Edwin “Ned” Nye didn’t want to become a lawyer.
Seeing that he was already enrolled in law school, Nye—whose famous son simplified complex topics for millions of television viewers as Bill Nye the Science Guy—did the only thing he could. He dropped out.
Also Read: This plane survived Pearl Harbor and struck back at Midway
Not one to sit around, Nye went job-hunting. He found work as a contractor for the United States Navy, building an airstrip on Wake Island.

Summary and Key Points: The F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II are America’s two most advanced stealth fighters, both built by Lockheed Martin but designed for opposite missions.

-The twin-engine, thrust-vectoring F-22 is a pure air-superiority fighter built to dominate the skies, with supercruise speed, a 1,800-mile range, and up to six AIM-120 missiles.

-The single-engine F-35 is a multi-mission “Swiss Army Knife” — flying strike, electronic warfare, and reconnaissance across three variants for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.

Summary and Key Points: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed roughly a billion barrels of oil from the market, triggering the worst supply shock since the 1970s OPEC embargoes.

-Exxon Mobil warns that Brent crude — about $92 a barrel now — could spike to $160 within weeks as global inventories near record lows.

NORFOLK, Va. (May 16, 2026) USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) returned to Naval Station Norfolk, May 16, 2026, following a historic 11-month deployment to U.S. 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Fleets as part of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group.

Summary and Key Points: Canada has selected Sweden’s Saab GlobalEye as its new Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced at the CANSEC defense show. Built on a Canadian-made Bombardier Global 6500 jet, the GlobalEye carries an Erieye radar that can track threats on land, sea, or air from 400 miles away — a priority as Arctic activity intensifies. The choice may also signal Canada scaling back its F-35 order in favor of Saab’s Gripen.

The F-35 Slash in Canada? 

F-22 and F-35 and the Flag. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Summary and Key Points: The F-111 Aardvark was the world’s first production variable-sweep-wing aircraft — a Cold War bomber built to fly fast and low after Soviet surface-to-air missiles made high-altitude bombing a death trap.

-Its swing wings let it sprint through contested airspace and land on shorter runways. Below are our own photos from a visit to the F-111 last July at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

-The Aardvark carried about four times the payload of the F-4 Phantom, saw heavy use in Vietnam and the Gulf War, and was retired in the late 1990s.

BORN FOR WAR | Military Motivation
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Summary and Key Points: The F-14 Tomcat became one of the most successful fighters in U.S. Navy history — a Mach 2.3 jet that anchored carrier air wings from the 1970s through Operation Iraqi Freedom.

-But its early days were rocky. Grumman, squeezed by inflation after underbidding to win the contract, needed emergency loans, and Navy buyer Bob Belter once countersigned a $38 million check by hand.

-The Tomcat also overcame dangerous TF30 engine flaws before a new engine secured its legendary career.

Summary and Key Points: The USS Parche was the most decorated submarine in U.S. Navy history, earning 10 Presidential Unit Citations for missions still largely classified.

-Commissioned in 1974 as a Sturgeon-class fast-attack boat, it was rebuilt into a spy platform that tapped Soviet undersea communications cables and recovered missile fragments from the seafloor.

Sturgeon-class U.S. Navy Submarine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Stripped of most of its torpedoes for spy gear, the Parche even carried explosives that could destroy the boat and its 112-man crew if captured.

The German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) have placed an order with Rheinmetall for more than 2,000 military transport vehicles.

Summary and Key Points: Iran has done more than close the Strait of Hormuz — it has claimed ownership of the route that carries 20 percent of the world’s oil.

-The IRGC now runs a coordination regime with fees reaching $2 million per passage, while Russia and China move freely and most Western ships stay out.

-Iran formally told all 176 IMO members that transit requires its permission. The longer no one contests the claim, the more permanent it becomes.

The Real Iran Strait of Hormuz Questions

US Navy Warship. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

(Oct.

Summary and Key Points: Russia has lost an estimated 250 to 400 aircraft over Ukraine, including Su-25 attack jets, Su-34 strike fighters, and — most painfully — Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers it can no longer build.

-The most dramatic blow came in Operation Spiderweb, when Ukraine smuggled explosive FPV drones into Russia on trucks and destroyed more than a dozen parked aircraft, Russia’s worst air loss since World War II.

Su-27 Flanker. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Four years in, Russia has never won control of Ukraine’s skies.

