South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on May 21 that Chinese President Xi Jinping may travel to Pyongyang as early as next week, according to a senior government official in Seoul. An advance team from China’s Central Security Bureau and protocol officers from the CCP Central Committee have already traveled to the North Korean capital. South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong Young said a Kim Jong Un-Donald Trump summit will be discussed if Xi visits Pyongyang. Trump met Kim three times during his first presidential term.
Author: Michael
Airbus Defense and Space chief Mike Schoellhorn told an Airbus event that he would support a two-aircraft solution for the European Future Combat Air System sixth-generation fighter program if a single fighter cannot work for France, Germany, and Spain. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury added that the assumptions behind FCAS — launched in 2017 to deliver a European sixth-generation fighter by the 2040s — are no longer valid after the war in Ukraine. France is the only partner with an aircraft carrier and an explicit nuclear weapons delivery requirement.
Australia’s HMAS Waller, a Collins-class diesel-electric submarine, ‘notionally’ sank a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in a wargame simulation and several escorts at the RIMPAC 2000 exercise. The Waller penetrated the carrier strike group’s defenses through patience, acoustic discipline, slow deliberate movements, and the natural advantages diesel-electric propulsion offers at low speed in the littorals. The Collins-class is 77.8 meters long, displaces 3,400 tons submerged, carries 58 crew, runs to 20 knots underwater on battery, and is armed with six 533mm torpedo tubes.
Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet told investors that the company’s F-35 Ferrari concept — an advanced fifth-generation-plus derivative of the F-35 Lightning II incorporating technology from the company’s failed NGAD demonstrator — is now being discussed at the Department of Defense and may soon reach the White House. Lockheed Martin lost the Next Generation Air Dominance program to Boeing’s F-47 sixth-generation fighter in 2025. Taiclet claims the proposed F-35 Ferrari could deliver 80% of sixth-generation capability at half the price.
A French Dassault Rafale fighter notionally shot down an American F-35A Lightning II at Exercise Atlantic Trident over Finland in 2025. Cockpit video shows the French pilot acquiring radar lock and saying take the shot — observer-controllers ruled the engagement a kill. The exercise involved roughly 40 aircraft and 1,000 personnel, including Finnish F/A-18 Hornets and British Eurofighter Typhoons. The Rafale is a non-stealthy fourth-generation-plus fighter equipped with the SPECTRA electronic warfare suite, an AESA radar, and the Meteor beyond-visual-range missile.
GE Aerospace and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions won a U.S. Air Force contract on May 19 to design the GE426 expendable drone engine — a compact propulsion system intended for attritable, next-generation unmanned combat aircraft built for one-way missions or limited operational lifespans. The program now enters the preliminary design review phase. The GE426 is part of the Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft strategy that pairs manned fighters like Boeing’s new F-47 with autonomous wingmen capable of reconnaissance, electronic warfare, strike or decoy missions.
In 1985, the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered USS Enterprise aircraft carrier hit Bishop Rock at Cortes Bank — an underwater seamount roughly 100 miles west of San Diego — during an Operational Readiness Exercise. The collision opened a massive gash along the port side and damaged the propellers, but the nuclear reactors were unaffected. The crew executed a counter-flooding operation to stabilize the carrier. Captain Robert L. Leuschner Jr. then decided to continue the exercise before returning to port for $17 million in emergency repairs. Leuschner was relieved of command afterward.
The U.S. Navy took delivery of its 25th Virginia-class fast-attack submarine — the USS Massachusetts (SSN-798) — in November 2025. The seventh Block IV boat in the program was built jointly by General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII Newport News Shipbuilding. The submarine measures 377 feet long, displaces 7,800 to 8,000 tons, dives below 800 feet, and reaches roughly 25 knots underwater. It carries 12 VLS tubes, four 21-inch torpedo tubes, Mk-48 torpedoes, and BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles.
When responding to a call for fire, mortar crews have to verbally yell out deflection, charge, and elevation before dropping a round in the tube, but a new mortar system being developed for the Army and Marine Corps could automate much of that process.
The Scorpion Light 81mm mobile mortar system allows crews to use a map-like device to digitally enter the information needed to hit targets, and then the tube is moved into firing position automatically, said James Knight, director of business development for Global Military Products.
In 1995-96, the U.S. Navy sailed two aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait after Beijing tried to blockade Taipei. China stood down and was humiliated. Senior National Security Editor Brandon Weichert argues China spent the next 30 years building the answer. The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force’s anti-access and area-denial arsenal now includes the DF-21D carrier killer, the DF-26 Guam Killer with a 4,000-kilometer range tested for anti-ship use in 2020, and the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle.