Verified military news tracked by GlobalMilitary.net: aircraft losses and deliveries, warship commissionings, procurement decisions, program milestones and data analysis drawn from our inventory database. Also available as an RSS feed.
GlobalMilitary.net's 2026 inventory snapshot shows nine NATO members — Iceland, Luxembourg, the three Baltic states, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Slovenia — hold no fixed-wing fighters, attack aircraft or bombers and depend on Allied air policing.
Argentina's president announced sanctions, a sovereignty bill and a new naval base near the Falklands on September 3 — while GlobalMilitary.net data show the UK holding a 23-to-1 defense budget advantage and a decisive edge at sea and in the air.
Greece's new Achilles' Shield program will field David's Sling, Barak MX and SPYDER interceptors alongside IAI radars under a roughly €3 billion agreement signed with Israel's Ministry of Defense on August 31, with the systems due to be in place by 2029.
The US Army issued a request for information on September 1 for a tracked 155mm howitzer to replace the M109 in armored formations — a type first fielded in the 1960s and still in active service with 6,036 examples across 23 countries, according to GlobalMilitary.net inventory data.
Just 20 of the 162 air forces tracked by GlobalMilitary.net operate airborne early warning aircraft in 2026; the United States leads with 98, but 83 are carrier-based Navy Hawkeyes, leaving the US Air Force with 15 aging E-3 Sentries against China's 81 land-based radar aircraft.
Four Algerian Air Force Su-30MKA fighters and an Il-78 tanker landed at Niamey's Diori Hamani International Airport on August 30, 2026, a day after Nigerien forces put down a mutiny by soldiers in the capital, in what AeroTime calls a rare overseas combat deployment for Algeria.
The frigate Sachsen-Anhalt launched at least two Israeli-made LORA quasi-ballistic missiles from containerized launchers on its flight deck in the North Atlantic on the night of September 1 to 2, the first time a German warship has fired a ballistic missile.
A written parliamentary answer on 27 August 2026 confirmed funding for a study into extending the Type 45 destroyers, as GlobalMilitary.net's 2026 snapshot lists the Royal Navy at 11 active destroyers and frigates, down from 14 a year earlier.
This Sunday marks 50 years since a Soviet Air Defense Forces lieutenant flew a MiG-25P interceptor from Chuguyevka Air Base to Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido on 6 September 1976, giving the United States and Japan their first close look at the fastest combat aircraft in the Soviet inventory.
Sweden's defense procurement agency and Naval Group signed a €4.3 billion contract in Stockholm on August 31, 2026 for four Defence and Intervention frigates, to be delivered one a year from 2030 and to serve as the Luleå class.
GlobalMilitary.net's 2026 inventories put 28,490 of the 58,339 military aircraft in 162 air arms on designs that predate 1980 — a 49.1 percent share driven as much by types still worth building, like the C-130, as by fleets frozen in time, like North Korea's.
Iran's army said it attacked Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates with drones on August 31, 2026. The Emirati defense ministry denied the base was targeted and said its air force engaged a drone approaching from Iran.
The first Boeing KC-135A flew on August 31, 1956. Seventy years on, 385 Stratotankers remain in service with three air forces, 52 percent of the world's 740 dedicated tankers, and 2026 has already cost the fleet two airframes and damaged eight more.
Uzbekistan confirmed its first J-10CE fighters on August 28 and Bangladesh moved toward a $2.3 billion order for 20 more; GlobalMilitary.net inventories show China's exported combat fleet still rests on 495 MiG derivatives designed in the 1950s and 1960s.
Sweden's defense materiel agency FMV handed the first four Archer 8x8 self-propelled howitzers to the Bergslagen Artillery Regiment at the Villingsberg range, the opening tranche of 66 systems ordered from BAE Systems since 2023.
General Dynamics Land Systems handed the first XM30 Wolf prototype to the U.S. Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground on August 28, opening a head-to-head evaluation against American Rheinmetall's Lynx that leads to a production decision in spring 2027.
Russia's Yars test from Plesetsk on August 27, 2026 is a reminder that intercontinental ballistic missiles remain the preserve of five states: GlobalMilitary.net counts twelve ICBM designs in service, four of them Russian and only one American.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham authorized MBDA on August 24 to release technical data on the UK-controlled components of the Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missile, according to Breaking Defense, unblocking Ukrainian production of a weapon whose donor stockpiles are close to exhausted.
Spain's Council of Ministers approved up to €5.4 billion ($6.3 billion) on August 25 for a joint Airbus A330 MRTT buy with Poland under the EU's SAFE loan scheme, covering at least seven tankers — four of them Poland's first, due by 2030.
Kyiv's 35th Independence Day parade on 24 August 2026 carried no tanks and no marching troops: nine unmanned surface vessels ran down the Dnipro, in air-defense, drone-carrier, rocket-artillery and strike configurations that show Ukraine's sea drones splitting into specialized roles.
The United States decommissioned its four Bahrain-based Avenger-class mine hunters in September 2025 and shipped the hulls home in January 2026. When Iran began mining the Strait of Hormuz two months later, according to CENTCOM, the Navy had to sail two of its last four minesweepers from Japan.