The United States Coast Guard is conducting an unprecedented surge of force along 418 kilometers of the Rio Grande River to complement the activities of federal agencies to secure the Mexico-U.S. border. Operation River Wall, which includes quick response boats and tactical teams, began in October 2025 to further suppress illegal activity along the frontier. The exact number of vehicles and personnel has not been released, according to Stars and Stripes, a military affairs newspaper. The Coast Guard patrols the river as it winds through Cameron and Hidalgo counties in southeast Texas, eventually entering the Gulf of America. In the…
The Watch
Canada is poised to buy more than two dozen High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) for $1.75 billion after the United States government approved the sale to its ally and northern neighbor in October 2025. The cutting-edge artillery system has proved effective in the Russia-Ukraine war and boosts Canada’s ability to project force in a wide variety of battlefield scenarios from the Arctic to Europe. The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified Congress on October 1 that the potential sale had gained its approval. Canada would buy 26 M142 HIMARS with “a deep magazine of precision munitions,” including nearly…
In a complex exercise in the Arctic fjords of Northern Norway, commandos from the United Kingdom’s Royal Marines, along with their Norwegian counterparts, tested their amphibious landing skills, their ability to fight and protect themselves once they’ve reached shore, and their proficiency at moving combat supplies with traditional logistics and uncrewed technology. The allied forces practiced rapid, scalable amphibious options to strengthen deterrence on NATO’s northern flank. Exercise Arctic Tide — part of the Joint Expeditionary Force’s (JEF) overarching Tarassis series of drills — deployed 350 U.K. Marines, Sailors and Soldiers to the High North with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary…
As United States Army troops arrived at the Mexico-U.S. border in October 2025 to replace units stationed there since early in the year, U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command Commander Gregory M. Guillot praised the efforts of the Joint Task Force-Southern Border (JTF-SB) for aligning its mission cohesively with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. In March 2025, the 10th Mountain Division, commanded by Maj. Gen Scott Naumann, arrived from its home base in Fort Drum, New York, to take command of the task force’s operations. The division “assumed the role of synchronizer of several…
Seven United States warplanes and their crews deployed quickly from their Air National Guard bases around the U.S. to Greenland where they trained in tandem with the Royal Danish Air Force in an October 2025 demonstration of force readiness and NATO interoperability, according to a U.S. First Air Force news release. The rapid deployment, coordinated by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was challenging but went off without a hitch, said the Air Force commander in charge of planning the mission. “The rapid timeline presented a unique challenge,” said Maj. Daniel Schoettle, CONR-1AF (AFNORTH & AFSPACE) Operations Contingency Plans…
NATO and the European Commission have responded forcefully to repeated Russian incursions into member nations’ airspace with warplanes and drones as part of a series of projects to fortify the Western allies’ security against an increasingly aggressive Moscow. The steps occur as Russia continues to provoke, including several October incursions into Norwegian airspace. Since September 2025, Denmark, Estonia, Poland and Norway have been the focus of highly publicized drone or warplane incursions, actions that temporarily shut down airports and disrupted commerce, prompting military responses. Most recently, a Russian spy plane was intercepted by two Norwegian F-35s in Norwegian airspace on…
Canada, Mexico and the United States launched the latest iteration of Amalgam Eagle, the cross-border air defense and search and rescue exercise that maintains North American air defenses operating with high levels of compatibility. The October 2025 exercise had an important time element: the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Each country will host matches of the world’s most-popular sport, certain to be watched by tens of millions with the accompanying threat potential. Mexico’s Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (DEFENSA), U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) — a Canada-U.S. bi-national command — and additional interagency partners from Mexico…
The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned a dozen Mexico-based companies, as well as eight people running them, for allegedly supplying chemicals used in fentanyl to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. The entities were accused of using their chemical, cleaning, laboratory, pharmaceutical and real estate firms to buy the precursor chemicals and turn them over to the cartel’s Chapitos faction, run by sons of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The sanctions, announced October 6, 2025, freeze all company assets in the U.S. and block U.S. transactions with those companies and people. One chemical and laboratory equipment company, Sumilab, headquartered in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, already…
The United States has deployed long-range maritime patrol warplanes in northern Europe as tensions between NATO and Russia continued to escalate. U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidons are operating out of Norway, the Norwegian military confirmed in October 2025. The presence of the sophisticated warplane able to refuel midair bolsters NATO’s monitoring and reconnaissance capabilities as drones and warplanes linked to Russia have violated airspaces in Denmark, Estonia and Poland in recent weeks. The P-8s arrived at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport in late September, according to the Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian newspaper. The Norwegian military confirmed the planes’ presence to the media, saying…
Mexico is considering raising tariffs against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after a legal dispute shuttered operations at a major lithium mine in Sonora owned by a Chinese company. The move comes amid a widening trade deficit in China’s favor, prompting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration to weigh raising tariffs on a wide range of Chinese products. In August 2025, a legal dispute between Mexico and the CCP brought operations at the Ganfeng lithium mine in Sonora to a halt. A 2022 change to Mexico’s mining law reserves strategic minerals like lithium to be the exclusive property of Mexico. The…