Free Republic

A stark warning argues the U.S. Navy’s bedrock is “cracking” due to an industrial crisis. The fleet is shrinking and aging, while critical maintenance like the USS Ohio’s overhaul faced long delays. New ship programs are behind schedule and over budget. American shipyards lack the capacity and workforce to keep pace, creating a dangerous gap as rivals like China rapidly expand. -The proposed solution is harsh medicine: retire obsolete ships to free resources, launch a massive shipyard modernization effort, and adopt realistic shipbuilding plans.

Ukrainian President Zelenskiy’s latest White House visit to secure Tomahawk missiles reportedly devolved into a contentious “shouting match” with President Trump. According to anonymous sources, Trump, fresh off a phone call with Vladimir Putin, made a stunning reversal. He allegedly pressured Zelenskiy to surrender the entire Donbas region, warning that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine otherwise. Trump was said to have cursed, tossed aside battlefield maps, and repeated Russian talking points verbatim, including calling the conflict a “special military operation.”

Leaked Russian defense industry documents reveal an ambitious 10-year plan to rebuild Moscow’s tank fleet, aiming to produce over 2,600 new and modernized tanks between 2026 and 2036. This challenges previous, lower Western estimates of Russia’s industrial capacity. The plan prioritizes mass production of the T-90M, including a new T-90M2 variant, and the extensive modernization of older T-72s.

In a war with China, the U.S. must prepare to absorb a massive opening punch of over a thousand missiles and drones aimed at paralyzing its forces. The key to victory is not preventing this first strike but building a resilient force that can “fight hurt.” This requires a radical shift to strategies like Agile Combat Employment, which disperses aircraft across many smaller bases, and developing resilient command networks.

The Army designed the Future Soldier Preparatory Course (FSPC) to close two gaps. The first is between the number of soldiers the Army wants and the number it has been able to recruit in recent years. The second gap was between the aspirations of men and women who wanted to join the Army and the basic physical, intellectual, and legal standards the Army requires of new recruits. Based in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the FSPC puts would-be recruits through what amounts to preparatory basic training, designed to generate physical fitness (usually measured in terms of weight, waistline, and basic exercise...

Russia’s war on Ukraine is a war on speed and scale: cheap drones by the hundreds; cruise and ballistic missiles by the scores; electronic warfare (EW) whose logic can mutate on quarterly cycles. That is the fight NATO must be ready for—not an elegant, unhurried campaign of exquisite platforms, but a drone-and-missile war where software changes faster than doctrine, where ammunition depth decides what survives.

When I stood under the bomb bay of a retired B-52 bomber at the U.S. Air Force Museum this summer, I quickly understood why some consider this bomber the best to fly. Longevity means you earn a place in the record books and get to claim that crown. You don’t keep an airplane flying for six decades by accident. The B-52H Stratofortress didn’t just outlast its stablemates; it became the most complete version of the BUFF idea—long legs, big payload, and the electronics to make both matter in the 21st century.

Construction of new battleships ceased almost immediately post World War II—the last launched was HMS Vanguard, completed in 1946. Their heavy armor and guns diminished even further in relevance with the evolution of anti-ship missiles, which have a longer range and hit hard enough to negatively tilt the cost-benefit tradeoffs of heavy armor. Missile defense became a better use of tonnage than steel plates.

Consequently, Trump’s technical team has sought to create a loophole, according to 4 sources familiar with discussions on the matter. Turkey will remove a component from the S-400 and declare it ‘inoperable’. It would be the anti-aircraft system equivalent of rendering a rifle inoperable by removing the bolt or taking the firing pin out of other firearms.

Russian drones crossing into Poland and MiG-31s violating Estonian airspace revived the core question: how does a Russia vs. NATO war actually begin? Moscow will keep probing seams—airspace, air defenses, political will—aiming to force NATO into an Article 4/5 dilemma. Europe’s fragmented defense industry, ammunition shortages, and uneven appetite for risk create openings for a rapid, deniable “fait accompli” in the Baltics using EW, drones, and covert forces. That scenario wouldn’t resemble a set-piece tank battle; it would be a shock campaign designed to split allies before they can mobilize.

