As the U.S. Air Force prepares to expand procurement of the B-21 Raider beyond the currently planned fleet of 100 aircraft and continues using B-2 Spirit stealth bombers for long-range strike operations, Northrop’s YB-49 Flying Wing remains one of the clearest early examples of how the flying-wing configuration eventually became central to stealth bomber design. Built during the late 1940s for the newly formed U.S. Air Force, the YB-49 was a jet-powered bomber prototype with no conventional fuselage or tail structure.

A little-known Cuban state-run organization is the main lifeline for the privileged elite of the Communist party and a circle of military officials around former president and defense chief Raúl Castro. With the US Trump Administration preparing to use all possible pressure points to force a change in the regime, this critical entity is now in Washington’s crosshairs.

Donald Trump’s Plan to Make Cuba Pay 

President Donald J. Trump holds a bill signing with members of Congress, Friday, May 9, 2025, in the Oval Office.

The UK-Italy-Japan Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) 6th-generation fighter aircraft is “a disaster in the making,” according to a lengthy report in one of London’s leading newspapers. The long investigative piece also finds that the GCAP is a microcosm of the UK’s defense establishment in that not just this program, but the country’s entire national security apparatus is in considerable jeopardy.

“The defense of the realm is in terrible trouble,” says the authoritative paper, the Daily Telegraph.

If war between Taiwan and China erupted, the Chinese military would unleash wave upon wave of drones across multiple domains to deplete Taiwanese defenses and sap Taiwan’s finite supply lines. This attack would all be in advance of a massive Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The island is well defended and fortified, thanks to its decades-long alliance with the United States. Beijing understands that it must first drain those defenses and weaken the island’s resolve.

The first step would be for China’s military to salami slice the outlying Taiwanese islands of Matsu, Penghu, and Kinmen.

Out of all the submarine stories I have worked on in nearly twenty years of defense publishing and running various national security outlets or think tank programs, this might just be the most chilling. To this day, it gives me goosebumps. But, as one engineer told me a few weeks back who worked on nuclear submarines in Groton, Connecticut, for several decades, “U.S. Navy submarines are the best on Earth, and they can take a pounding as they were built to fight the Soviet Union to the death.

The US Army’s 52d Air Defense Artillery Brigade is testing and evaluating IonStrike, a kinetic interceptor developed by DZYNE Technologies, as part of its strategy to strengthen defences against uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS).

“The Army we have is not the Army we need.” Canadian Lt. Gen Michael Wright has been saying that since last fall — at base visits, in podcasts, in planning documents — which isn’t how generals usually talk in public. He’s also betting that Inflection Point 2025 and the subsequent Canadian Army Modernization Plan can close the gap before anyone tests whether he’s right. And yes, that means in a war that Canada might not perform very well in at the moment.

Inflection Point 2025: Give the Plan Its Due

Canadian Tank Firing. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Summary and Key Points: Naval leadership research consistently shows aircraft carrier captains report higher levels of anxiety than their nuclear submarine counterparts — despite submarines operating in a more physically dangerous environment.

-A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier holds approximately 5,000 sailors, including the air wing; a nuclear submarine holds 130 to 150 highly screened specialists.

Essex-Class Carrier USS Intrepid NSJ Photo.

-Submarine danger is static — governed by physics, engineering, and procedures.

Summary and Key Points: In March 2013, two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom IIs scrambled to intercept an American MQ-1 Predator drone flying surveillance approximately 16 miles off the Iranian coast in international airspace. They did not know that two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors operating from a base in the United Arab Emirates were flying escort.

-Lt. Col. Kevin Showtime Sutterfield, an Air Force Reservist flying the lead F-22, eased his aircraft into a position under the lead Iranian F-4 to inspect its weapons loadout — the Iranian pilots never saw him.

The head of Airbus Defence and Space Mike Schoellhorn has provided details on ongoing issues with the Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program, which has for years been considered one of the most problematic fighter development efforts in part due to disagreements between the two leading partners.

Summary and Key Points: Russia’s 1980s-era Admiral Nakhimov — a Kirov-class battlecruiser — is being modernized with up to 60 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missiles, replacing the warship’s 20 P-700 Granite supersonic carrier-killer missiles on a 3-for-1 basis.

