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.

The post Trump Drops Truth On Robert E. Lee appeared first on Armed Forces Press.

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.

Four years into the war in Ukraine, the Russian economy has not yet collapsed. Rather, GDP numbers and wartime industrial output have often exceeded Western expectations. But despite Russia’s macroeconomic stability, problems lurk; ordinary Russian citizens are encountering rising food prices, higher fuel costs, growing tax burdens, and labor shortages.

So while the Kremlin has so far prevented the complete implosion of the Russian economy, the cost has been shifted onto Russian consumers, who are now paying higher prices for everyday goods.

Putin in 2021.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than four years, and things are going very badly for Moscow.

Russian forces lost a net total of 69 square miles of territory in Ukraine between late April and May 19, 2026, marking Moscow’s most significant sustained territorial setbacks since January 2024.

Russian Setbacks on Land And With Heavy Casualties in Ukraine

T-84 Tank from Ukraine War. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Casualties remain extremely high. In April, Russian forces were losing an average of 1,000 to 1,420 troops per day.

Russia’s oil and gas sector is experiencing a historic downturn due to a combination of tightening Western sanctions, falling global crude prices, and sustained infrastructural damage due to Ukrainian drone strikes.

The crisis has led to severe budget deficits and a wave of bankruptcies across the country’s energy infrastructure.

T-14 Armata. Image Credit: Russian State Media.

In February 2026, Russia’s oil export revenues collapsed by $1.5 billion month-on-month to $9.

First we were treated to nonstop legacy media coverage of a cruise ship stricken with the deadly hantavirus. Hantavirus, with its 40% mortality rate and an incubation period lasting for weeks, made the perfect pandemic boogey man. With some of the initial fears about the human-to-human spread of hantavirus beginning to subside, we are now being treated to a new pandemic scare: Ebola.
When it comes to a horrifying pandemic, few are scarier than Ebola.

Exercise Spring Storm may be an annual event fo

America’s emergency oil stockpile is shrinking at one of the fastest rates ever recorded as the war with Iran continues to disrupt energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. and its allies are burning through the reserves meant to protect them from a prolonged crisis, but analysts can’t all agree whether it poses a long-term risk to the United States. They can, however, predict that it will cause major economic instability in the near future.

NATO airbasePublic Domain

Washington — The United States intends to significantly reduce the military forces it would make available to European allies during a potential crisis, including strategic bombers, fighter jets, warships and refueling aircraft, according to a report by German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The planned reductions come as the NATO alliance faces growing strain amid transatlantic tensions. European officials have expressed concern that Washington could scale back its commitments or even withdraw support entirely.
U.S.

Maritime security is shaping the future of nava

Rose Gottemoeller joined Ryan in Washington. They discussed how the West might think about relations with Russia once the war with Ukraine ends, as well as nuclear diplomacy and other critical issues. Gottemoeller was the deputy secretary general of NATO and, before that, served as a senior State Department official. She is currently at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and has a new book out called Security Through Cooperation: Space, Nuclear Weapons, and US-Russia Relations after the Cold War (Stanford University Press).Image: Kremlin.

Sometimes, when I am lucky enough to give a lecture or speak to a group of folks interested in national security, I get the question: what got me interested in this field? Since I was a child, I have dragged history books (A World At Arms is my favorite) with me everywhere I went, and I have always been obsessed with military history. But the one thing that literally pushed me to change careers from the telecommunications industry in Rhode Island to a professional defense geek in a Washington, DC think tank back over a decade ago was one missile.

The latest flare-up between U.S. and Iranian forces underscores how the current “ceasefire” has so far failed to stop fighting between the two countries.
On Wednesday, U.S. forces intercepted five Iranian one-way attack drones launched near the Strait of Hormuz and “prevented a sixth drone launch from an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas,” according to U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM.
CENTCOM’s carefully worded statement did not specify if the U.S. military had attacked the Iranian ground site. Nor did it include any information on how U.S.

We are so used to Vladimir Putin leading Russia that it rarely seems that there could be a different president someday. He has created a cult of personality, eliminated all opposition, and limited dissent so well that there is no reason to believe that even a violent coup could take him down. But he can’t live forever. There are usually reports discussing his various health issues, but these are often just internet rumors. Putin just keeps ticking.

