“The Dodge Durango of submarines.” That’s how a former U.S. Navy admiral described the Virginia-class attack submarine. The framing is correct by every credible technical measure. The Virginia-class is the most capable nuclear attack submarine ever built — quieter than the Russian Yasen-class, more heavily armed than the British Astute, and now carrying 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles per boat in the Block V configuration. It is also produced at half the rate the Navy actually needs.
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The Cuban Armed Forces have deployed Soviet-supplied S-125M/M1 medium range surface-to-air missile systems for air defence exercises, at a time when the country faces an imminent threat of a U.S. led assault. Trump administration officials have since the beginning of the year provided multiple indications of plans to use military force against Cuba, with the bringing of charges by the United States against former Cuban leader Raul Castro, among other leadership figures, on May 20, considered a significant escalation intended to provide pretext for attacks.
Andrew White, Breaking Defense
The U.S.
Stars and Stripes
Somewhere between Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro on May 10, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz became the longest-serving flattop in Navy history, the service said this…
Sandy Clark, RCDefense
In the Navy’s force of helicopters and tiltrotor aircraft, we live and die by the “3-for-2” rule.
USNI N.
Tyler Rogoway, WarZone
We now know the building goes six floors underground and will have “the greatest drone empire you’ve ever seen that’s going to protect Washington” on its roof.
United States officials speaking to the Washington Post have reported that the Israel Defence Forces conserved its stockpiles of anti-ballistic missile interceptors during the 39 day war with Iran, which placed more pressure on U.S. forces in the Middle East to expend very high portions of their own stockpiles. According to three officials who spoke to the outlet, the U.S. Army expended over half its stockpile of interceptors for the THAAD system, making around 200 launches, while the Navy expended over 100 SM-3 and SM-6 anti-ballistic missiles.
China’s diplomats are on an “AI governance” offensive. At a May 5 United Nations meeting, China’s vice minister of science and technology championed China’s role in shaping U.N.-led frameworks that determine how the technology should be built and used. Just a week earlier, two top Chinese AI experts actively involved in Beijing’s governance efforts appeared by video on a Capitol Hill panel discussion hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders, touting China’s contributions to AI safety and cooperation.Norms and standards on AI development and applications are still being defined.
Gaza did not have to look the way it looks. That is not a moral claim. It is an operational one.Claims of necessity are invoked to explain the scale of civilian harm, but they founder in the face of operational logic. Supporters of Israeli methods argue that Gaza’s urban battlefield — tunnels, rocket fire, extreme population density, hostages held underground — left no viable alternative to large-scale destruction. That argument rests on a false assumption: that large-scale fires were inevitable rather than chosen, and that the only tradeoff was between more fires and mission failure.