Author: Michael

France’s next-generation aircraft carrier — formerly designated PANG, now renamed France Libre — will displace 80,000 tons, making it nearly twice the displacement of the Charles de Gaulle and the largest warship in Europe. Two TechnicAtome K-22 nuclear reactors will power the carrier to a maximum speed of 27 knots.

Libre Aircraft Carrier: This Will be the Biggest Ship in Europe

PANG France Aircraft Carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

If the subject is “liberty and freedom,” you know the French are interested.

Israeli F-35I Adir stealth fighters suppressed Russian-made S-400 air defenses inside Iran without losing a single aircraft during the recent operation. The S-400 Triumf has a range of 249 miles, can track 80 targets simultaneously, and fires the Mach 14 40N6 interceptor. Russia considers the system comparable to the American Patriot PAC-3 or THAAD. The F-22 Raptor’s extremely low radar cross-section makes it hard for the S-400’s early-warning radar to lock on. The F-35 acts as a flying quarterback, detecting SAM batteries and sharing targeting data across the strike package.

By now you might be thinking that it would be hard to look at World War II in a way that hasn’t already been done. This is Tom Hanks we’re talking about. Few individuals have done more to remember World War II, its veterans, and their sacrifices than Tom Hanks. If anyone can do it, it’s him.
Read Next: The immense challenge of teaching World War II in 270 minutes
On Memorial Day 2026, History launches an ambitious 20-part series, “World War II with Tom Hanks.

The F-35 Lightning II has no kill switch — but Washington still retains enormous leverage over every foreign operator. The Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin have both confirmed no hidden kill switch exists; building one would be antithetical to the Joint Strike Fighter program’s global partnership model. What the U.S. does control: spare parts, the Operational Data Integrated Network software backbone that replaced ALIS, and the Mission Data Files.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said on May 20 that its investigators detected elevated radiation on fragments of a Russian Vympel R-60 air-to-air missile mounted on a modified Iranian-designed Geran-2 attack drone, recovered near the village of Kamka in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region after an April 7 strike. The R-60 — NATO codename AA-8 — was replaced in the 1980s by the R-73. Ukrainian specialists measured gamma radiation of 12 microsieverts per hour at the impact site, dozens of times above the natural background.

A $14 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan — one of the largest in the island’s history — remains in limbo for a fifth month as President Donald Trump considers using it as a negotiating chip with China. Congress approved the package in January 2026. Trump told reporters this week he will speak with Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te by phone — which would be the first direct U.S.-Taiwan presidential call since 1979, when Washington cut formal ties under the One China policy.

THE LAST WARRIOR | Military Motivation
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The Financial Times reported that during Donald Trump’s recent visit to Beijing, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping told the U.S. president that Russian President Vladimir Putin might end up regretting his invasion of Ukraine. A PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson, the Trump administration, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov all denied the report. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that Russia is now losing almost two dead soldiers for every one wounded — and Seth Jones of CSIS said Russian soldiers leave their wounded on the battlefield to die.

Summary and Key Points: China has 50,000 to 100,000 naval mines in 30 different varieties — the U.S. Navy has fewer than 10,000, mostly shallow-water Quickstrike bomb-conversion weapons. Only Russia has more, with an estimated 125,000. A PLAN officer wrote that the People’s Liberation Army Navy assesses the U.S. Navy’s mine warfare capabilities as extremely weak and has built its inventory around that gap. The historical record is striking: since World War II, more U.S. Navy ships have been damaged or sunk by sea mines than by torpedoes or missiles.

Summary and Key Points: Ukraine is now one of the most heavily mined countries on earth. Current U.S. and international estimates put contaminated territory at approximately 139,000 square kilometers — more than a fifth of Ukraine, larger than Greece, and roughly the size of North Carolina.

-The mines include antipersonnel mines, anti-tank mines, cluster munitions, unexploded artillery shells, drone-dropped munitions, and booby traps.

-One estimate has put the cost to Ukraine at more than $11 billion in lost annual GDP.