we deem it necessary and appropriate,” according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

The statement comes after several European countries intercepted ships suspected of being part of Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet”, carrying Russian oil in contravention of European sanctions.

New sanctions passed last month permit European Union members to sell the oil or any other cargo seized from the ships.

Putin appeared to reference the sanctions, saying some countries are trying to “restrict the movement of vessels belonging to our economic operators” and recently “came up with the idea of possibly seizing our ships and selling off property stolen from us”.

“If these plans are put into practice, we will have to respond in kind,” Putin said in comments carried by Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, calling the moves “piracy and robbery”.

He said “relevant instructions” had already been delivered to Russia’s Ministry of Defence and Pacific Fleet, the naval fleet responsible for Russia’s maritime military interests in the Pacific.

NATO ‘making inroads in Asia Pacific’

Putin also accused the NATO military alliance of making inroads into the Asia Pacific region and heightening tension in the Arctic. “NATO is making inroads into the ‌region, new military-political blocs are being formed, and new weapons systems that pose a threat to Russia are ‌being deployed or are slated for deployment,” the Russian leader said.

Russia’s naval exercises in the West Pacific come a week before joint US-South Korean war games, designed to simulate a possible invasion from North Korea.

Tensions are high in the region amid accusations from Kyiv and Seoul that Pyongyang and Moscow are further intensifying their military cooperation.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of using North Korean missiles in a deadly air raid across Ukraine. A day earlier, he had warned that Moscow was receiving more ballistic projectiles and troops from its ally Pyongyang, a development he said posed dangers not only for Ukraine but for countries in East Asia.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has already sent thousands of troops and plentiful supplies of weapons to support Putin’s four-year invasion.