I - On Defense Podcast

For review:
1. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement, sources familiar with the decision told CBS News. 
2. The U.S. military is poised to double its A-10 presence in the Middle East, as the  close air support plane plays a key role in combating Iranian boats and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq as part of Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
3. US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Israel and the United States were close to completing their key objectives in the war against the Iranian regime and that the conflict would soon be over, without providing an exact timeline.
4. A US military option to seize some 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium would reportedly require flying in excavation equipment and building a runway for cargo planes to fly off with the radioactive material.
US President Donald Trump was presented with the plan by his military over the past week, two people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
5.  Israel came under attack from Iran, Yemen’s Houthis and Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Thursday, as Tehran and its proxies increased their assaults amid the Passover holiday.
6. An overnight Israeli Navy strike in Beirut killed the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front.
The strike in the Lebanese capital killed Hajj Yusuf Ismail Hashem, who took over the Southern Front from Ali Karaki in September 2024, after the latter was killed alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli strike.
7. A senior Houthi official warned that the Iran-backed terror group in Yemen could move to shutter the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if any Gulf countries join the US and Israeli strikes against Iran.
The strait, a key shipping chokepoint and narrow passageway that controls sea traffic toward the Suez Canal, is located at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, between Houthi-controlled Yemen and Djibouti.
8. About 40 countries discussed joint action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to stop Iran holding “the global economy hostage,” Britain said Thursday, after US President Donald Trump said securing the waterway was for others to resolve.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Iran’s “recklessness” in blockading the Persian Gulf waterway was “hitting our global economic security” as she chaired the virtual meeting, which included France, Germany, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and India, but not the US.
9. The Trump administration plans to propose a $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal 2027, broken into a $1.15 trillion base budget request and an additional $350 billion from a forthcoming reconciliation bill, according to a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget.
It will mark the first time the base budget defense spending has hit the $1 trillion mark.

For review:
1. The US Central Command confirms that CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper visited Israel this week and met with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.
2. The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush deployed Tuesday and is slated to go to the Middle East along with three destroyers, two U.S. officials said. The carrier strike group consists of more than 6,000 Sailors.
3. US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Iran does not have to agree to a deal to end the ongoing US-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic, as he stated that the United States will probably wrap up the war in two or three weeks.
4. China and Pakistan presented on Tuesday a new initiative for ending the war in Iran that includes an immediate ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
5. Gulf allies of the United States, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are urging US President Donald Trump to continue prosecuting the war against Iran, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough by the monthlong US-Israeli bombing campaign, according to US, Gulf, and Israeli officials.
6. The day after Spain announced it was closing off its airspace to US planes involved in the Iran war, senior US officials seemingly called into question a fundamental pillar of the NATO alliance: collective defense.
7. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will ask US mediators to relay his offer of an Easter truce to Russia, halting attacks on the country’s energy facilities, amid an ongoing deadlock in peace talks.

For review:
1. Hundreds of U.S. Special Operations Forces, including Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, are now in the Middle East, as well as thousands of Marines and Army paratroopers, according to sources familiar with the deployments.
The NYT first reported the forces had arrived in the region. 
2. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that progress was being made in “serious discussions” with Tehran about ending the war, but warned that the US would destroy Iranian energy sites and infrastructure if a deal is not reached in the near future.
3. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the war on Iran has achieved more than half its aims, without putting a timeline on when it would end.
4. A month into the war with Iran, the Israeli military has almost completed bombing all of the targets it defined for itself at the start of the conflict, and has now been ordered by Israel’s political leadership to shift to hitting “economic” targets of the Iranian regime.
5. Israeli PM Netanyahu announced on Sunday that Israel would capture additional territory in southern Lebanon to expand a security zone on Israel’s northern border.
6. Iran on Monday defied Lebanon's expulsion order for its ambassador by saying he would stay.
Lebanese officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
7. The Japanese destroyer JS Chokai is now capable of launching U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles, making it the first Japanese warship that can strike targets beyond 1,000 kilometers.
Japan committed to acquiring 400 Tomahawks last year to equip its eight Aegis destroyers as part of a larger standoff capability.
8. Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has rolled out the first production KF-21 fighter jet, less than two years after construction on it began and four years after the first prototype aircraft made it maiden flight.
The KF-21 is considered a 4.5 generation fighter jet and will be equipped with a mix of indigenous and Western sensors and weapons in service, including the KGGB precision glide bomb and European MBDA Meteor air-to-air missile.

