The National Interest

Just Too Expensive?: The U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, designed to secure air superiority in future conflicts, faces financial hurdles that may halt its progress.

-Originally projected to cost three times more than the F-35, the NGAD program was paused due to concerns over affordability, raising questions about sustaining air superiority against China.

-Additionally, rising debt, military spending limits, and competing priorities, such as modernizing the nuclear triad, complicate funding for NGAD.

-As the Air Force re-evaluates the NGAD program, the broader challenge remains: Can the U.S. sustain air dominance in the Pacific amid fiscal constraints and evolving defense priorities?

The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter aircraft meant to secure U.S. air superiority in the 2030s and beyond might be facing an adversary it can’t defeat: budget constraints.

The Air Force paused its sixth-generation fighter program in July after price projections showed it would cost three times more than an F-35 joint strike fighter—currently the world’s most expensive weapons program with each aircraft costing $80 million and $100 million apiece. Analysts and policymakers have criticized the Air Force’s hesitation and warned it puts U.S. air superiority at risk, especially against China. In a recent op-ed, Sens. Roger Wicker and Eric Schmitt, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the NGAD fighter’s high cost was an “unconvincing reason” to pause the program.

Convincing or not, it’s unavoidable that the Air Force, like the other services, will be facing a budget crunch in the coming years. The need to prioritize funding for more relevant budget items means that Air Force leaders are right to rethink and if needed, cancel the NGAD program.

Air Force officials have stated that they want the NGAD fighter to have range, stealth, and payload capacity superior to the F-22 fighter to contest Chinese air power in the Pacific. The manned NGAD platform will also operate with unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) as part of a “family of systems.”

However, recent aircraft acquisition programs should make policymakers wary of committing themselves to another technologically exquisite fighter jet. Cost overruns in the F-22 program forced the Air Force to cut its procurement goal from 648 to less than 200 when per unit costs rose to $143 million. Meanwhile, between October 2001 and December 2021, baseline estimates for the F-35’s total program costs increased from $233 billion to $416 billion. An April Government Accountability Office report noted that “the Air Force will pay $6.6 million annually to operate and sustain each individual [F-35] … well above the $4.1 million original target.”

Fiscal trends do not favor the defense spending increases needed to accommodate the NGAD’s costs. This year, interest payments on the federal debt eclipsed U.S. defense spending for the first time. The pain will be felt across every department and agency in the coming years as interest payments eat into a greater share of the discretionary federal budget.

Greater fiscal strain will place more pressure on an already overstretched military. Some analysts project that overall defense spending would have to increase annually by $25 billion just to keep pace with inflation. The 2024 Commission on the National Defense Strategy, rather than contemplate long overdue cuts to missions and force structure, called for entitlement reforms and higher taxes to fund defense spending increases of 3 to 5 percent above inflation. But it’s unlikely that Congress will do an about-face on these political nonstarters anytime soon.

Mindful of the looming budget squeeze, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stated last month that he wants the NGAD fighter to cost the same as an F-35. Yet, procuring 200 NGAD fighters, as the Air Force reportedly wants to, would still cost upwards of $20 billion. And this doesn’t include the multi-decade operation, maintenance, and sustainment costs that have made the F-35 program so expensive.

It’s also not clear a cheaper and less capable NGAD fighter would reduce overall program costs. The manned fighter would likely end up transferring critical components for its air superiority mission, such as electronic warfare capabilities, sensors, and datalinks, to CCAs. This would push the cost of CCAs up and undermine the objective of procuring thousands of cheap unmanned aircraft to fly alongside the manned NGAD platform.

The NGAD program’s prospective price tag looks even more daunting with two big-ticket items higher on the Air Force’s priority list: the modernization of the land and air legs of the nuclear triad.

The Sentinel ICBM program is a generational revamp of America’s half-century-old land-based nuclear missile force that involves modernizing 450 silos in several states, building 600 new missiles, and installing new launch control facilities. But the two-decade effort is already years behind schedule and 81 percent over budget at $141 billion.

Modernizing the air leg of the nuclear triad isn’t cheap either. The B-21 Raider will provide the Air Force with a new strategic bomber capable of executing conventional and nuclear strike missions anywhere in the world. Updated unit costs haven’t been released but industry estimates indicate the bombers could cost nearly $700 million apiece. If the Air Force follows through on purchasing 100 Raiders for its fleet, that would be a $70 billion investment with hundreds of billions more in operating expenses to be paid over 30 years. And it doesn’t end there: procurement costs for the B-21’s nuclear-armed AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off missile will increase from nearly $300 million in FY 2026 to $2.2 billion in 2029 as production ramps up.