Marines will soon be eligible for promotion to sergeant earlier in their careers. The move is intended to give larger groups of top-tier corporals the opportunity to compete for the next rank up.
As of Oct., the Marine Corps is shortening the time in service requirement for promotion to sergeant from 48 to 30 months, according to a recent Marine Administrative Message, or MARADMIN.
First reported by Marine Corps Times, the change applies to all Marines, the message says.

Starting as early as 1939, German U-boat “Wolf Packs” transformed the Atlantic Ocean into a shipping graveyard.
In response, the United States Navy upped its game, and by May 1943, aka “Black May,” the tide began to turn. Part of that turn involved technological advances such as the “Hedgehog” anti-submarine mortar, high-frequency direction finding, and torpedo decoys.

Stymied on the battlefield by Ukraine’s increasingly effective deep-strike drone campaign against Russian personnel and logistics nodes, Russia has turned up its rhetorical pressure on the Baltic countries, accusing them of serving as launching pads for Ukrainian strikes on Russia and hosting Ukrainian forces, accusations that the Baltic countries have hotly denied.

Stefano D’urso, The Aviationist
Boeing confirmed that the MQ-28 Ghost Bat has conducted three flights at the Point Mugu Sea Range after initially flying only in Australia.

S&S
Concerns over the technical feasibility of the proposed Trump-class battleship are prompting lawmakers to put the brakes on construction of the warship as part of the Navy’s planned…

Lauren C. Williams, Defense One
Lessons from the SINKEX are shaping the service’s plans to buy and fight.

George Galdorisi, CIMSEC
The CNO’s emphasis on the U.S.

Kevin Eyer, RealClearDefense
It is a common misperception—not only among the public, but even within the military—that the naming of ships and submarines is a routine and apolitical…

Summary and Key Points: Ukraine has announced it will acquire 20 new-build Saab JAS-39 Gripen E/F fighters from Sweden, financed by a €2.5 billion EU loan, with deliveries possible by 2030. Sweden will also transfer 16 used Gripen C/D jets starting in early 2027, and Ukrainian pilots have already begun training.

-Pilots prize the Gripen for its ability to operate from highway airstrips — defeating Russian airfield strikes — and its MBDA Meteor missile, which can finally outrange Russia’s best fighters.

Summary and Key Points: A Russian attack drone crashed into a 10-story apartment building in Galati, Romania, overnight on May 28–29, injuring two and forcing an evacuation.

-Romania, a NATO and EU member, denounced the strike as a ‘serious escalation’ and asked the alliance for emergency anti-drone help.

-NATO chief Mark Rutte vowed to defend ‘every inch of Allied territory.’

-It was the 47th time Russian drone debris has landed on Romanian soil since 2022, though Article 5 hasn’t been invoked.

The Royal Australian Air Force on May 27 received the last of 14 Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft ordered from the United States, replacing its aging AP-3C Orion fleet to significantly expand its surveillance and anti-submarine warfare capabilities across the Western Pacific. Australia is currently conducting a major military buildup that analysts have widely assessed is aimed at maximising capabilities to engage Chinese forces in the event of a U.S.-led war effort in the Pacific, with Australian territory itself having become an increasingly critical staging ground for U.S.

This video describes the military situation in

An assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies security think tank has provided new insight into the extent of the depletion of United States weapons stockpiles during its 39 day assault against Iran that was launched on February 28. Prior to the campaign, warnings had already been issued regarding U.S.

The chief test pilot supporting the Su-57 fifth generation fighter program, Sergey Bogdan, has provided new details on the combat potential of the new Su-57D variant, after flying the first prototype on its maiden test flight on May 19. “These aircraft can be considered independent combat units. The paradigm of war is evolving, and the combat capabilities of a unit with twin-seater aircraft could be expanded. This format is becoming especially relevant in the context of the network-centric nature of modern conflicts.

On April 15, technology podcaster Dwarkesh Patel published a two-hour interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. For roughly forty minutes, Patel asked one question six different ways. The question was this: If American-made compute trains AI models with the serious cyber-offensive capabilities Anthropic’s Mythos Preview demonstrated — and that compute is sold to a strategic adversary — what responsibility does the seller bear?Huang’s answers hovered a safe distance away from the question.

Among some nuclear strategists, military officers, and lawmakers, a belief bordering on the canonical has taken root that the United States is on the short end of a “deterrence gap” with Russia and China. Both countries, and especially Russia, possess theater-range nuclear weapons, whose comparatively small yield is thought to lower the threshold for their use.