For review:
1. US President Trump said Friday “Cuba is next. President Trump did not specify what he planned to do with Cuba, telling the media to “disregard that statement” before repeating “Cuba’s next.”
2.  US Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group & USMC 31st MEU Arrives CENTCOM AOR.
3. Pakistan’s prime minister said he had a “detailed” call with Iran’s president on Saturday, as foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey prepared to meet in Islamabad for talks on the war in the Middle East. The US and Iran are not expected to be present.
Top diplomats from Riyadh, Cairo and Ankara are due in the Pakistani capital Sunday and Monday,” the Pakistan foreign ministry said.
4. Yemen’s Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack at southern Israel on Saturday morning, triggering sirens in Beersheba, in their first offensive action since the start of the war.
5. The Israel Defense Forces assessed on Saturday that it would finish targeting nearly all of Iran’s key military industry sites in the coming days.
6. Two soldiers were seriously wounded and seven others were moderately hurt during clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Friday and overnight into Saturday, Israel Defense Forces said, as the terror group continued to pound northern Israel with rocket and drone attacks.
7. Last year represented the first time that all NATO countries met or exceeded the 2 percent benchmark on defense spending, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte revealed during a press conference on March 26, something he largely attributed to US President Donald Trump’s relentless pressure to end allies’ free-riding.
8. The US State Department has approved a proposed sale to Japan of equipment and services to support its program to develop hypersonic weapons.
The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) announcement on Wednesday flagged the possible sale to Japan in support of its indigenous Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectiles (HVGP) program, in a deal that would cost an estimated $340 million.
9. Last year, Army Materiel Command's LTG Christopher Mohan told Breaking Defense the Army was considering jettisoning the mobile cache in the Indo-Pacific, known as APS-3, in favor of dispersing the equipment throughout the INDOPACOM theater.  The reasoning behind the potential decision derived from the Army “doubling down on the INDOPACOM from a theater standpoint,” he said then.
LTG Mohan: “The idea is to put much of that ground based, and we started doing that in several countries overseas,” Mohan said in an interview. “The end state will be that we will have a much, much reduced APS afloat.”
10. The Trump administration will send its fiscal 2027 budget request to Congress on April 3, an Office of Management and Budget spokesperson confirmed today.

For review:
1. Ten U.S. service members were wounded Friday in an Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported. Friday’s strike reportedly damaged multiple U.S. refueling aircraft and involved Iranian drones.
2. The Pentagon is considering sending up to 10,000 more ground troops to the Middle East to potentially support operations in Iran in a move aimed at giving President Donald Trump more military options,  The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. 
3. US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was postponing his deadline for Iran to agree to an American proposal to end the war, setting a new date of April 6. President Trump is reported to be considering ordering a ground operation in Iran to pressure Tehran into acquiescing to American terms to end the nearly monthlong war.
4. The US expects the bombing campaign in Iran to conclude within weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday.
5. The Israeli Air Force on Friday bombed two of Iran’s largest steel factories, according to Iranian media and Israeli security sources, as well as two facilities linked to Iran’s nuclear program, in moves that sparked vows of retaliation from Tehran.
The Fars news agency reported that Israeli strikes hit Khuzestan Steel near Ahvaz and Mobarakeh Steel in Isfahan, two major production facilities.
6. From the Iran War, Pakistan has emerged as an unexpected mediator, offering to help bring Washington and Tehran to the negotiating table.
Pakistani government officials have said that their public peace effort follows weeks of quiet diplomacy, though they have provided few details. 
7. The Pentagon is weighing whether to redirect weapons originally meant for Ukraine to the Middle East, as the war in Iran strains supplies of some of the U.S. military’s most critical munitions, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
8. Russia is in contact with the United ‌States about a new round of talks on a Ukraine peace settlement as soon as conditions allow, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
"We remain open, we are in contact ​with the Americans, and we are counting on holding the ​next round of talks as soon as circumstances permit," Kremlin ⁠spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.