Finally, it’s worth asking whether the goal of achieving air superiority in a conflict with China is a realistic one. China’s geography and military modernization could offset U.S. air power’s technological advantages in several ways. Chinese air bases would largely operate in a sanctuary; regional U.S. air bases would be under constant threat from thousands of Chinese missiles. Chinese aircraft would have shorter and more secure logistics lines; U.S. warplanes would need to be sustained over thousands of miles across the Pacific.

The Pentagon’s inability to prioritize threats benefits China too. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which has 1,300 fourth-generation fighters and hundreds of fifth-generation platforms, is largely concentrated on the Asia-Pacific while America’s shrinking Air Force is split between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Matching Chinese air power in a Pacific war would be a difficult task with or without the NGAD fighter. And fiscal realities are forcing the Air Force to make tough choices about what priorities need to be funded. Service leaders are right to take a hard look at the NGAD concept before writing another expensive chapter in the Pentagon’s acquisition history.

Matthew C. Mai is a contributing fellow at Defense Priorities.

This article was first published by RealClearDefense.

What You Need to Know: Operation Linebacker II, the "Christmas bombing" campaign of December 1972, was a significant effort by the U.S. to force North Vietnam back to peace talks. Employing over 200 B-52s and 1,077 tactical aircraft, the operation dealt devastating blows to strategic targets in North Vietnam.

-Though it led to the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, Watergate and reduced U.S. support hindered South Vietnam’s defense, culminating in a communist takeover in 1975.

-The campaign's success demonstrated the potential for a different Vietnam outcome if sustained U.S. support had continued.

Hard to believe as it may seem, it’s already been more than fifty years since the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps carried out Operation Linebacker II, the so-called “Christmas bombing” (exact dates December 18-29, 1972, with a single-day ceasefire on Christmas Day) of North Vietnam that drove the Communist regime back to the peace table. Contrary to the assertions of anti-American pundits in academia and the media, this operation nearly won the Vietnam War for the United States of America and its South Vietnamese ally.

Back during the actual fiftieth anniversary of Linebacker II, I was hoping to (1) publish a commemorative article in the publication I was writing for at the time and (2) convince the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to recognize the event in some way. Both of these efforts were for naught, but now’s as good a time as any to commemorate the upcoming fifty-second anniversary of the battle … which is rather poetically apropos considering that the B-52 bomber was the biggest player in this game.

207 of those mighty B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers—nicknamed the “BUFF” (“Big Ugly Fat Fellow” in polite company, but “Big Ugly Fat F*cker” in reality)—embarked on the raid along with fourteen tactical air groups consisting of 1,077 aircraft of all types (including the F-4 Phantom II and F-111 Aardvark to name just a couple of examples).

In exchange for the loss of fifteen B-52s and twelve tactical aircraft shot down along with forty-three killed in action and forty-nine prisoners of war (POWs), the raids utterly devastated strategic targets in North Vietnam. As noted by Mark W. Woodruff in his excellent 1999 book Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army 1961 – 1973:

“Its antiaircraft system shattered, North Vietnam now lay defenseless to the American bombers, but the United States stopped the attack because there was nothing left worth attacking. Later, accounts began to surface from those with relatives in North Vietnam, who told them that ‘They were preparing white flags to surrender’ because they were convinced they were losing the war badly.”

For good measure, six North Vietnamese MiG-21 “Fishbed” fighters were shot down, including two by B-52 tail gunners Staff Sergeant Samuel O. Turner and Airman 1st Class Albert Moore.

American POWs at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison such as Medal of Honor recipient Admiral James Bond Stockdale noted how the raids blasted the arrogance out of their captors: “One look at any Vietnamese officer’s face told the whole story. It telegraphed hopelessness, accommodation, remorse, fear. The shock was there; our enemy’s will was broken.”

Meanwhile, Sir Robert Thompson, architect of the British victory in the Malayan Emergency anticommunist counterinsurgency campaign (1948-1960), was generally critical of the American war efforts, but lavished praise upon Linebacker II: “In my view…you had won the war. It was over! …They and their whole rear base were at your mercy.”

“Along came Kissinger and Tricky Dick/Hit ‘em where it hurt and it turned the trick/I’m an ever-lovin’ freedom-hooked Viet Vet”—Viet Vet by retired Lt. Col Dick Jonas, USAF.