-The ship also carries 96 S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles and 40 9K33 Osa short-range missiles, with additional upgrades including Fort M missiles, AK-192 guns, and the Kashtan close-in weapons system featuring Gatling guns and eight 9M322 short-range missiles.

Kirov-Class Battlecruiser from Russian Navy.

Summary and Key Points: The U.S. Navy may not build the fifth and sixth Ford-class aircraft carriers as planned. The service’s review of the future carrier force will conclude in 2026 and could reshape carrier procurement strategy for decades.

-Each Ford-class ship costs more than $13 billion — among the most expensive military platforms ever built.

USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Analysts writing for the British conservative news outlet The Telegraph have warned that the new Global Air Combat Programme (GCAP) being developed jointly by the United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy, its projected to suffer from a wide range of issues that will significantly undermine the three partners’ aerial warfare capabilities. The assessment was the latest to note that the two preceding generations of British fighters, the Tornado and Eurofighter, were both very far from competitive and suffered from wide ranging issues.

RAF Typhoons operating in the Middle East are n

This video describes the military situation in

Following the maiden flight of Russia’s first twin seat fifth generation fighter, the Su-57D, Chief Test Pilot of the Sukhoi Design Bureau which developed the aircraft, Sergey Bogdan, has provided new details on the aircraft’s likely future roles. The aircraft made its first flight on May 19, a day after its unveiling, and is the first fifth generation fighter with a twin seat configuration to enter flight testing outside China.

Spouses at MCAS Iwakuni swapped the side lines

On this Memorial Day, American servicemembers remain deployed across the world. Many are in harm’s way. This simple fact makes the day less abstract, more real. Memorial Day is not only about wars filed away in history, but also about lives lost in service to the nation and the obligations those losses place on the living.For those who served in combat, the day is intensely personal. It is a day of names, missions, and memories that never fade away entirely. Three of the fallen return to me every year: Cpl. Andrew J. Kemple, 2nd Lt. Tracy Lynn Alger, and Sgt.

James M. Lindsay, CFR
The story of a U.S. Marine who made the ultimate sacrifice for the United States.

Story Corps, Story Corps
Memorial Day gives us an opportunity to remember those who have died while serving in the U.S. military.

Brandon Wile, Military.com
A national moment of observance takes place during the afternoon of Memorial Day that most people have never heard of.

Lara Korte, Stars&Stripes
The last time Paul Roach and Mike Dowe had seen the Rev.

C.

In a recent interview on his new book on the F-35 fighter program, combat aviation expert Abraham Abrams elaborated on the possibility of F-35s being sold to the Republic of China Air Force, which currently has 64 F-16 Block 70 fighters on order and has for decades expressed interest in the newer aircraft. Abrams highlighted that attempts have been made to order the F-35 since the early 2000s, but noted that the Republic of China government “is not recognised by the United Nations or by all but 12 UN member states, all small countries that make up 0.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Yemen-set political thriller draws on author’s years of US Navy service in the Middle East; publication scheduled for spring 2027 under the Histria Fiction imprint.
NEW YORK — Histria Books, an independent US publisher distributed by Simon & Schuster, has signed former US Navy Commander Ron Terrell for his debut novel, The Last Cocktail in Yemen. The book is the first installment in a planned trilogy and will publish in spring 2027 under the Histria Fiction imprint.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army 73rd Group Army of the Eastern Theatre Command has re-equipped with a new enhanced variant of the HQ-16 long range air defence system, the HQ-16F, which was first unveiled in 2022. The deployment is significant due the proximity of the unit, based in Fujian province, to the Taiwan Strait, which is a leading potential hotspot for potential hostilities, and due to the very considerable capability advances which the system now provides. The deployment follows sales of U.S.

Military Mythology, Selective Remembrance, and the Sacrifices America Forgets

Decoration Day, 1917Public Domain

Every Memorial Day weekend, gyms across America fill with flags, sweat, and tribute workouts. People gather before dawn wearing weighted vests while patriotic music echoes across parking lots and pull-up rigs draped in oversized American flags. Hero WODs begin. Names of fallen service members are read aloud. Photos get posted online beside captions about sacrifice, resilience, and honoring the fallen.
And I believe most of them mean well.

