In 2025 Germany allocated €1.37 billion for future procurement from U.S. of 400 ground-based Tomahawk Block Vb cruise missiles and three Typhon launcher batteries. Now Germans are ready to spend €3.4 billion on procuring these cruise missiles and launchers, already budgeted for 2027. With high probability the deal between Germany and U.S. on Tomahawks will go through, but this by no means signifies delivery of greater quantity of Typhon and Tomahawk. As Hartpunkt portal authors estimate, for the above-mentioned €3.4 billion Germany will not be able to buy a greater quantity of Typhon launchers and Tomahawk cruise missiles than originally planned. The entire matter lies in the German side likely not fully accurately estimating the possible expenditure level at the beginning of this story.

More specifically, for procuring three Typhon batteries comprising 12 launchers, three command vehicles and associated equipment, initially only €220 million was allocated. However more realistically here a figure of €440 million should be taken, meaning twice as much. Additionally, fire control system and technical maintenance costs apparently need to be added here.

what is it with European countries and forgetting to take into account maintenance costs? are they operating on such high levels of end-of-history-ism that they can't even conceptualize of things decaying with use anymore?

Adjusting for experience of analogous procurements by Japan and Netherlands (which however purchased naval-based Tomahawks), for Germany this expenditure should be approximately €1.2 billion. The remaining amount of €1.76 billion at current domestic and export Tomahawk prices is sufficient to purchase from 400 to 440 cruise missiles of indicated type. Defense Express emphasizes — if Hartpunkt authors' calculations are correct, then an interesting paradox emerges where Germany will have to sharply increase expected expenditures on strategically important weapons procurement not even due to inflation but initial budget miscalculations.

The Pentagon’s latest report about its implementation of the National Defense Strategy notes progress on accelerating weapons production, cutting red tape, and persuading European governments to boost defense spending—but is light on problems such as Russia’s increasing aggression in Europe and the high cost of U.S. wars in the Middle East. The report to Congress, dated Sept. 22 but pushed out on Defense Department social media on Tuesday, argues that the Trump administration has made “significant progress implementing the 2026 National Defense Strategy’s guidance” in several areas. It cites a historically large budget request that includes funding for undersea forces, long-range air forces, long-range ground fires, and satellites for communication and intelligence; and $53 billion to accelerate the development of munitions. The report arrives one day before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s scheduled “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. He is likely to talk about some of the update’s key themes, according to one person familiar with the matter.

The update cites progress made in the Golden Dome for America, or GDA, effort to build a continental defense against drones and missiles. “DoW has already conducted our first live-fire event, during which we successfully demonstrated key aspects of GDA command-and-control (C2) as well as integration of other key capabilities,” it says. The update says the Pentagon has worked with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission to ease the development and testing of counter-drone defenses. “We have created a first-of-its-kind process for the rapid coordination and safe incorporation of next generation C-UAS technology” into the National Airspace System, it says. The update touts the administration’s effort to persuade European allies to spend more on their militaries and contribute more to plans for the continent’s defense. At least one alliance defense leader—Paweł Ksawery Zalewski, secretary of state at Poland’s Ministry of National Defence—has said the NATO 3.0 concept should not be misunderstood as a harbinger of a U.S. retreat from the alliance. “Polish armed forces and American armed forces have never been so close and so good and so deep as today,” Zalewski told a U.S. audience last week.

But the report glosses over conditions that have worsened since the National Defense Strategy was published in January—in part, because of President Trump’s decision to start a war on Iran. For instance, while the NDS holds as a goal the replenishment of the U.S. arsenal, the new report doesn’t mention that Operation Epic Fury and other Middle East operations have set back that goal by “'months and years,” as a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it in May. Nor does the report mention the NDS’ warning against “endless wars, regime change, and nation building”—the latter two being among the many justifications given by the Trump administration for its war on Iran. It skips the fact that the NDS said regional allies should deter Iran and that it said further military action to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon would be unnecessary in the wake of June 2025’s “Midnight Hammer” bombing. Instead, the update asserts that the Defense Department “anticipated that such a need [for strikes against Iran’s nuclear program] might be forthcoming.”

But perhaps the report’s most significant omission, which it shares with the NDS itself, concerns Russian actions:

hybrid and kinetic action against NATO members, military assistance to Iran, and intensifying the war on Ukraine. Instead, the update notes that the United States reduced the number of manned brigade combat teams in Europe from “five to three, returning us to the level of BCTs in Europe in 2021.” Max Bergmann and Otto Svendsen, writing for the Heinrich Böll Foundation on Sept. 24, say that “a potential U.S. force posture reduction in Europe will leave the continent vulnerable to further Russian aggression.”

Soldiers at the Army’s primary base in South Korea have no running water and won’t have any through the weekend, service officials said on Friday. Officials said that a mechanical failure left taps dry across Camp Humphreys, 40 miles south of Seoul, but that fixes would be delayed through the weekend due to a Korean holiday. This weekend marks the three-day Chuseok harvest festival, which extends over Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week. As a result of the holiday, officials said, U.S. troops, families and contractors on base could be without running water until Monday. A post on the base’s Facebook page said that several services were closed. “All [recreational] facilities, AAFES food services, AAFES Main Exchange, Zoeckler Mini Mall, Troop Mini Mall, Sentry Mini Mall, and 3rd MI Express are suspended,” the post said. “The 24-hour Family Mini Mall remains operational.” Dining facilities, officials said, remain open.

The base gets approximately 70% of its water from the nearby city of Pyeongtaek, while the remaining 30% is sourced from wells on the base, according to previous reporting by Stars and Stripes. Camp Humphreys is the largest overseas U.S. military installation, and home to the 2nd Infantry Division. The installation has an on-base population of about 45,000 service members, civilians, contractors, and their families. Many, though not all, soldiers on base are on unaccompanied tours without families. Army officials have not said how many troops are impacted by the water shortage. A basewide notification of the water shortage went out across Camp Humphreys on Friday, Sept. 25, at about 8 p.m. A Camp Humphreys Facebook page has posted updates on the shortage, noting that the issue affects both drinking water and non-potable water used for sanitary purposes. Drinking water, officials said, was available from nine “water buffalo” portable tanks around the base. Impacted individuals, officials said, will need to bring their own containers to fill.

With most plumbing out of service, officials said portable toilets were located at the commissary, on-base lodgings and the 24-hour family mini mall. The base is also allegedly actively working on distributing bottled water, as well. The Army did not immediately respond to questions from Task & Purpose on the water shortage’s direct cause.