🇺🇸 The U.S. Ammo Shortage Is Worse Than You Think

The conflict with Iran is an urgent reminder that the U.S. needs a defense industrial base that can wage a high-intensity war against American adversaries—especially China. The Trump administration has taken important steps to increase production of some munitions, reform an antiquated acquisition system, and establish incentives for private-sector innovation. It is critical now to accelerate these changes.

Military planners should be particularly worried about China, which has vastly superior capabilities to Iran. The Chinese industrial base, which is on a wartime footing, has produced thousands of hypersonic, cruise and ballistic missiles capable of precision strikes, along with millions of drones. U.S. bases, aircraft, naval vessels and other infrastructure operating within the First Island Chain—which extends south from Japan through Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo—are highly vulnerable to attack.

The Chinese threat makes it essential that the U.S. have enough long-range munitions and unmanned systems to strike ships, aircraft and land targets from a distance. The U.S. military also badly needs more air-defense systems and equipment to defend critical infrastructure. Empty bins won’t deter China.

The Trump administration has started to address some of these problems. The Pentagon has committed to rebuilding what it calls the “arsenal of freedom” and placing the defense industrial base on a wartime footing. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg established a Munitions Acceleration Council in 2025 to increase production of 12 critical weapons, from Patriot interceptors to Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles. He has also spearheaded efforts to reform a woefully slow acquisition system, minimize stifling regulations, and take advantage of an innovative private sector.

But more needs to be done—and fast. The Pentagon should urgently focus on fully funding multiyear contracts for several critical munitions that Congress has already authorized, such as the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Munition (JASSM), Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) and Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3).

In the longer term, the administration should make good on President Trump’s pledge to increase the defense budget by $500 billion for fiscal 2027. The Pentagon should use the money to procure systems necessary to support Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo’s Hellscape concept, which uses a mix of drones, long-range missiles and other capabilities to target Chinese forces attacking Taiwan.

🔗 https://archive.ph/XQINK

🇦🇪❌🇫🇷🇮🇷 UAE’s Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed calls Iran “terrorists”.

He also lashes out at former French Ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, for criticizing the UAE’s growing dependence on the United States for its security.

🔗 Clash Report

🇮🇱🇺🇸❌🇮🇷 — Israel supports Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to Iran and favors large-scale strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, according to Kan News.

🇺🇸🤖 Dario Amodei was right.

The CEO of Anthropic predicted AI would destroy entry level white-collar jobs before most people took it seriously. Now the data is here and it is confirming everything he warned about.

Fortune just reported that the entry level job market is the worst it has been in 37 years. The last time it was this bad, Ronald Reagan had just left office.

In 2025, the share of unemployed Americans who were new workforce entrants hit 13.3%. That is higher than at any point during the Great Recession.

A college degree in 2026 is worth less in the job market than it was in 2008. Finance and tech, the industries that built the American middle class are now shedding 9,000 jobs every single month.

Before the pandemic, those same industries were adding 44,000 jobs per month. Amodei warned that AI will eliminate roughly 50% of all entry level white collar jobs within the next one to five years.

The exact jobs that new graduates are trying to land right now. In a recent interview, he was direct: "I don't think there's a guarantee that we can create jobs faster than we destroy them."

The CEO of one of the most funded AI companies on earth is admitting he is not sure this ends well.

He doubled down in January 2026 with a 20,000-word essay. He warned that AI disruption will be "unusually painful", a shock to the labor market that surpasses anything in modern history. He said most lawmakers are completely unaware this is coming.

A Stanford University study found that workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed fields like software and customer service have already seen a 13% decline in employment since 2022. Over half of employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers rated the 2026 job market as poor or fair.

66% of executives at a Yale School of Management event said they plan to either cut headcount or freeze hiring entirely this year. Amodei's only advice was to learn AI, adapt fast, and find ways to create new jobs before the old ones disappear entirely.

He said the only move is to steer the train, just 10 degrees in a different direction. Nobody in power is steering yet.

🔗 @_Investinq

🇺🇸♨️ A dominant, persistent, and record-breaking heat dome.

This satellite animation shows the evolution of the ridge over the last 6 days.

🔗 Dakota Smith (@weatherdak)

🇺🇸🇮🇷 According to a U.S. intelligence report, assembled prior to the anti-government protests in early January, which was shown to President Donald J. Trump a week before the start of the Iran War, Reza Pahlavi, the Exiled Crown Prince of Iran, they concluded lacked a sufficient network inside the country to lead an effective overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

“They never took him that seriously,” Vali Nasr, a Professor at Johns Hopkins, said of the Trump Administration. “There’s a difference between having an organization on the ground versus just having people who like you. If you’re going to help change a regime, you have to have a ground game.” Trump and his aides began referring to Pahlavi as the “loser prince,” according to The New Yorker.

🔗 OSINT Defender

🇺🇸🇮🇱🇮🇷⚡️ — NEW: President Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran was influenced in part by pressure from outside allies, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and some conservative commentators, according to Bloomberg.

➡️ His closest advisers, such as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were more "muted" on the topic, with some telling him directly it was an "ill-conceived idea."