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.

Ukraine’s air-defense vulnerabilities are becoming critical, and a shortage of Patriot interceptors isn’t the only problem. F-16 fighter jets are the best way to counter Russia’s new jet-powered drones that are now pounding Ukrainian civilians night and often day. But Ukraine relies on Western help to maintain its fighter-jet fleet, and delays have left most of its F-16 fleet out of commission. So far this month Russia has launched about 2,000 jet-powered drones at Ukraine, compared to some 350 in June. These new drones fly up to 375 miles an hour—too fast for the interceptor drones Ukraine has used to counter earlier Shahed models. Ukraine intercepts 55% of Russia’s jet drones, compared to more than 90% of older Shaheds. Yet jet drones are the kind of target F-16s excel at taking down, and at a typical cost of $25,000 or less. Ukraine’s F-16 aces have shot down some 2,500 drones of all types and some 650 cruise missiles. But after 300 hours of flying time, F-16s require what’s known as “phase inspection” to keep the engine, avionics, hydraulics, fuel lines and other systems in working order.

The U.S. awarded Sabena Aerospace Engineering, a Belgian company, a contract of up to some $235.5 million for maintenance of Ukraine’s F-16s, though subcontractors perform some of the work. Phase inspection generally takes two to six weeks in the U.S., but it’s “taking as long as 40 weeks in Belgium,” says retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery. Another Western source tells us that more than half of Ukraine’s F-16s are currently in maintenance limbo, and at the current pace of use and maintenance Kyiv will exhaust the rest by the end of the year. A Ukrainian air force spokesman declined to comment. Sabena declined to respond to our specific questions, citing “operational security considerations and the sensitive nature of ongoing military support activities.” Fighter jets deployed in combat can require more upkeep than those flown in peacetime, and a shortage of specific components may also contribute to delays. But whatever the cause, this is “a sustainment failure that is becoming an air-defense crisis,” says retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Belgium would transfer three F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by the end of 2026, and other Western partners could lend more. It’s worth looking at how Ukraine can do more maintenance in-country and whether facilities in Romania can shoulder some of the upkeep.

Ukraine is testing alternatives to intercept jet drones, but they will take months to implement at scale. Meantime, “unless Ukraine gets the ability to kill jet-powered drones and cruise missiles, its very limited remaining air defense missiles will be exhausted,” says Yuriy Sak, a former adviser to Ukraine’s Defense and Strategic Industries ministries. Cities and civilians are getting pummeled, and so is energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Ukraine’s defense-industrial base is also vulnerable. There’s a warning here for the U.S. The Government Accountability Office warned this spring of growing delays for maintenance for American military aircraft. Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry said this month that the U.S. Air Force has “a $14 billion hole in supply” for aircraft parts, according to Defense News. Ukraine’s air-defense emergency illustrates how maintenance capacity is combat power in a war.

well, good thing the US didn't just run a whole bunch of airframes ragged against Iran!

The U.S. Navy’s schedule for getting USS Connecticut, one of its prized Seawolf class nuclear attack submarines, back into service has slipped into next summer. The boat suffered severe damage, especially to its bow, in a collision with an underwater seamount in the South China Sea in 2021. The service had previously hoped that repairs would be finished before the end of this year, and planning is also now underway for the submarine’s retirement in 2031. This would mean it could serve for just four years before being pulled from service once and for all. “USS Connecticut (SSN 22) is currently undergoing a complex Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability (EDSRA) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility. Current work consists of structural and systems restoration and required lifecycle maintenance,” a Navy official told TWZ today. “The Navy’s target completion date for the availability is the summer of 2027. PSNS & IMF is dedicated to executing this work with the highest standards of safety, technical accuracy, and craftsmanship to ensure the ship returns to the fleet ready to take its place at the tip of the spear in defense of our nation’s interests.”

