The Pentagon has released plenty of video clips that show American missiles blowing boats suspected of carrying drugs out of the water. But the “double tap” strike on Sept. 2 is being kept under wraps.

© Eric Lee for The New York Times

After viewing video of a follow-up strike, Republicans largely had confidence in the Pentagon’s legal rationale while Democrats questioned its legality.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The legislation authorizes $900 billion for the Pentagon, provides a pay raise for troops, and has some measures to reassert congressional oversight.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The defense secretary joined the secretary of state on Capitol Hill to deliver the first classified briefings to include all members of the House and Senate on the maritime attacks.

© Eric Lee for The New York Times

The president is getting a lesson in the limits of grade inflation.

The benefits of serving have never been more appealing, but the Pentagon needs a better approach to recruiting new talent.

Wasteful spending and byzantine regulations keep the U.S. military stuck in a failing status quo.

The nature of war has drastically changed. The editorial board argues that the U.S. must reform its military.

Investing in the old ways of war leaves America at risk.

Investing in the old ways of war leaves America at risk.

A former secretary of homeland security on the illegality of Trump’s boat strikes.

Not too much religious moralism in the administration, but too little.

Did Pete Hegseth break the law after authorizing Venezuelan boat strikes? The Times Opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, argues that there are multiple reasons the strikes were legally dubious.

Will the president soon wish he hadn’t run for a second term?

We need to question the strikes’ legality. But we also need to see how they fit into the Trump administration’s larger effort to change America.

Trump and Hegseth are attacking the very character and identity of the American military.

Rare pushback from his party and troubling poll numbers reflect the newly precarious situation in which Trump finds himself.

Bret Stephens, Frank Bruni and Aaron Retica on the gap between the president’s interests and what matters to Americans.

Federal lawmakers have ample powers to uncover and end administration abuse.

Readers discuss the aftermath of a U.S. attack on a boat in the Caribbean. Also: Fixing Penn Station; Trumpism after Trump.

A Pentagon intelligence report says China could try to acquire advanced F-35 technology in Saudi Arabia if the Trump administration sells jets to the kingdom.

The shake-up in China’s armed forces comes as both Beijing and Washington are pushing through major changes in their country’s militaries, in different ways.