Germany is war-gaming a mass-casualty scenario—up to 1,000 wounded soldiers per day—amid Russian airspace violations and warnings of possible conflict by 2029. Surgeon General Ralf Hoffmann says Ukraine’s drone-saturated battlefield is reshaping injuries toward blasts and burns, complicating evacuation and forcing longer stabilization times.

Baltic incidents—drones, airspace brushes, GNSS spoofing—could cascade into a NATO–Russia war driven by fear, honor, and interest. Opening phases likely favor NATO in air and sea with superior ISR, EW, and standoff fires; Russia counters with missiles, dense air defenses, cyber, and navigation attacks. Two plausible endgames emerge: a non-nuclear grind to an armistice shaped by attrition and political risk, or limited nuclear use to coerce termination, shattering the taboo and accelerating crisis instability.

So, if war broke out today, who “wins”? A cautious judgment: China could win early episodes—sinking ships, mauling an airbase, or imposing a brief local exclusion near a contested feature—because interior lines and magazine depth pay dividends on day one. But carried beyond the first salvos, the balance bends toward an ugly allied denial. With coastal fires in Japan and the Philippines, coalition patrols normalized inside Manila’s EEZ, and Fujian not yet truly operational, Beijing’s odds of converting tactical gains into a durable political victory are low—unless allied kill chains break or magazines run dry.

Boeing’s X-32B, the Joint Strike Fighter contender that lost to Lockheed Martin’s X-35 (now the F-35), survives in just two museum airframes: one indoors at the USAF Museum and one outdoors at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, where weather is taking a toll.

The conflict itself would likely play out in several phases. The opening week would be defined by missile barrages aimed at Taiwan’s defenses and US forward bases, along with cyber and space attacks to blind command networks. Taiwan’s dispersal plans and mobile launchers would mitigate, but not eliminate, the damage. The next phase would be the battle for sea denial. Submarines, mines, and long-range anti-ship weapons would be hurled against convoys carrying PLA troops and supplies across the Strait. Geography favors the defenders, but China’s proximity and numerical advantage mean some ships would get through. The outcome of this battle...

Based on discussions with retired senior US military officials, the best chance for the F-35 Ferrari option is not as an option if the F-47 falters or is delayed. Where it may have the greatest utility, said one source very close to the program, is that technologies being developed for the Block 4 F-35 are close to the baseline for the very first models of the F-47. There is the possibility of a happy marriage there, I was told, that is the option with the greatest potential. Based on what National Security Journal is being told, if there is a...

The 9 September events demonstrate two interlocking realities. First, the prospect of a NATO–Russia war is no longer an abstraction. Moscow has shown a willingness to test NATO directly. Second, the most likely path to such a conflict is not through deliberate escalation but through miscalculation. The means to a wider war exist; the question is which one. Technical failure, human error, or political panic could cause escalation to spiral in a single instant.

The US Navy wanted the F-14 Tomcat for long-range fleet defense against Soviet bomber threats, requiring a large radar, powerful air-to-air missiles, and the ability to operate across a wide range of airspeeds to carry heavy ordnance and maintain maneuverability. The variable-sweep wing design, combined with advanced fire-control systems and the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, made the F-14 capable of engaging multiple targets at long distances while still being able to perform close-in combat and dogfighting.

This 6th-generation aircraft, now designated the F-47, will be the first stealthy aircraft designed by Boeing and is intended to move far beyond the F-35, into territory where, literally, “no man has gone before.” It will be bereft of any vertical control surfaces and will, according to one person close to the program who spoke to National Security Journal, “Be based on concepts of stealth that go beyond just the shaping of an aircraft fuselage and the techniques we know as the keys to low RCS today,” he said. “I cannot be specific about these newer technologies, which have not...

SSN(X) is the Navy’s planned successor to Virginia: a larger, stealthier, longer-legged attack submarine that teams with UUVs, carries more weapons, and is designed for higher availability. Costs will dwarf current boats, and industrial bottlenecks—from single-source suppliers to overloaded yards—are real. Budget trade-offs and shipyard realities have pushed the first procurement to around FY-2040, delaying entry to the fleet.