Summary and Key Points: Russia conducted its largest nuclear force exercise in years from May 19 to 21, mobilizing approximately 65,000 personnel, more than 200 missile launchers, 140 aircraft, 73 warships, and 13 submarines, including several capable of carrying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

-The Russian Defense Ministry said the drills rehearsed the preparation and use of nuclear forces in response to aggression against Russia or Belarus.

Summary and Key Points: France is building six nuclear-powered Suffren-class attack submarines — alternately called the Barracuda-class in English — to replace the Cold War-era Rubis-class one for one. The lead boat was commissioned in 2022.

-The fourth boat slipped into the water recently, and the sixth and final submarine is expected to enter service early in the 2030s.

-The class is built by Naval Group under a Direction Générale de l’Armement contract.

-Each boat carries roughly 24 weapons — about 60% the load of a U.S.

I have spent quite a bit of time looking at retired A-10 Warthogs, and I have the photos and video to prove it in this essay. The funny thing is, the A-10 just might never retire, at least it seems that way for the near future. It seems like the A-10 can destroy just about anything, especially tanks. But there is one combat story that proves the mighty A-10 might be truly the ultimate tank killer.

The Day Two A-10 Warthogs Killed 23 Iraqi Tanks — And Why The Aircraft Built To Stop The Soviet Army Is Still Flying In 2026

It was February 25, 1991.

Since the early 2010s, I have dragged my wife to just about every SR-71 Blackbird museum exhibit within driving distance, or sent my staff to take photos if they were close by, many of which are in this article. When you look at the Blackbird, it’s hard to think this Mach 3 marvel is anything less than perfect. But problems did happen, quite a bit. For example, on January 25, 1966. Edwards Air Force Base, California. Two men climbed into Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird tail number 64-17952 at 11:20 in the morning for a flight test that should have ended uneventfully.

It did not.

Fort Hood military police got into a shootout with civilians Saturday night, in an incident that left one person dead, the Army said on Sunday. At least two others were wounded during the fight at a recreation center next to the base, which is now under investigation. 
Fort Hood officials confirmed that multiple gunshots were fired shortly after 9 p.m. on May 23, after two military police officers from the base responded to a fight at the Belton Lake Outdoor Recreation Area. While trying to break up the crowd, gunfire broke out.

Four months after American special operations forces infiltrated Venezuelan airspace to raid its capital city, U.S. troops were once again flying over Caracas. This time, as part of an elaborate training exercise around the U.S. embassy.
Two Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys flew over the capital of Venezuela on Saturday and landed outside the U.S. embassy as part of a “rapid response” drill, the U.S. embassy for Venezuela said in a social media post.

This video describes the military situation in

The Canadian Patrol Submarine Project, often referred to in shorthand as CPSP, is Ottawa’s attempt to replace the Royal Canadian Navy’s aged Victoria-class submarines with a significantly larger and much more capable submarine force. By Canadian standards, this project is significant. Ottawa would like up to 12 conventionally powered submarines capable of operating not only in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but also in Canada’s far north, in Arctic waters. It is that last requirement that has exerted a significant influence on the CPSP project.

Throughout all three of his presidential campaigns, President Donald Trump promised to avoid the kind of wars that defined the post-9/11 era. He has long criticized the Iraq War and “forever wars,” arguing that Washington wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives on failed nation-building projects overseas.

The $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) cannot safely operate Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II fighters because the aircraft carrier’s flight deck was designed before the F-35C’s final heat specifications existed. The Pentagon calls it a synchronization gap. The Ford’s design was frozen on August 11, 2005, when the first steel was cut. The F-35C’s exhaust plume runs at 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to warp the carrier’s standard flight deck plating.

Summary and Key Points: The U.S. Navy is finalizing plans to buy the first Trump-class battleship in its 2027 budget — ensuring the new warship is purchased by 2028, before President Trump leaves office.

-Each Trump-class battleship will be armed with 128 Mk-41 Vertical Launch Systems firing SM-3, SM-6, and Tomahawk missiles, plus surface-fired hypersonic missiles, 600 kilowatt lasers, a 32-megajoule railgun, and deck-mounted 5-inch guns capable of firing precision-guided rounds.

-The class could grow to 15-25 ships if the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base can flex to meet demand. The U.