Thus, as already noted, the North Vietnamese sued for peace, thus resulting in the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973, which in turn earned a joint Nobel Peace Prize for both Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (though the latter refused the prize).

Alas, thanks to Watergate, then-U.S. President Richard Nixon’s strong leadership on Vietnam didn’t last, and his successor, Gerald R. Ford, was unable to counter the Democratic-controlled Congress’ slashing of monetary support to Saigon, leaving our South Vietnamese allies stranded. The end result was the tragedy of the Communist takeover of Saigon that secured the North’s victory, the fiftieth anniversary of which took place this past April.

Maybe, just maybe, if the momentum from Operation Linebacker II and the resultant peace talks had been properly seized upon, and America was allowed to win, then the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) wouldn’t have fallen under the tyranny of the Communist jackboot, and perhaps a hypothetical present-day South Vietnam would’ve been analogous to the present-day Republic of Korea, a thriving free market democracy that makes its impoverished communist neighbor on the northern side of the demilitarized zone look like a joke by comparison. (In fairness, communist Vietnam did adopt the so-called “Doi Moi [innovation]” market reforms back in 1986, analogous to Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms for Communist China in the 1970s; however, both China and Vietnam remain communist countries, their longstanding mutual animosity notwithstanding.)

Maybe, just maybe, this could have prevented the mass murder of 2.5 million innocent South Vietnamese, particularly those of Han Chinese descent and/or those comprising Vietnam’s entrepreneurial class.

And maybe, just maybe, if the momentum from Operation Linebacker II and the resultant peace talks had been properly seized upon, the U.S. military wouldn’t have suffered a humiliating defeat—with insult added to injury by the knowledge that we’d won every major battle yet still lost the war—and the resultant loss of morale and reputation whose repair and healing didn’t start until the 1980’s Reagan administration and culminated in the George H.W. Bush administration’s 1991 Persian Gulf War (AKA Operation Desert Storm).

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for the National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS)

What You Need to Know: HMS Hood, the pride of the British Royal Navy, symbolized British imperial power during the interwar years. Designed under the Washington Naval Treaty, this fast and powerful battlecruiser aimed to showcase British naval dominance.

-However, during World War II, the Hood tragically met its end in a battle with Germany’s Bismarck, exposing the limitations of outdated assumptions in naval strategy.

-This loss marked Britain’s waning global power.

-Today, Hood serves as a cautionary tale for U.S. naval planners, suggesting a re-evaluation of heavy reliance on aircraft carriers and advocating innovation in military strategy.

The British Empire was the equivalent of the world’s superpower for centuries. Since Britain successfully colonized dusty, far-flung lands from her grey rock in the North Atlantic, she was catapulted to world primacy. Her industry ensured Britain remained the world’s leader, and her Royal Navy enforced the crown’s (and, later, parliament’s) will upon the world. 

But by the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, the empire was declining.

Financialization of the imperial economy as well as the embrace of the equivalent of “free trade” started hollowing out Britain. Fierce competition from the likes of the United States and the recently united Germany also started complicating Britain’s dominance. Then, of course, some wrong turns in the military and foreign policy domain only exacerbated these woes. 

Following Britain’s pyrrhic victory over the Germans in World War I, like the other “victorious” Allied nations, the empire was skittish about another great power conflict. 

In 1922, the Washington Naval Treaty that was intended to bring balance between three great naval powers—the British Empire, the United States, and the Japanese Empire—only helped to set the stage for the next round of great power conflict, as the Japanese believed they were jilted by their World War-I Anglo-American allies. That controversial treaty, however, significantly influenced the design of multiple warships. Including the British Royal Navy’s iconic battlecruiser, the HMS Hood.

Indeed, Hood was considered the embodiment of naval prowess and was the great pride of the British fleet of the interwar years. Considered a “battlecruiser” as opposed to a full-blown “battleship” (because of the limitations imposed by the aforementioned Washington Naval Treaty), her design was inherently a compromise between the desire for naval dominance and the need for diplomacy among the great powers. Britain wanted to outgun and outrun any ship she might encounter.

So, Royal Navy designers equipped this steel beast with eight 15-inch guns in four twin turrets, capable of firing shells over 20 miles.

Her speed was legendary, reaching as high as 32 knots. Because of this, she was one of the fastest capital ships of her time. That’s because the British used oil rather than coal. As a result, this reduced the crew size needed to handle fuel (coal-powered ships required more hands to maintain the coal when underway).

