I - On Defense Podcast

For review:
1. A B-52 on a routine test mission crashed shortly after takeoff Monday (15 June)  in Southern California, killing all eight crew members on board.
2.  US Army aims to release proposal requests for its heavy variant of the ISV this fall, a senior service official told lawmakers, adding that the Army is attempting to field the capability as quickly as possible. The Army is seeking vehicles that can provide  60 kW of continuous high-voltage DC power, 15 kW of 28V DC power and 4.8 kW of 120V AC power. 
3. After eight years as US Indo-Pacific Command, the Pentagon has announced it is restoring the original name to simply Pacific Command (PACOM).
4. KNDS, the French-German maker of the Leopard tank and the Caesar truck-mounted gun, pitched a new howitzer with a barrel longer than any NATO production artillery, which the company said gives the weapon a range of up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) with standard high-explosive shells.
The 155mm howitzer, named Loras for long-range artillery system, is equipped with a 58 caliber gun tube, about 12% longer than the 52 caliber barrels that equip most recent European cannons.
5. President Trump on Friday unveiled the Boeing 747-8 that will serve as the new Air Force One, that the U.S. accepted as a gift from the Qatari government last year.
6. US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is traveling to Switzerland for the first round of talks with Iran on a potential nuclear deal, Axios reports, citing a US official.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is already in Switzerland, it adds.
7. Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire on Friday afternoon, a US official said, after another flare-up in southern Lebanon that saw four Israeli soldiers and dozens of Lebanese casualties.
8. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Reuters.

For review:
1. Cuban lawmakers unanimously approved sweeping reforms backed by the Communist ​Party and former leader Raul Castro that would privatize a vast swath of the country's socialist economy in a bid to survive punishing U.S. sanctions.
The ‌measures, if implemented as passed, would represent the single largest change to Cuba's socialist model since former leader Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution and a major shift towards a market economy.
2. President Trump on Wednesday signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran ending the war between the two countries.
3. Iran will invite the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency to inspect its nuclear sites and begin work on identifying and uncovering the locations of Tehran’s enriched material, US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff tells US lawmakers in a private briefing.
4. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman warned Thursday that a continued IDF presence in southern Lebanon would mean the “annulment” of the memorandum of understanding it signed with the United States, as Israel doubled down on its plans to keep troops in the area amid its ongoing conflict with the Hezbollah terror group.
5. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO Thursday the Pentagon will review its force presence in Europe within six months.
“This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” Hegseth told a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
6. USAF CCA Update.

For review:
1. Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar opened Somaliland’s embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the eighth top-level diplomatic mission in the capital.
The United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and Fiji also have embassies in Jerusalem, while other countries — including Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia — have embassy branches in Jerusalem.
2. The Hamas terror group carried out its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel partly in order to thwart the Jewish state’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, according to seized documents.
3. US & Iran MOU (Reaction/Analysis).

For review:
1. Senior Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq, mastermind of a January 2007 attack that killed five US troops in Iraq, was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon over the weekend, the IDF announced Sunday.
2. US & Iran Reach Deal; Ceasefire Extened 60 Days; Formal Signing in Switzerland Friday.
3. Ahmad Vahidi, the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, emerged as a key player during negotiations between the US and Iran, according to a Saturday profile in the Wall Street Journal, which found that the senior paramilitary leader pushed for a hard line in talks, advocating against any concessions to Washington. According to the report: Vahidi has “frequently overruled” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
 4. Israel was bracing for Iranian missile fire on Sunday after Tehran vowed that an Israeli Air Force strike on a Hezbollah target in Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier in the day would “not go unanswered.”
The strike in the Lebanese capital’s Dahiyeh district came shortly after Hezbollah fired drones into Israeli territory.
It was Israel’s first strike in a week in the Hezbollah stronghold, with the previous strike also a response to rocket fire on northern Israel.
“The IDF has just struck Hezbollah terror targets in the Dahiyeh district of Beirut, in response to Hezbollah’s firing at Israeli territory,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement after the strike on the Hezbollah stronghold.
5. CNN Report: Iran has, in recent weeks, deliberately collapsed tunnels and mined entrances to its bombed Isfahan nuclear complex in a bid to stop the US from launching a raid to retrieve the Islamic Republic’s store of highly enriched uranium that is believed to be buried at the site.

For review:
1. The U.S. imposed sanctions Thursday on Cuba’s state-owned oil company, part of a Trump administration effort to restrict fuel supplies and increase pressure on the island’s Communist government.
2. US President Donald Trump called off strikes on Iran Thursday evening, claiming an agreement to end the war had been reached and would be signed shortly.
He later said the document should “get done in the next few days,” possibly in time for a signing in Europe this weekend.
3. A US official said Friday that the emerging memorandum of understanding with Iran “leads to” Washington getting Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
The official, who held a phone briefing with reporters on condition of anonymity, also said the draft agreement was “broad” and would include Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran’s proxy group Hezbollah. 
He added that Iran’s loosening grip on the Strait of Hormuz has cost it leverage in the talks, and that he was “80 to 85 percent” sure the deal would happen.