We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇺🇸🛡🇮🇱 U.S. Races to Defend Israel as It Burns Through Missile Interceptors — WSJ
Short supplies of high-end defenses could lead to rationing as Iranian attacks continue
The U.S. is racing to reinforce Israel’s defenses, sending more warships capable of shooting down ballistic missiles to the region as Iranian attacks drain Israel’s stocks of interceptors.
An additional U.S. Navy destroyer arrived in the eastern Mediterranean on Friday, joining three others in the area and two in the Red Sea. The ships are operating close enough to Israel to be able to intercept missiles fired by Iran, a defense official said.
Most of the U.S.’s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers are armed with a range of interceptors, known as SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6, that can shoot down ballistic missiles and other aerial threats. SM-3s, first used in combat last year to counter an Iranian attack, are designed to intercept missiles above the atmosphere in the middle of their flight paths.
The U.S. has also replenished stocks of ground-based interceptors for the Thaad antimissile system it set up in Israel last year.
The surge of seaborne- and ground-based missile defenses underscores the concerns about Israel’s dwindling supplies of the armaments. Israel risks exhausting its supply of high-end Arrow 3 interceptors in the coming weeks if its conflict with Iran isn’t resolved and Tehran continues to launch volleys of missiles, a U.S. official said.
The Arrow 3 is the crown jewel, designed to intercept missiles above the Earth’s atmosphere. It can neutralize threats before they cross into Israeli airspace and give other systems time to act if the first shot misses.
Israel’s armed forces also declined to comment on interceptor stockpiles, but said the military is ready to handle any scenario.
Tehran has continued to fire volleys of missiles at Israeli population centers. If Iran keeps up its attacks, Israel in the coming days might be forced to make difficult decisions about husbanding its resources and giving priority to which missiles to intercept,
The U.S. is facing its own concerns about supplies of interceptors. Supplies diverted to the conflict in the Middle East are coming at the expense of those available in the event of a bigger conflict with China.
The U.S. might also face tough decisions about how many interceptors to exhaust if the fighting drags on. It rushed missile defenses to its Persian Gulf partners after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel kicked off what would become more than a year and a half of war.
Those defenses are politically and militarily important. Gulf countries have pressed the U.S. to take a more active role in their defense, and Iran has threatened to hit American bases in the Gulf and elsewhere in the region if the U.S. joins Israel in the attack.
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...