HMS Hood was the ultimate symbol of British imperial power in the interwar years. Much like America’s massive nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Hood traveled the world, waving the Union Jack for all to see, symbolizing the reach and power of the British Empire. When deployed to international hotspots, her mere presence was enough to send rivals scattering.

Once World War II erupted, Hood was thrust into action. She was tasked with engaging targets related to German commerce. Inevitably, she was called to action against the German battleship Bismarck. It was during this operation that the limits of the HMS Hood were brutally exposed. 

While transiting the Denmark Strait on the evening of May 24, 1941, HMS Hood and the battleship HMS Prince of Wales engaged the legendary German battleship Bismarck and the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. Within the first five minutes of the engagement, the HMS Hood, the pride of the British Royal Navy and symbol of unchecked British imperial power worldwide, was obliterated by a shell fired from the Bismarck after it penetrated Hood’s magazine, leading to an explosion that cut the ship in half.

Minutes thereafter, the HMS Hood suffered a loss of all but three of her crew of 1,418 men. The loss of Hood, and the way in which she was so quickly cut down in the prime of her service life, was a massive blow to the British Royal Navy and Britons everywhere. In many respects, her loss represented the profound decline that the British Empire had endured since the height of its empire during the Victorian Era. London had built its iconic Hood based on premises that were flawed and no longer reflective of the real strategic environment the British military faced in 1941. 

Indeed, the loss of HMS Hood in 1941 is a history lesson not just for understanding what declining empires look like. It’s a warning from history to current U.S. Navy war planners to challenge their best laid assumptions and plans. Notably, to have a second look at their reliance on aircraft carriers, the battlecruisers of their day. 

Like the British obsession with battleships and related platforms in the interwar years, the Americans have overcommitted to their carrier force and now run the risk of losing them in unplanned for ways to adversaries who could never hope to match the power of the U.S. Navy. 

Americans must stop relying on the status quo and instead begin innovating to rethink what platforms they rely upon to project U.S. military power.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image Credit: Creative Commons. 

What You Need to Know: World War II saw the emergence of some groundbreaking jet fighters that revolutionized aerial warfare. The Messerschmitt Me 262 from Nazi Germany was the world’s first operational jet fighter and proved formidable in combat.

-The Heinkel He 162, another German innovation, was the fastest operational jet but plagued by design flaws. The British Gloster Meteor became the first Allied jet, achieving success against Germany’s V-1 missiles.

-The American Bell P-59 Airacomet didn’t enter combat due to underwhelming performance, but it laid the groundwork for future jets. Finally, the Lockheed P-80 saw limited WWII service, foreshadowing jet combat in the Korean War.'

Top five lists are virtually guaranteed to generate controversy, especially when it comes to historical weapons systems, whether we’re talking small arms, warships, tanks, or warplanes.

That’s because there are almost always going to be fanboys of candidates within a particular category that are going to kvetch “Hey, why didn’t you include [insert name of favorite plane/gun/ship/tank/whatever] on this list?

Well, hopefully in this particular instance, there won’t be as much room for controversy, as quite simply there aren’t that many “also-rans” to choose from (at least operational examples as opposed to prototypes that didn’t make it past the prototype phase).

With that long preamble/soapbox speech aside, let’s get on with what I consider to be the five best fighter jets of World War II.

This most successful example of Hitler’s so-called Wunderwaffen (“Wonder Weapon”) is a bit of a no-brainer for inclusion on this list, as the Luftwaffe’s Me 262 was the world’s first operational jet fighter as well as the only jet fighter to see air-to-air combat against manned adversaries’ aircraft in WWII, making her maiden flight on July 18, 1942, and official debuting in April 1944.

Bristling with four heavy-hitting nose-mounted 30 mm cannons (1.18 in), the Schwalbe boasted a top speed of 540 mph (Mach 0.70; 870 km/h; 469 kt) and racked up a kill-to-loss score of 542:100. 1,433 airframes were built.

Ach Scheisser, that’s right, the Nazi Germans have not just one but two Wunderwaffen on this list, which just further drives home the fortuitous timing of the Allies’ victory over the would-be “Thousand-Year Reich.”

The He-162 was built by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, the manufacturer best known for the He-111 heavy bomber that had made life miserable for Londoners during the Battle of Britain.

She made her maiden flight on December 6, 1944, and entered into official operational service with the Luftwaffe the following month.

The warbird was nicknamed “Salamander” because of the folkloric myth of the latter animal being immune to fire. However, the flying mechanical namesake was the polar opposite of fireproof; she had a rather distressing tendency to blow up in midair, due to being built with slave labor with a shoddy acidic glue holding the components together and had a distressing tendency to eat through the plywood components.