Summary and Key Points: An American SR-71 Blackbird lost one engine to an inlet unstart at 83,000 feet and Mach 3 during a reconnaissance mission over Vladivostok, the major Soviet port on the Pacific.

-The pilot immediately shut down the second engine to prevent catastrophic asymmetric thrust from tearing the aircraft apart — leaving the SR-71 in an uncontrolled descent with zero thrust over Soviet territory. The pilot and Reconnaissance Systems Officer refused to eject. They recovered the aircraft and diverted to South Korea for repairs.

Four in 10 Americans have no retirement savings — a slow-moving crisis that spans every generation. 57% of young workers aged 18 to 34 have no retirement plan, 42% of mid-career workers aged 34 to 54 have no retirement account, and 40% of older workers aged 55 to 65 still have nothing saved. 29% of current retirees report having no savings. Americans believe they need approximately $2.1 million to retire comfortably, but 62% have less than $150,000 saved and the average retirement account holds approximately $288,700.

The U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet Service Life Extension Program has extended the aircraft from 6,000 flight hours all the way to 10,000 — buying years of additional service life for a 1970s McDonnell Douglas-Northrop design while the Navy waits for the F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter. The Super Hornet has been retrofitted with conformal fuel tanks designed to reduce radar signature, rounded external weapons pods, Magic Carpet glide-slope landing software, the Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System, and an enhanced AESA radar.

The U.S.

The U.S. Navy’s most advanced warships — the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Zumwalt, among them — are paradoxically more vulnerable to fire than older ships. The USS Zumwalt operates a Total Ship Computing Environment with more than 6 million lines of code, with wiring that runs through compartments exposed to ocean salt and high humidity. The USS Gerald R. Ford uses electromagnetic aircraft launch systems running at extremely high voltages and currents — generating significant heat. Both ships use integrated power systems that distribute electricity for propulsion and weapons together.

The only pass that Maurice Britt caught during his brief NFL career went for a 45-yard touchdown.
Britt played nine games for the Detroit Lions in 1941 before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States’ entry into World War II. While Britt did not particularly distinguish himself on the professional football field, his exploits on the battlefield were extraordinary.

On paper, Vladimir Putin is a modestly compensated public servant. The Kremlin’s official disclosures list his annual salary at roughly $140,000. His declared personal assets — a small apartment in St. Petersburg, three Russian cars, a Soviet-era trailer — would not be out of place in the financial filings of a mid-career American mayor. The official record describes a Russian president living, more or less, like a retired schoolteacher. The off-paper estimates tell a fundamentally different story.

Putin Is a Thief, and Russia Is the Victim 

Putin Back in June 2021.

This video describes the military situation in

The large scale withdrawal of U.S. Army MIM-104 Patriot and THAAD long range air defence systems from South Korea have drawn significant attention to the extent of the East Asian country’s reliance on the United States for the security of its air space, while raising calls in Seoul, including from President Lee Jae Myung, to reduce this dependance.

Veterans and People Minister, Louise Sandher Jo

Footage released by Russian sources has for the first time shown Su-34M strike fighters with Algerian Air Force markings, providing the first confirmation that the aircraft have been delivered to the service as its export client. Although images of the aircraft in desert colours first surfaced in August 2025, it was not confirmed which client they were produced for, with Iran and Sudan considered possible future operators to replace their Su-24M fighters.

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has warned of growing challenges to the country’s air defences, making remarks during a visit to Chitose Air Base on the northern island of Hokkaido on May 23 where he watched fighter pilots rehearse one of the most demanding routine missions in the armed forces. Fighters were launched on emergency intercept against Russian military aircraft approaching the country’s airspace, which they have conducted approximately four times a year during Fiscal Year 2025.

…dead or in a medically induced coma?

We need to talk about an unpleasant subject.
I briefly mentioned it last week, and talked about it a little on the latest Midrats Podcast, but that is enough fiddling around the topic. Time to man up and address the topic head-on.
I think the DDG(X) program is a dead program walking.
There could be an error, as there was with BBG-1 vs. BBGN-1 in the chart, but let’s look again at the latest Shipbuilding Plan.

There is no DDG(X) in the plan…just Arleigh Burke DDGs being built, as the Salamander says, until the crack of doom.