Weer afgetopt en volgeladen, verlaat vannacht @HNLMS_DeRuyter de haven van Incheon 🇰���� en gaat op weg naar Tokyo 🇯🇵. Met deze wereldreis onderstrepen we het belang van vrije doorvaart in de regio en verstevigen we de banden met onze partners.
#NLDJFC #UNCLOS
Honored to visit Volkel Air Base @VlbVolkel, home to the Royal Netherlands Air Force and Space Force (RNLASF) @Kon_Luchtmacht.
The team provided an impressive demonstration of F-35 operations, showcasing the exceptional skill and readiness of Dutch pilots and personnel. The seamless interoperability between our forces is a testament to decades of partnership and shared commitment to collective defense. As @USAMBNATO has emphasized, NATO's strength lies in our shared investments in defense and our ability to work together seamlessly. Proud to stand with our Dutch allies in defending every inch of NATO territory. 🛡️✈️ #NATO #StrongerTogether #USNL
Real-time communication. Enhanced decision-making.
After strengthening a secure link between sites, @Kon_Luchtmacht F-35 pilots have the capability to debrief large-force simulator training—reinforcing a blueprint for coalition wide knowledge sharing across missions and partners.
Op de Grebbeberg was het 2 minuten stil. 2 minuten om de 400 militairen te herdenken die daar sneuvelden in de meidagen van 1940. En al die anderen die daarna omkwamen in oorlogssituaties en bij vredesoperaties. Voor onze vrijheid
Die vrijheid blijven wij beschermen. @Defensie
Vandaag brengen gevechtsvliegtuigen, afkomstig van @VlbLeeuwarden, een eregroet tijdens de jaarlijkse dodenherdenking over het Nationaal Militair Museum in Soesterberg. De vliegbewegingen vinden plaats tussen 10:00 uur en 14:00 uur 👉 https://t.co/Ueyv8ocQ1R #watvliegter
MAGA thinks Europe can't defend itself without America. Here's what they don't know.
1. France and Britain have 515 nuclear warheads and 8 nuclear missile submarines.
2. European defence spending hit €481 billion this year. That's more than Russia and China spend combined. The EU's ReArm Europe plan is mobilising another €800 billion.
3. European countries have over 1.7 million active troops. Russia has 1.3 million.
4. EU and UK air forces fly over 1,400 combat aircraft. Their navies have five aircraft carriers, over 60 submarines, more than 120 frigates and destroyers.
5. Europe has over 6,000 artillery pieces and that's before the biggest rearmament wave since the Cold War. Poland alone is adding 212 new howitzers.
6. The British SAS invented modern special forces. The US copied them to build Delta Force. From France's Foreign Legion to Poland's GROM, Europe's elite units are among the deadliest on earth.
7. Europe already has joint military commands ready to fight. The UK leads a 10-nation rapid reaction force across Northern Europe and the Arctic. Finland alone can mobilise 900,000 trained reservists all prepared to fight in arctic conditions.
8. Europe has its own satellite navigation (Galileo), its own defence programme (75 active projects) and is building its own rapid deployment force.
The "helpless Europe" story was never about defence.
It was about keeping Europe dependent and buying American weapons, relying on American intelligence, following American foreign policy.
Thanks to Trump, that now ends.
Massive geopolitical shift. The Dutch Chief of Defence confirms Europe is actively preparing to sideline the US military. They are building an independent defense force using cheap advanced tech because they can no longer rely on the chaotic Trump administration.
De gasinfrastructuur in Groningen moet voorlopig als „airbag” in stand worden gehouden voor noodgevallen. Het volstorten van de Groninger gasputten moet ‘on hold’ worden gezet, waarschuwen 22 experts die gespecialiseerd zijn in veiligheid en energie.
https://t.co/eBuIx6vt0Q
The United States Navy deployed a laser weapon to this war.
CENTCOM released footage of the HELIOS system mounted on a destroyer operating off Iran’s coast. The New York Post, citing sources familiar with the operation, reported HELIOS has been used against Iranian drones during Operation Epic Fury. In early February 2026, weeks before the war began, HELIOS took out four drones in a live test. USNI Proceedings confirmed it.
Whether HELIOS has recorded confirmed combat kills in this war is not yet publicly verified by primary military sources. What is confirmed is that the system is deployed, operational, and pointed at the same airspace through which Iran has been sending hundreds of drones and missiles every day.
Here is why that matters regardless of the kill count.
Every Patriot interceptor costs $3 to $4 million per missile. Every THAAD interceptor costs $10 million. The UAE has intercepted more than 755 drones and 172 ballistic missiles since this war began. Run that arithmetic at even conservative figures and you are looking at several billion dollars in interceptor expenditures across the Gulf in under a week.
HELIOS runs on electricity.
The marginal cost of firing a laser is essentially zero. The ship’s generator produces the power. There is no missile to reload, no magazine to deplete, no resupply ship needed. Against a Shahed drone that costs $30,000, a laser engagement costs less than the electricity bill for a large apartment.
The economic architecture of drone warfare has been Iran’s most sophisticated strategic weapon in this conflict. Flood the defenses with cheap munitions. Force the defender to spend $1 million to stop a $30,000 projectile. Do that a thousand times and you have imposed a billion-dollar tax on the defense while spending thirty million on the offense.
HELIOS breaks that equation at the physical level.
If directed energy weapons can absorb even a fraction of the drone saturation that has been overwhelming Gulf air defenses, the cost asymmetry that makes Iranian drone doctrine viable begins to invert.
Iran spent years developing the doctrine that makes Shaheds strategically valuable.
The United States just deployed the technology that may make that doctrine obsolete.
This war is the first real combat test of whether it works.
https://t.co/ULBgEzZ3A8
F-35’s bereiden zich voor het @NATO-verdragsgebied te kunnen verdedigen. Dat gebeurt tot het eind van de maand in de VS tijdens oefening Lightning Forge. De gevechtsvliegtuigen zijn afgelopen weekeinde aangekomen op Hill Air Force Base in het 🇺🇸 Utah👇 https://t.co/HdiZFEabm6
Zaterdagavond werd het civiele en militaire vliegverkeer van Eindhoven Airport enkele uren stilgelegd nadat daar drones waren waargenomen. Ook daar nam @Defensie maatregelen. @EINairport@VlbEindhoven (2/2)👇 https://t.co/meFF64RNRz
@Defensie is dit weekend in actie gekomen nadat op meerdere (militaire) vliegvelden drones waren gezien. Vrijdag- én zaterdagavond vlogen drones boven @VlbVolkel. Luchtmachtpersoneel zette vanaf de grond wapens in, waarna de drones weer vertrokken. (1/2)
Een veilige en stabiele Indo-Pacific is ook belangrijk voor de veiligheid en welvaart van NL. Met mijn collega Gen Nagumo besprak ik de complexe veiligheidsuitdagingen in de regio en onze 🇯🇵🇳🇱 samenwerking. #StrongerTogether#NLDJFC
12 F-35’s zijn onderweg naar de VS🇺🇸, daar nemen ze vanaf volgende week deel een 3-weken durend onderdeel van het jaarlijkse oefenprogramma. 4 Airbus A330 tanktoestellen vliegen met de F-35’s mee om ze in de lucht van brandstof te voorzien 👇 https://t.co/BqVm1h0gSl