Author: Michael

Summary and Key Points: Lockheed’s S-3 Viking — nicknamed “the Hoover” for its vacuum-like whine — spent 35 years as the U.S. Navy’s carrier-based submarine hunter, yet never sank a single sub. It hardly mattered.

-The versatile jet flew anti-submarine, surveillance, attack, and refueling missions, even destroying an Iraqi missile site in the 1991 Gulf War, and carried nuclear weapons in its bomb bay.

An aerial stern-on view of the Russian Northern Fleet AKULA class nuclear-powered attack submarine underway on the surface. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Summary and Key Points: Boeing once floated one of the era’s wildest aircraft concepts: the B-1R, a version of the B-1 Lancer bomber reimagined as the world’s largest air-superiority fighter. The plan swapped the Bone’s engines for the F-22 Raptor’s F119s, pushing its top speed to Mach 2.2, and added air-to-air missiles atop its enormous bomb load. Australia, having retired its F-111s amid rising tensions with China, was eyed as a buyer. The B-1R never flew — but the B-21 may one day inherit its mission.

U.S.

Summary and Key Points: Northrop’s F-89 Scorpion holds two firsts: it was the first purpose-built jet interceptor in U.S. service and the first warplane to carry a nuclear air-to-air weapon, the Genie rocket. But it earned a rocky reputation.

-In 1952, an F-89 broke apart over a Detroit airshow crowd of 51,000, killing both crewmen. In 1956’s “Battle of Palmdale,” two Scorpions fired 208 rockets at a drone over Los Angeles and missed every time. The jet flew on until 1969.

Summary and Key Points: The Montana-class would have been the most powerful battleship the United States ever built — bigger, better-armored, and more heavily armed than the legendary Iowa class.

-Each of the five planned ships would have carried twelve 16-inch guns — a quarter more firepower than the Iowa — behind armor thick enough to survive its own shells.

Montana-Class Battleship. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-But the Navy canceled all five during World War II to build aircraft carriers instead. No keel was ever laid; the battleship era was ending.

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Summary and Key Points: Ukraine will never get the 1945 image of total victory, and it cannot retake Crimea and the Donbas by force.

-But Russia invaded to erase Ukraine entirely, and against that aim, a free, armed, prosperous nation is a Russian defeat.

T-90M from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Here are five ways Ukraine wins the war that actually matters: a defended line, real security guarantees, a military powerhouse, the sovereign right to join Europe, and reconstruction into lasting prosperity.

Summary and Key Points: America’s network of major bases across Asia — its biggest bet for deterring China — now sits within range of Beijing’s vast missile, drone, and hypersonic arsenal, which dwarfs anything Iran fielded in the recent war.

-Key sites like Guam remain lightly hardened, and analysts, including Hudson’s “Concrete Sky” report, warn that shelters are too few.

Aircraft from the 1st Fighter Wing conducted an Elephant Walk at Langley Air Force Base, Jan. 31, 2025, showcasing the wing’s readiness and operational agility.

Summary and Key Points: Designed to replace the legendary M1 Garand, the M14 rifle entered service in 1957 — and quickly earned a brutal nickname.

-GIs called it “the anti-aircraft rifle” because it climbed almost uncontrollably on full-auto.

160509-N-IX266-013 SOUTH CHINA SEA—Civilian mariner Terrence P. Dumas, fire marshal on the fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Ericsson (T-AO 194) fires an M14 service rifle during a small-arms weapons qualification course here, May 5. (U.S. Navy photo by Grady T.

Last year, National Security Journal traveled to see both of the two Boeing X-32 aircraft that still exist. One sits indoors in the Research and Development gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The other sits outdoors on the flight line at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, where the salt air and the sun have not been kind to it. We have photos and video of both airframes, and they appear throughout this article.

Summary and Key Points: Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a striking number of Russian elites — oil executives, bankers, officials, and Kremlin critics — have died in falls from windows, balconies, and rooftops.

-They include Lukoil chairman Ravil Maganov, who fell from a Moscow hospital window weeks after his company urged peace, and a Transneft executive who fell from a 17th-floor window in 2025.

Putin Looking Grim. Image Credit: Russian Federation

-Most were ruled suicides or accidents, and proof of foul play is scarce.

-But the pattern keeps growing.