This Week in DOW: Securing the Seas, Arsenal of Freedom, Nuclear Power for the Win

View Online This Week in DOW: Securing the Seas, Arsenal of Freedom, Nuclear Power for the Win Feb. 20, 2026 |  By C. Todd Lopez The U.S. military was busy again this week on the world's oceans, stopping narco-terrorists and enforcing an embargo on Venezuelan oil shipments. On the Indian Ocean, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command forces stopped an oil tanker after having tracked it nearly halfway around the world.  "U.S. forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III without incident," Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said today in the department's Weekly Sitrep video. "The vessel tried to defy President [Donald J.] Trump's quarantine — hoping to slip away."  Wilson noted that the ship was tracked from the Caribbean all the way to the Indian Ocean.  "No other nation has the reach, endurance or will do this," she said. "International waters are not sanctuary. By land, air or sea, we will find you and deliver justice. The Department of War will deny illicit actors, and their proxies, freedom of movement in the maritime domain."   Also this week, Joint Task Force Southern Spear — part of U.S. Southern Command — conducted strikes on three vessels operated by designated terrorist organizations. "Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations," Wilson said. "Eleven male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions, four on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, four on the second vessel in the Eastern Pacific and three on the third vessel in the Caribbean."  To provide energy security to the War Department, warfighter and America, this week the department also took a major step toward advancing Trump's nuclear power goals.  "At March Air Reserve Base, California, a next-generation nuclear reactor was loaded aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft for historic transport to Hill Air Force Base, Utah," Wilson said. "For military use, such a reactor could provide energy security on a military base, ensuring the mission there will not need to depend on the civilian power grid; and in military operations overseas, such reactors would mean U.S. forces could operate without concern that an enemy might cut fuel supplies."  The Ward 250 is a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor that fits into the back of a C-17 aircraft and could theoretically power about 5,000 homes.  The future of warfare is energy-intensive, Wilson said, adding that this includes artificial intelligence data centers, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not built for that, and so the War Department will need to build its own energy infrastructure.  Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this week continued his Arsenal of Freedom tour, this time in St. Louis, where Boeing manufactures the F-15EX Eagle II, along with other munitions, aircraft and unmanned systems.  "[The secretary] delivered remarks to the Boeing workforce to encourage the hardworking men and women who work shoulder-to-shoulder alongside our warfighters," Wilson said.  Speaking to Boeing employees, Hegseth acknowledged the vital work they — and the defense industrial base as a whole — do in support of the warfighter.  "You're the workers who pour their lives and careers into these planes; planes that fly ... 1,900 mph, ready to go to battle and then give our pilots safe passage home," Hegseth said. "You're the ones that give them the advantage."   Hegseth's nationwide Arsenal of Freedom tour, launched just over a month ago, shows the War Department's support for the defense industrial base by delivering a call to action to revitalize America's manufacturing might and reenergize the nation's workforce.  While in St. Louis, the secretary also administered the oath of enlistment to 24 recruits at the Naval Reserve Officer Recruiting Station.

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