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.

The United States has indefinitely suspended the delivery of Japan’s first 400 RGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, due to serious shortages of the missiles in the U.S. Navy that have resulted from the 39 day U.S. assault on Iran. The Financial Times, citing “several people familiar with the discussions”, reported that U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth informed his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, about the delay earlier in May.

The Russian Armed Forces have conducted the third ever combat launch of the Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile, with footage appearing to show the impact of multiple re-targetable warheads in the capital Kiev. This follows a prior strike on January 8 against a target in Ukraine’s Lviv region, near its NATO borders, and the first ever combat use of the missile in November 2024. The latest strike was launched simultaneously with multiple attacks using Iskander-M ballistic missile systems, with footage from the capital showing multiple large resulting explosions.

Summary and Key Points: China’s Type 003 Fujian aircraft carrier could achieve full operational readiness this year, according to Chinese state media.

-The Fujian is China’s third aircraft carrier and the first built with electromagnetic catapults rather than ski-jump ramps — a structural change that lets it launch heavier aircraft with more fuel and weapons. The Fujian is being built specifically to operate the J-35, China’s newest stealth fighter family.

-The J-35 evolved from the FC-31 Gyrfalcon, a Shenyang Aircraft Corporation export concept that first flew in 2012.

Summary and Key Points: The United States built 5,195 F-4 Phantom II fighters between 1958 and 1981 — the most-produced American supersonic military aircraft in history.

-Designed as a Navy fleet-defense interceptor, the Phantom expanded into air superiority, fighter-bomber, close air support, reconnaissance, and the legendary Wild Weasel electronic warfare role. The aircraft served with the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and 15 American allies.

F-4 Phantom II Fighter National Security Journal Photo. Taken on July 19, 2025 by Harry J. Kazianis.

F-4 Phantom II.

Naval aviators are more stressed by night landings on an aircraft carrier than by combat. Physiological studies show higher heart rates and blood pressure during night carrier landings than during combat missions. Naval aircraft hit the deck at roughly 155 knots and stop in 1.2 seconds. The target zone is 49 feet long. The flight deck itself measures only about 150 meters — postage-stamp-sized compared with the 6,000-to-10,000 foot runways commercial pilots use. Pilots use the Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (the meatball) to maintain glide slope.

Key Points and Summary: Taiwan is harder to invade today than at any point in its modern history. Over the past two years it has procured 57 HIMARS rocket systems, fielded its fourth Patriot air defense battalion, ordered Army Tactical Missile Systems with 300-kilometer reach, and committed to spending 3.5% of GDP on hard defense — the NATO standard most NATO members do not meet.

–The Problem: Taiwan’s strategic LNG reserves nonetheless last only 11 to 14 days under blockade.

HIMARS. Image Credit: U.S. Government.

The Army successfully hit its recruiting goal for the 2026 fiscal year, more than four months ahead of its deadline. 
The Army announced on Saturday that it reached its goal of signing 61,500 people for active-duty contracts. It’s the third year in a row that the Army met its recruitment goal, after falling short in 2022 and 2023. It also is the second year in a row that it beat the deadline by roughly four months; in 2025 the Army hit the milestone in the first week of June. The fiscal year closes at the end of September.

This video describes the military situation in

The Navy’s longest serving aircraft carrier is now operating in the Caribbean. The USS Nimitz, the 51-year-old carrier that recently got its service extended, arrived in the sea on Wednesday, joining an American military presence that has been in place for several months. It also brings more naval power to the region as the United States ramps up pressure on Cuba.
The Nimitz and its strike group, including the USS Gridley and USS Patuxent as well as Carrier Air Wing 17, entered the Caribbean earlier this week after conducting operations with Brazil, U.S.

The post Another Corrupt Former Army Officer Wes Moore Disgraces Uniform – DOJ Puts Democrat-Run Maryland On Notice In Election Integrity Probe appeared first on Armed Forces Press.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a commencement speech to the 2026 West Point Military Academy to Army graduates.