USS Connecticut is the second of just three Seawolf class submarines commissioned between 1997 and 2005, the others being USS Seawolf and USS Jimmy Carter. The Jimmy Carter, which came last, is a one-of-a-kind subvariant of the design that is optimized for underwater espionage missions. However, the Seawolf and Connecticut also feature advanced capabilities compared to other submarines in the Navy’s inventory today, and the service utilizes all three for a variety of specialized tasks, for which they are in very high demand. After USS Connecticut hit the seamount in October 2021, the submarine first limped to Guam, and then made its way to San Diego in southern California. From there, it headed north to the Puget Sound area, where it has been ever since. The Navy’s investigation into the incident put heavy emphasis on how a weak command environment and lax attitudes toward the performance of key tasks had put the submarine on a path to the accident, as you can read more about in detail here. The EDSRA formally began in February 2023. At that time, the Navy projected that the repairs would be completed in September 2025. By July 2023, the schedule had already shifted to early 2026, according to Naval News. In July 2025, the service confirmed to TWZ that the timeline had moved again to the right, to late 2026.

windows loading bar ass repair project

The exact reasons for the delays are unclear. TWZ has stressed the particular complexities of major repairs to any of the Navy’s trio of Seawolf class submarines in our past reporting on Connecticut. As we wrote in 2023 around the start of the EDSRA:

“As for the USS Connecticut, as the images show, her state remains relatively the same, at least in terms of what is visible, compared to when she arrived over a year and a half ago. Her sonar dome is still missing and, clearly, the boat has been idle for some time, with huge sections of its anechoic coating missing from its sail.”

“Major repairs to the submarine’s bow, sonar, and other underside structure components will be challenging as the Seawolf class is long out of production. On top of that, just three boats were ever built, with one being a heavily modified sub-type in its own right, the highly secretive USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23). In the past, similar damage has been fixed by leveraging spare parts and entire sections of decommissioned submarines of the same class. That simply is not an option in this case.”

The Navy’s 2025 Fiscal Year budget proposal highlighted exactly these broader issues in seeking funds for spare bow domes “for use in the event replacement is required,” separate from the incident with the USS Connecticut. The original sustainment strategy for the Seawolf class did not include these items, which have a “three plus year lead time” to produce. With the EDRSA, the Navy is also taking the opportunity to conduct a deep overhaul of USS Connecticut, which could include the integration of various upgrades. The Navy’s budget documents have long highlighted efforts to modernize key systems on all three Seawolf class submarines, some of which were first designed in the 1970s. How much the repairs and accompanying overhaul will cost is also not clear. In 2021, Congress approved $40 million for “emergency repairs” for Connecticut and an additional $10 million for a new bow dome, but the full price tag is expected to be far steeper. The Seawolf class submarines were extremely expensive to procure in the first place, costing approximately $3.1 billion apiece in 1983, or some $10.6 billion in 2026 dollars. This was due in large part to the truncated order, from 29 down to three, as a result of post-Cold War drawdowns. Depending on when repairs to the USS Connecticut are actually finished, the Navy could find itself for at least a time with just one Seawolf class submarine in active service. USS Seawolf is currently scheduled to start a routine maintenance availability next May, which will then run through February 2030, per Navy budget documents. As mentioned, the Navy is now also planning to inactivate USS Connecticut in 2031, making it the first Seawolf class submarine to be retired, per its most recent annual shipbuilding plan.

The service still has plans to acquire a new class of attack submarines, which has been discussed in the past as something closer to a true successor to the Seawolf class than the Virginia class boats being procured now. However, these new submarines, currently referred to as SSN(X), are not expected to arrive until the mid-2040s at the earliest. Between now and then, the Navy is set to acquire a one-of-a-kind seabed warfare version of the Virginia, which could well take over for the USS Jimmy Carter, as you can read more about here. In August, the service announced that stretched Block IV and V Virginia class submarines with Virginia Payload Modules (VPM) will now be categorized as guided-missile types (SSGN), as well. When it comes to USS Connecticut, the Navy remains committed to getting the highly capable submarine back to the fleet after being sidelined for nearly five years now. At the same time, the boat has now already entered the twilight of its career, with just four years of active service life left if the current repair schedule holds.