A pair of children’s shoes is an odd place to look for the changing dynamics of American power. But stick with me because, after the past year, it is one of the clearest places to see them.Long before those shoes reach a store shelf, tariffs have raised the cost of materials, components, and importation. Oil touches nearly everything else: synthetic fabrics, foam, adhesives, packaging, and freight. When both shocks arrive together, companies cut margins, cut orders, cheapen materials, delay investment, and eventually pass the pain on to consumers.

The Russian Aerospace Forces were reported on March 29 by multiple Western and Ukrainain sources to have deployed Su-57 fifth generation fighter aircraft for high-tempo operations along nearly the entire length of the Ukrainian front. Alerts, documented across multiple Ukrainian air raid warning channels show a consistent operational pattern of the advanced stealth aircraft operating in the Russian Kursk region to the north, over the Azov Sea near Mariupol, and over the disputed Crimean Peninsula to the south, launching Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missile attacks.

Satellite footage of the Dalian Shipyard in northern China has confirmed that construction of the country’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is progressing rapidly, positioning the warship for completion in the early 2030s and service entry before the middle of the decade. In less than a year, prefabricated hull components have been assembled into a clearly recognisable hull, which analysts have noted highlights the unique speed and scale at which China’s maritime industrial base has been able to operate. Signs of rapid progress in construction follow a U.S.

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Summary and Key Points: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz from the Iran War is now triggering second-order economic effects far beyond gas prices. Shortages of naphtha — what the New York Times calls the ‘flour of industry’ — are threatening plastics, paints, and pharmaceuticals. Helium shortages from Qatar are slowing semiconductor production and could pop the U.S. AI bubble. And nitrogen-fertilizer disruptions risk an 80 percent jump in urea prices, a food crisis, and another wave of global migration.

Summary and Key Points: Congress is putting the brakes on the U.S. Navy’s proposed Trump-class BBG(X) battleship, demanding proof that the program’s key technologies — railguns, directed-energy weapons, and hypersonic missiles — are viable before construction proceeds. The first hull is projected at $15–17 billion, with $43 billion budgeted for the first three ships, more than an aircraft carrier per unit. CSIS analyst Mark Cancian recently concluded the program ‘will never sail’ as currently designed.

The Trump-Class Battleship Hits Stormy Seas 

Trump-Class Battleship.

Summary and Key Points: Russia launched one of its heaviest aerial assaults on Kyiv in months, firing hundreds of drones and missiles, including Iskanders and a rare Oreshnik.

-Security Council deputy chair Dmitry Medvedev threatened EU diplomats remaining in Kyiv, and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned of more ‘retaliatory strikes.’

Tu-160 bomber. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Yet Russia’s May offensive was its slowest since early 2025, with most advances measured in hundreds of meters as Ukrainian drones complicate Russian operations.

Summary and Key Points: Volodymyr Zelensky and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced today, May 28, 2026, that Ukraine will receive up to 36 JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets — 16 donated Gripen C/D aircraft from the existing Swedish Air Force inventory, plus 20 newer Gripen E/F variants that Ukraine will purchase using €2.5 billion from the EU’s Ukraine Support Loan.

-The deal is the largest single Western fighter aircraft commitment to Ukraine since the war began.

JAS 39 Gripen E Fighters. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russia’s economy has held together not just because of oil revenue, but because the Kremlin is quietly forcing state banks to finance the war through a ‘two-track’ system. The first track is the official $126–133 billion defense budget. The second is off-budget: state banks issuing subsidized loans to defense factories, with analysts estimating $210–250 billion in wartime corporate borrowing. The hidden financing delays a fiscal crisis but is piling bad debt inside Russia’s banking system.

The Ukraine War Has a Giant Secret 

Su-27 Flanker Fighter.

The U.S. Navy is preparing to use retired F/A-18E/F Super Hornets as adversary aircraft, replacing the 1960s-era Northrop F-5 Tigers that have served as aggressor jets for decades. The upgrade gives Navy pilots a far more realistic stand-in for China’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters and the long-range PL-15 air-to-air missile, which devastated Indian forces during last year’s Indo-Pakistani War. It’s a pragmatic move as Beijing’s air power continues to close the gap.

The Super Hornet Will Have a New Role in Retirement: J-20 Pretender 

250429-N-FS097-1154 U.S.

A National Guard soldier wanted as an “international fugitive” for multi-million dollar financial crimes was arrested while in basic training at a Missouri Army base, officials said.
Marcin Pióro, 45, a Polish citizen, was arrested after Interpol issued a “red notice,” according to U.S. Marshals Service officials. Deputies arrested Pióro May 19 while he “was participating in a military training exercise.” An Army official confirmed Pióro was in basic combat training at the base, but had not graduated.
“Pióro joined the U.S.