The post West Point: Secretary Of War Hegseth Commencement Speech appeared first on Armed Forces Press.

Captain John Monroe Hawk Smith was the executive officer of the U.S. Navy’s TOPGUN program — and one of the most lethal air-to-air aviators in the Navy across a 30-year career. In one storied TOPGUN engagement, Hawk flew a smaller, older Northrop F-5 Tiger so close beside a second F-5 that two Block 90 F-14 Tomcats with the powerful AWG-9 radar and television unit could paint only a single target. Hawk then dove for the deck, where the AWG-9’s Pulse-Doppler mode could not pick him up. The desert lizard paint scheme blended into the sand.

Key Points and Summary: China holds approximately 1.4 billion barrels of oil in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve — the largest in the world. The U.S. SPR is now below 375 million barrels and is dropping by 10 to 18 million barrels per week, according to various analyses. Most experts estimate the SPR needs to hold 500 to 700 million barrels to remain effective in mitigating short-term energy disruptions in a country the size of the United States.

-Gerald Ford created the SPR in 1975 after the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo.

-The last shipment of oil from the Strait of Hormuz bound for the U.S.

This video describes the military situation in

Summary and Key Points: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a recent NBC interview he would support Vice President JD Vance if Vance runs for the 2028 Republican nomination — and that he would prefer to continue serving as secretary of state under a Vance administration.

Rubio has become the public face of the Trump administration’s Iran and Venezuela diplomacy and is now overshadowing Vance in the polls.

F-15EX Eagle II In the Sky. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Iran War may complicate that race.

A March 2026 Marist poll found 84% of Republicans support U.S.

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird intentionally leaked JP-7 fuel onto the ground. The airframe was designed to seal its own fuel tanks only when hot — at Mach 3, thermal expansion from air friction caused the aircraft to grow several inches in length, tightening panels and joints and closing the gaps that let fuel seep out at ambient temperature. The aircraft took off with a partial fuel load and rendezvoused with a tanker shortly after takeoff. Approximately 85% of the SR-71’s structure was titanium, chosen because aluminum would soften above 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ukraine’s armed forces retook 116 square kilometers of Russian-occupied territory in April 2026 — the largest monthly rollback since Ukraine’s August 2024 incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, according to the Institute for the Study of War. UK Senior Military Advisor Colonel Joby Rimmer told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on April 30 that Russia’s average monthly casualties in early 2026 exceeded 30,000. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said the combat loss ratio is now 7 to 8 Russian soldiers dying for every one Ukrainian.

Operation Epic Fury has created the largest ideological split within MAGA since the movement emerged — and prominent critics, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, believe the conflict runs counter to American interests and undermines the promises Donald Trump made on the 2024 campaign trail. The MAGA divide is generational. Younger MAGA grew up during Iraq and Afghanistan and is more skeptical of intervention; older conservatives are more receptive to military action.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is draining at its fastest rate in roughly a decade — projections suggest levels will drop from 415 million barrels to 243 million barrels, the lowest since the early 1980s. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in late February, prompting the U.S. to release 172 million barrels from the SPR and to coordinate a 400 million-barrel international release. U.S. gasoline now averages $4.55 per gallon — a 50% jump since the war began. GasBuddy projects the national summer average will reach $4.80 per gallon, with $5 possible if the Strait stays closed.

Many young athletes have dreams of being the next A’ja Wilson or Jalen Brunson. That’s a nice fantasy—until you’re a military kid playing overseas.
While stateside athletes are grinding in packed gyms, traveling Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) circuits, and getting eyes from recruiters every weekend, military kids overseas are often putting in just as much work… with half the exposure and fewer opportunities.