He may also be hiding in an underground command center, fearing assassination from Ukrainian drone strikes. He is definitely a marked man.

Ukraine’s forces aim to build on its frontline progress by targeting Russian logistics along its operational depth at the rear.

Global oil markets are behaving as though the Strait of Hormuz crisis is not temporary, despite continued public optimism from the Trump administration about negotiations with Iran, and analysts warn that inventory drawdowns and rising summer fuel demand could bring global oil inventories to “minimum operational levels.

Americans tend to be thought of as gun-toting cowboys with a “big iron” on their hips. This might stem from the nostalgia of the “Wild West” that led to a boom of 1950s and 1960s Westerns in American pop culture. It might also stem from a romanticized version of the actual Wild West of the late 19th century.
Also Read: The Colt Detective Special was America’s concealed carry of choice through Vietnam
In fairness, the U.S. military has had a long-standing relationship with the classic six-shot revolver.

The U.S. Navy plans to fire Castelion’s Blackbeard hypersonic missile from an F/A-18 Super Hornet by 2027. Built by former SpaceX engineers, Blackbeard is a low-cost, Mach 5 weapon designed for high-volume production at a fraction of what Lockheed or Raytheon charge. The Navy has committed roughly $379 million through its MACE program, and the Army is eyeing a HIMARS-launched variant. If successful, the missile could help narrow America’s hypersonic gap with China.

The F/A-18 Super Hornet Goes Hypersonic 

U.S.

With the 2026 Midterms less than six months away, it is high time that the ruling Republican Party, generally, and the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) coalition, specifically, prepare itself for what is likely to be a decisive defeat at the polls in November.

That’s because the scion of the MAGA movement, President Donald J. Trump, initiated a deeply unpopular war of choice against the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28.

This morning, I went on my hometown radio station, 99.7 WPRO, in Providence, Rhode Island, to talk about the war in Iran and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Let’s just say I was not a fan favorite when I explained that we could soon be looking at $6.00 gasonline prices and a global oil shortage if the situation isn’t resolved soon.

Clearly, time is running out to avoid an energy shock; the American people aren’t feeling it in full just yet, thanks to the drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

A federal jury has convicted a man for the drug-related killings of a soldier and an Army veteran with ties to elite units at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2020 — murdering one during a cocaine deal gone bad and the second deep in the base’s pine woods to cover his tracks. 
Kenneth Maurice Quick, Jr., 26, was convicted May 16 on eight counts related to the shooting deaths of Master Sgt. William “Billy” Lavigne, 37, and Army veteran Timothy Dumas, 44, in December 2020.

Over the last several days, the Russian Federation launched one of the largest combined missile-and-drone attacks on Kyiv (and other Ukrainian cities) seen in months. Western reporting described hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles used, including Russia’s newer Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile system.

Per Reuters, Ukrainian officials claim that the Russian strikes killed civilians, damaged civilian infrastructure in the historic city, and injured many more.

Ukraine launched attack drones and Western-supplied cruise missiles at targets within Russian-occupied Crimea earlier this week, striking several administrative buildings and related infrastructure. The strikes may be part of Kyiv’s wider pressure campaign against entrenched Russian forces on the peninsula. Ukraine is making more progress on the battlefield than perhaps at any time since the 2023 counteroffensive — once again raising the prospect of a Ukrainian recapture of Crimea.

Recent Ukrainian Strikes on Russian-occupied Crimea

Storm Shadow Missile.

The weekend brought some of the most violent strikes on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, since the war began. Several Ukrainian civilians died in the strikes, which included at least one Oreshnik hypersonic missile. Russia followed up the deadly round of strikes with stark rhetoric, hinting at additional bellicosity in the future. But despite the seemingly grim picture from the ground in Kyiv, Russia’s actions are not those of a Russian war machine that is winning, but rather writings of desperation.

Democrats want to impeach Donald Trump for starting a war without congressional authorization. The constitutional case is strong. But the proposed remedy misses the deeper problem. And that problem is something Congress would rather not discuss.

The constitutional outrage is real. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a full-scale air war against Iran without a single congressional vote.

This video describes the military situation in