United States Defense and Military Forces

House Panel Opens Public Hearing on Unexplained Aerial Sightings

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials testifying at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday showed a previously classified video of an unidentified aerial phenomena, a fleeting color video of a reflective spherical object speeding past a military fighter jet. The split-second image, shot through the window of an FA-18 fighter jet, shows a spherical object in the […]

For the U.S., a Tenuous Balance in Confronting Russia

WASHINGTON — In the first weeks of the first major European land war of the 21st century, the United States has sent tank-killing weapons to Ukrainian forces, but not fighter jets. It is equipping embattled Ukrainian troops with lightweight “kamikaze” attack drones, but not, at least in an obvious way, conducting an aggressive cyberwar to […]

Putin Declares a Nuclear Alert, and Biden Seeks De-escalation

WASHINGTON — When Vladimir V. Putin declared Sunday that he was putting his nuclear forces into “special combat readiness” — a heightened alert status reminiscent of some of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War — President Biden and his aides had a choice. They could match the move and put American forces on […]

U.S. Offers Limited Initial Response to Russia as It Weighs Stiffer Sanctions

“I don’t doubt they are already calculating how to realize these plans,” Mr. Putin said. American officials have said for months that there are no such plans, and Mr. Biden said at a January news conference that Ukraine was still years away from qualifying for NATO membership. But he has been unwilling to bend to […]

Wooing Allies, Publicizing Putin’s Plans: Inside Biden’s Race to Prevent War

The Dec. 3 document became the first of a series of efforts to declassify intelligence about Russian plans by the United States and Britain, which would come to include details of a Russian sabotage campaign, a coup plot, an elaborate effort to use a faked video to create a pretext for invasion and other false […]

U.S. Troops in Poland Brace for Possible Ukrainian Evacuees

In addition, some 300 members of the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters, also from Fort Bragg, have arrived in Germany to oversee the reinforcements flowing into Eastern Europe. The 18th Airborne Corps and this headquarters unit are led by Lt. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, whom President Biden has nominated to take over the military’s Central Command […]

U.S. Army Troops Arrive in Poland to Reassure Allies

The 82nd Airborne troops, from Fort Bragg, N.C., are expected to train with Polish forces at several locations around the country, said a U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements. Updated Feb. 17, 2022, 1:05 p.m. ET The Pentagon has barred reporters from embedding with these newly arrived […]

Ukraine Crisis Rattles Europe After 30 Years of Peace

For the younger generation, concerned, like the German Greens, with the environment and focused on human rights and gender and racial equality, “this is 19th-century policy erupting and crashing into their 21st-century concerns,” he said. In the larger sense, Mr. Ricketts said, the conflict reminds Europeans of the importance of NATO and of American leadership […]

On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk

REDZIKOWO, Poland — Tomasz Czescik, a Polish archaeologist and television journalist, walks his dog each morning through a forest near his home here on NATO’s eastern flank, wandering along the edge of a green chain-link fence topped with razor wire. He enjoys the fresh air and morning quiet — until loudspeakers on the other side […]