This video describes the military situation in

Tucked into the Pentagon’s budget materials for fiscal 2027 is a request for more than $2 billion to purchase command-and-control technology licenses and engineering support for the U.S. combatant commands, Joint Staff and National Guard Bureau.
That total includes more than $1.5 billion to expand defense users’ access to Palantir’s Maven Smart System in support of the Defense Department’s “Joint Force AI-Enabled Headquarters initiative” and $60 million for the “Virtual Joint Operations Center (VJOC) initiative.

Summary and Key Points: Ukrainian long-range drones have struck 24 of Russia’s 33 major oil refineries since 2022, knocking out roughly a quarter of national fuel production and a third of gasoline output.

-Total damage to Russian oil infrastructure now exceeds $13 billion.

Ukraine Switchblade Drone. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Ukraine has also destroyed up to 300 Russian air defense units a month, opening the way for deeper strikes — including a 600-drone assault on Moscow in mid-May and a first-time airport closure in Kaliningrad.

Summary and Key Points: The U.S. Navy’s first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826), is now projected for delivery by late 2028 after years of production delays. General Dynamics says supplier performance is steadying and all major modules are in place.

-The Columbia-class will replace the 1980s-era Ohio-class boats on a one-for-one basis.

(March 31, 2006) – The guided missile submarine USS Florida (SSGN 728) conducts sea trials off the coast of Virginia.

Japan’s modified Izumo-class destroyers JS Kaga and JS Izumo are now operating as light aircraft carriers for the U.S.-built F-35B Lightning II — Tokyo’s first carriers since World War II. The 27,000-ton ships carry up to 12 stealth fighters each from an 814-foot flight deck. The Kaga’s namesake was sunk by American dive bombers at Midway in 1942. Eighty-four years later, the new Kaga gives Japan stealth-air power projection across the Pacific to counter rising Chinese pressure.

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranThere has been increasing chatter that Washington and Tehran are nearing an agreement that might wind down the war launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. The truce that took effect seven weeks ago has been a prickly affair, with occasional fire at Gulf states and tit-for-tats at sea — including in recent days, which have seen U.S.

Russia has lost more than 4,000 main battle tanks in Ukraine — including its entire T-80 fleet of roughly 1,200 vehicles — surpassing the total main battle tank holdings of all NATO members. With sanctions choking modern production, Moscow has been forced to pull 1950s-era T-55s and 1960s-era T-62s from deep storage. A ‘jack-in-the-box’ design flaw causes their turrets to blow off on direct hits, and cheap FPV drones now routinely disable them.

The Ukraine War Is a Tank Destroyer for Russia 

T-14 Armata Tank from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

T-14 Armata Tank.

Vice President JD Vance delivers the 2026 commencement address at the United States Air Force Academy, commissioning more than 900 cadets into the Air Force and Space Force.

The post Vice President JD Vance Delivers The Air Force Academy’s 2026 Commencement Address appeared first on Armed Forces Press.

Summary and Key Points: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a U.S. base in Kuwait on May 28, after American forces hit Iranian military infrastructure in Bandar Abbas. The Iran War ‘ceasefire’ is collapsing into a sustained tit-for-tat exchange. Negotiators remain deadlocked over Iran’s nuclear program and control of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump campaigned on avoiding ‘forever-war traps’ in the Middle East, but the conflict shows no sign of ending — and could be entering its next phase.

Summary and Key Points: An F-15C pilot from California’s 144th Fighter Wing lost his cockpit canopy in mid-flight last weekend after a Clovis Rodeo flyover. -He safely landed at Fresno Yosemite International Airport with no injuries reported. Retired Air Force Colonel Rob Swertfager likened the experience to ‘driving a sports car convertible at 300 to

Amid the Defense Department’s wide-reaching reforms of how it buys capabilities, lawmakers are proposing to get rid of two Space Force organizations that currently hold semi-autonomous acquisition authorities.
The House Armed Services Committee published the chairman’s mark of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act on Tuesday that includes language to eliminate the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office.

ABERDEEN, Md. — The Army Data Operations Center — a new, centralized hub to help the service manage data flows — will employ minimal human staffing and require automation to keep up with growing force-wide demands, officials anticipate, key factors that may determine the organization’s future. 
The service launched the ADOC in April in response to changes on the modern battlefield and frustrations from data teams across the Army that were struggling to connect disparate military systems.