In spite of these construction flaws, the He-162 turned out to be the fastest operating jet fighter of WWII, with a max airspeed of 562 mph (Mach 0.73; 904 km/h; 488 kn). She also made history as the first operational fighter jet to feature an ejection seat.

For good measure, she was the only single-engine Axis plane that had tricycle landing gear.

In actual combat, Salamander drivers scored maybe two unconfirmed kills in exchange for the loss of thirteen Salamanders and nine pilots, including the unit commander of veteran fighter group Jagdgeschwader I.

120 airframes were built.

Not to be outdone, the Allies have some entries on this list as well. The most successful of the bunch was the British Royal Air Force (RAF) Gloster Meteor, which made her maiden flight on March 5, 1943, and debuted operationally thirteen months later, making her the first operational jet of any Allied nation.

She did see combat, albeit not against manned enemy aircraft; Meteor drivers were credited with destroying more than forty-five German aircraft via ground strikes, and moreover did score thirteen air-to-air kills against the Nazis’ infamous unmanned V-1 “buzz bomb” terror weapons.

The Meteor wielded four 20mm Hispano cannon and boasted a max airspeed of 600 mph (Mach 0.78; 970 km/h, 520 kn). 250 Meteors were made during the war. 

The Bell P-59 was the first jet plane produced in the United States, making her maiden flight on October 1, 1942. She was produced by the Bell Aircraft Corporation, the same company that produced the P-39 Airacobra and P-63 Kingcobra piston-engine fighter planes and then later became most famous for the rocket-powered X-1, which enabled the late great Chuck Yeager to become the first man to break the sound barrier.

However, unlike the previous three jet-powered warbirds on this list, there’s not much exciting to report here, as the Airacomet never saw combat. As to why this was the case, my colleague Sebastien Roblin explains in a July 20, 2020 article for The National Interest:

“[T]he Airacomets were never deployed operationally because their early, unreliable turbojets gave them a maximum speed of only around 410 miles per hour—slower than the P-51 Mustang piston-engine fighter then in service.”

Accordingly, the sixty-six airframes that were built were relegated to trainer duties instead of serving as frontline fighters.

However, the P-59 can’t be written off as a total failure, as she laid the groundwork (no pun intended) for later generations of U.S. turbojet-powered aircraft, including the next and final warbird on this list.

Yes, I’m as surprised to be including this airplane on the list as you dear readers are to be seeing it. After all, it was during the heady days of the Korean War rather than “Dubya-Dubya 2” that the Shooting Star become America’s first jet fighter to see combat in general and air-to-air combat in particular.

However, my research for this article revealed that this warbird did in fact see limited WWII operational service—although granted without seeing actual action—which just goes to prove that you really do learn something new every day.

A brainchild of the late great Clarence “Kelly” Johnson of Lockheed’s legendary “Skunk Works” division, the P-80 (later redesignated the F-80) made her maiden flight on January 8, 1944, and entered into operational service with the U.S. Army Air Forces (predecessor of the present-day U.S. Air Force) in January 1945. Two pre-production YP-80A Shooting Star variants saw limited usage in Italy with the USAAF on reconnaissance missions, in February and March 1945.

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for the National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS).

Image Credit: Creative Commons. 

What You Need to Know: The USS North Carolina (BB-55), the first of the North Carolina-class fast battleships, played a pivotal role in WWII, showcasing advanced firepower and speed.

-Designed with nine 16-inch guns and twenty 5-inch dual-purpose guns, this 35,000-ton battleship operated effectively in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.

-It supported U.S. ground forces at Guadalcanal and proved vital in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

-Despite sustaining damage at the Battle of Santa Cruz, the resilient North Carolina remained operational.

-Decommissioned in 1947, the ship is now preserved as a museum in North Carolina, symbolizing American strength and WWII legacy.

Launched in 1940 and commissioned a year later, the USS North Carolina (BB-55) was the first of the North Carolina-class fast battleships (a total of two were built). Initially designed under the constraints of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty between the United States, the British Empire, and the Empire of Japan, the North Carolina-class fast battleships were meant to exceed the capabilities of her potential rivals. 

In fact, her displacement of around 35,000 tons when fully loaded was a testament to the ways in which the treaty’s signatories were playing fast-and-loose with the treaty itself (with Japan being the worst violator of these standards).