The U.S. Army has provided a $61 million contract for Lockheed Martin to develop two major upgrades for the MIM-104 Patriot air defence system, namely to develop acontainerised missile launcher and a hemispherical guidance device which will allow the system to engage targets 360 degrees around it. The Army in December 2025 announced that a new variant of the Patriot wouldbe able to engage targets that are not directly in front of its launchers, with the lack of such a capability having previously been a leading shortcoming of the system.

Peter Mitchell, MWI
Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S.

The Strategist

Touring Normandy beaches shortly after D-Day in 1944, General Dwight D Eisenhower reportedly said, ‘If I didn’t have air supremacy, I wouldn’t be here.

Bloomberg
A new global satellite system to alert U.S.

Christopher J.

James Freeman, The Wall Street Journal
Remembering those who saved the nation.

In a recent interview on his new book on the F-35 program, combat aviation expert Abraham Abrams has evaluated how the aircraft compares to the only other Western fifth generation fighter type, the F-22. The F-22 made its first flight and was first brought into service a decade before the F-35 program achieved these same milestones, and was initially expected to serve as a heavier and longer ranged counterpart to the fighter as part of a high-low combination, much as the F-15 did for the F-16 in the previous generation, and as the Chinese J-20 does for the J-35 fifth generation fighter.

This video describes the military situation in

RAF’s first Boeing E-7 Wedgetail has official

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has discussed the development of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) with the program’s CEO, Marco Zoff, stressing that development was “an extremely important project that will determine Japan’s future air capabilities.” Zoff informed the minister that moving the program forward with greater speed was essential. Originating in the United Kingdom as the Tempest program, Japan joined the program in December 2022, while Italy had previously joined as a more minor partner.

The Polish Air Force has received its first three F-35A fifth generation fighters, which landed at the 32nd Tactical Air Base in Lask, making Poland the first former Warsaw Pact state other than Russia itself to field the latest generation of fighter aircraft. Senior Polish political and military leadership figures attended the aircraft’s arrival ceremony, with the F-35 representing the first NATO standard fighter type the country has procured following the U.S. F-16C/D and the South Korean FA-50.

Just six years after the start of the COVID-19 “pandemic,” people across the globe are being treated to non-stop coverage of something known as the Hantavirus.
Why all the attention? 7 deaths, 23 more cases, and 12 countries exposed to the virus and because symptoms can take weeks to appear, infected passengers may have unwittingly traveled across borders before realizing they’re sick.
What is Hantavirus? 
According to Dr.

Leading U.S. defence contractor Northrop Grumman has delivered the 1,000th AN/APG-83 radar for F-16 fighters, which are produced both for newly built F-16 Block 70/72 fighters, and more widely produced to modernise older F-16s to a similar ‘4+ generation’ avionics standard. The AN/APG-83 is an active electronically scanned array radar that first entered service in the mid-2010s, and uses many of the same technologies as the new F-35 fifth generation fighter’s AN/APG-81 radar, although it is significantly smaller to be accommodated by the much lighter older fighter type.

Summary and Key Points: Russia’s MiG 1.44 stealth fighter prototype flew for the first time on February 29, 2000 from the Gromov Flight Research Institute at Zhukovsky near Moscow — and effectively disappeared after just two test flights totaling less than 40 minutes.

-Test pilot Vladimir Gorboonov took the aircraft to roughly 1,000 meters and 600 kilometers per hour on the 18-minute maiden flight.

-A second flight in April 2000 lasted roughly 22 minutes. The MiG 1.44 was developed under the Soviet MFI Multifunctional Frontline Fighter program as Moscow’s answer to the U.S.

Grumman’s Super Tomcat 21 — and its ASF-14 evolution — was the company’s 1990s effort to transform the F-14 Tomcat into a long-range multirole strike fighter with limited supercruise at Mach 1.3, an active electronically scanned array radar, FLIR sensors, possible thrust-vectoring nozzles, more internal fuel, and General Electric F110-GE-429 engines. It was designed to replace both the canceled A-12 Avenger II and the retiring A-6 Intruder. The Navy chose McDonnell Douglas’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet instead. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney called the F-14 a jobs program.

