#defense-spending

#defense-spending

The economics are hard to ignore. Shooting down a drone with AeroVironment's LOCUST laser system costs less than $10, using just two to five seconds of laser energy. Compare that to the interceptor missiles currently used against Iranian drone swarms, which cost orders of magnitude more and are in short supply across allied arsenals.

"Damage to critical energy infrastructure is another factor that has risen considerably and, in Qatar's case, will be costly both in terms of the cost of repair and foregone revenues from the planned expansion of LNG output, which was set to come onstream later this year and next year."

As far as $200bn, I think that number could move. Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys. We're going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future.

I wanted our future aircraft carrier to follow in the footsteps of General de Gaulle. His life, his destiny. Our new aircraft carrier will be named France Libre. This name honours the memory of the men and women who stood up against barbarity.

Best money ever spent. What's it worth to America to take down a religious Nazi regime who's trying to build a nuclear weapon to deliver to America? That's a really good investment. When this regime goes down, we're going to have a new Mideast, we're going to make a ton of money, nobody will threaten the Straits of Hormuz again.

Basically, all our activities in Spain are growing. We have no intention of building new plants, at least in the short term. We already have a presence and are expanding our facilities, but not the number of plants. The next big step will happen in the next decade, when we have to replace the A320.

Truist's upgrade centers on two key arguments. First, the firm believes that the improving program mix and further progress on development contracts lends more confidence that estimate-at-completion charges should potentially moderate in coming periods - a direct response to the EAC adjustments that have repeatedly pressured margins. Second, new CFO Chris Edmunds has set low and achievable targets for 2026, which frames the guidance range of $450 million to $500 million in revenue as a floor rather than a stretch.

Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott [Bessent] to cut off all dealings with Spain. Spain, first of all, it started when every European nation, at my request, paid 5%, which they should be doing and everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody, and Spain didn't do it.

The industrial sector doesn't make headlines like tech stocks do, but it's the machinery behind infrastructure spending, defense budgets, and manufacturing cycles. When GDP growth accelerates or governments commit to multi-year infrastructure plans, industrial companies see order books expand. That's the core thesis behind The Industrial Select Sector SPDR Fund ( NYSEARCA:XLI), which offers pure exposure to this cyclical sector through 81 holdings and charges just 0.08% annually.

The cost for the US and other militaries to keep newer combat aircraft ready to fly is going to soar in the coming years, a new report on sustainment trends argues. A new report from the American consulting firm Oliver Wyman projects global military aircraft spending over the next decade, including an annual sustainment cost growth of 1.1% through 2036. That's a pace roughly 11 times faster than the previous decade.

A new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released Jan. 28, provides the first comprehensive accounting of the federal government's push to utilize military assets for domestic law enforcement. The nonpartisan analysis, the response to a request for information from Senate Budget Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), reveals that between June 2025 and December 2025, the cost of mobilizing National Guard and active-duty Marine Corps personnel to six major American cities totaled approximately $496 million.

Despite months of warnings from party members up and down the caucus that President Donald Trump has been "lawless," "destructive, and "authoritarian" in his wielding of power both domestically and abroad, 149 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives on Thursday night joined with 192 Republicans to pass a sweeping military spending bill - a vote that progressive critics say exposes the fecklessness and hypocrisy of what claims to be an opposition party.

Active-duty force size is a tally of a country's uniformed troops: airmen, soldiers, sailors, special operators, and Marines. Armies, in particular, depend on size to gain and occupy ground. Militaries can also be a tool of domestic repression, a focus that undercuts its capabilities against an external foe. North Korea, for example, is one of the world's most repressive states, led by a dictator who has repeatedly threatened neighboring South Korea.

The Department of Defense identified issues with tracking funds for programs like its F-35 fighter jet program, the Pentagon's most expensive project with a cost of over $2 trillion over the past few decades. The authors of the department's annual financial report, released Friday, identified 26 material weaknesses within the department's internal controls - referring to severe issues among the agency's accounting that could lead to major misstatements in financial reports.

Headquartered at the Pentagon, the Department of Defense employs nearly 2.6 million people and has an annual budget of more than $870 billion, making it the largest, and one of the best funded agencies in the federal government. Thousands of DOD employees, including both civilians and active-duty service members, are stationed in each of the 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C.

Spain is joining the joint purchases of U.S. military equipment by NATO countries for shipment to Ukraine. The decision was confirmed by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez upon arriving at the meeting of the European Council this Thursday in Brussels. This is a proposal that NATO launched a few weeks ago. I had the opportunity to speak with President Zelenskiy [] and I informed him that we were going to join this program, the Spanish leader stated in response to questions from the media.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has once more vowed that his conservative CDU/CSU alliance would distance itself "clearly and explicitly" from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of five state elections next year. "We will now also be very clear and very explicit about where the AfD stands in terms of content, and we will distance ourselves from them very clearly and very explicitly," he said after a party conference in Berlin.