The U.S. Army’s next-generation M1E3 Abrams tank and XM30 infantry fighting vehicle prototypes will arrive at the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood this fall for live testing. The M1E3 replaces the Honeywell AGT-1500 turbine engine with a hybrid power system, adds an unmanned turret with an autoloader, and reduces the crew to three soldiers in an armored capsule inside the hull — away from live ammunition. The XM30, developed by American Rheinmetall and Raytheon, replaces the M2 Bradley and swaps the long-serving M242 Bushmaster for a new XM913 50mm chain gun.

The British Royal Navy’s next-generation nuclear ballistic missile submarines — HMS Dreadnought, HMS Valiant, HMS Warspite, and HMS King George VI — are all currently under construction at BAE Systems’ Barrow-in-Furness shipyard. Each Dreadnought-class boat displaces approximately 17,200 tonnes, making it the largest submarine ever built for the Royal Navy. They will be powered by the Rolls-Royce PRW3 nuclear reactor — a design influenced by the American SG9 reactor used on the Virginia-class — and will carry 12 Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles each.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle acknowledged this month that American shipyards are unlikely to consistently achieve the U.S. Navy’s target of two Virginia-class submarines per year until the early 2030s. The Virginia-class — built jointly by General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII Newport News Shipbuilding since 2004 — is now in its fifth production block. Block V introduced the Virginia Payload Module, an 84-foot hull extension that tripled Tomahawk capacity from roughly 12 missiles to 40.

Public Domain

The maniacal push for deploying U.S. forces on the ground in Ukraine is relentless. The Blob’s urge must be resisted.
In an oped recently at Real Clear Defense, William Courtney and Philip Wasielewski published a piece outlining their vision of why American troops should be on the ground in Ukraine to support ‘security guarantees’ for Kyiv in any pending ceasefire.
It should be noted that Courtney is former foreign service and Wasielewsi is former CIA.

15 years on, veterans of the Iraq War Mike Bate

After years of considering how to leverage in-space refueling and servicing technologies, the Space Force is kicking off a number of near-term efforts to chart a path toward operationalizing the capability.
The service is planning to host two demonstrations in 2027 for on-orbit logistics — one focused on refueling satellites in space and another on augmented maneuver, Col. Scott Carstette, Space System Command’s director of servicing, mobility and logistics (SML), told reporters Wednesday.

The F-35A Lightning II has been certified as a Dual-Capable Aircraft, allowing it to deliver both conventional and thermonuclear weapons. It is the first fifth-generation stealth fighter ever certified for the nuclear mission and the first tactical fighter to receive the designation since the early 1990s. The F-35A can carry two B61-12 thermonuclear bombs internally, preserving its stealth profile. The B61-12 features a Boeing guidance tail kit, inertial navigation, and a variable yield from 0.3 to 50 kilotons. The aircraft uses an isolated Nuclear Aircraft Monitoring and Control system.

The U.S.

The MOD has announced the launch of the UK&#821

In 2012, two German Eurofighter Typhoons notionally shot down U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors during a Red Flag exercise over Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. The F-22s were flying with external fuel tanks that compromised their stealth, and the engagement was a close-range dogfight rather than the beyond-visual-range fight the Raptor was designed to win. Colonel Andreas Pfeiffer and Major Marco Gumbrecht of the Luftwaffe later called the F-22’s capabilities overwhelming at long range.

This video describes the military situation in

This video describes the military situation in

A company violated federal law for acting as a vetted agent and charging veterans fees to help file disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs, a North Carolina court ruled this week.
The federal circuit court ruling issued Wednesday found that Veterans Guardian VA Claim Consulting, LLC, also referred to as “Guardian” in court documents, ran afoul of federal law. The class action lawsuit brought by veterans also alleges that the company violated North Carolina laws around deceptive trade practices, but the court has not ruled on it yet.