Possessing nine, 16-inch guns in three triple turrets, this battleship was a significant upgrade from the usual 14-inch guns found on previous U.S. Navy battleships. These bad boys could hurl 2,700-pound shells over a distance of 20 miles, giving this battleship quite a punch. Beyond those turrets were the twenty, five-inch dual-purpose guns for anti-aircraft and secondary surface combatants. The presence of these guns reflected the growing importance of defending against air attacks in naval warfare.

And she lived up to her classification as a “fast battleship.” Being able to reach up to 28 knots, the USS North Carolina was among the fastest battleships in the world at the time of her commissioning. In fact, these battleships were meant to operate alongside aircraft carriers and keep pace with faster fleet elements.

North Carolina had significant combat deployments in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters of World War II. Initially stationed in the Atlantic, she was meant to be a deterrent against the German Kriegsmarine (navy). It is widely believed that the presence of the North Carolina significantly contributed to the strategic balance of power in the Atlantic during the early war years. 

In 1942, however, the North Carolina was transferred to the Pacific Theater where she fought in the Guadalcanal campaign, providing key fire support to U.S. ground forces. At the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Islands, North Carolina’s presence contributed to the victory’s broader strategic success. She was a key player there, in fact, whose presence was decisive because of the firepower she could bring to bear.

At the Battle of the Santa Cruz Island in October 1942, North Carolina was hit by a Japanese dive bomber. The great battleship, despite suffering significant damage from the Japanese attack, remained operational—proving her resilience and worth to a Navy that was coming to favor the aircraft carrier.

Indeed, the North Carolina came to symbolize American prestige and power during the war. She evolved from a direct combatant to providing bombardment support for forces wading ashore. North Carolina provided air defense as well as fleet protection, reflecting a wider evolution in the nature of naval strategy in WWII.

When the war ended, and both aircraft carriers and missiles became a key factor in modern warfare, the role of battleships, like the North Carolina, faded away. The fast battleship was decommissioned in 1947. But her legacy lives on today. She was donated to the state of North Carolina, the state after which she is named. Today, one can visit the North Carolina as it is a museum ship open to the public. 

The fact that the Navy opted to make her a museum ship rather than to break her down for scrap, like they did with so many other legendary WWII era warships, should prove to you just how important and iconic of a battleship the USS North Carolina was. She was an essential player in the history of our country. 

We must never forget the service she and her legendary crew performed in helping to defeat some of America’s greatest foes in WWII.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

North Koreans are involved in combat on European soil. Not that long ago, such a headline would have triggered disbelief or amazement. But in this day and age, the fact that Pyongyang would go to such lengths in supporting Moscow’s war against Ukraine should come as no surprise.   

Russia is going all in when it comes to its special military operation and the parallel fight against the West. Having North Korea onside, a rogue country sanctioned by the UN, can only strengthen Moscow’s position. Since 2022, Pyongyang has become one of the Russian military’s principal ammunition suppliers from abroad. 

Since last August, North Koreans have reportedly shipped 3 million rounds of 152-millimeter artillery shells, the main caliber Russia and its Cold War-era allies both rely upon. Kim Jong-un’s troops are now fighting in the Russian Federation’s Kursk region, part of a counteroffensive aimed at dislodging the Ukrainian forces. 

The Kremlin sees no risk in bringing the North Koreans to the frontlines, despite reports that the Chinese leadership is not exactly thrilled. As all bets are off, Russia is not averse to undermining several UN Security Council resolutions that it originally endorsed.  

The benefits for North Korea are straightforward, too. Kim is relishing an opportunity to bloody some elite units, providing them with real-time frontline experience, which could prove useful in a putative clash on the Korean peninsula. 

As Russia is paying, Pyongyang could also make money by taking the lion’s share of its mercenaries’ earnings. Much like Russia itself, the North Korean regime defies an international order that seeks to it. It proves its capacity to be a spoiler, far away from the homeland, which raises its overall political stock.

For all its symbolic value, the impact of the North Korean deployment should not be exaggerated. 

The 8,000 to 12,000-strong contingent is not likely to make a huge difference on the battlefield, where Russia’s daily casualty rates are reaching staggering levels. Though these are elite forces on paper, their performance might turn out to be wanting. 

For one, they are likely to experience difficulties in integrating with their Russian counterparts and the overall chain of command due to the language barrier. Indeed, there is already a report about Russian servicemen coming under friendly fire from North Koreans. All things considered,  Russia does not gain all that much from bringing in Kim’s troops.  

Pyongyang could be cashing in most of the profits from the transaction. Reliance on North Korea points to a major weakness for the Russians. Instead of soliciting support from far-away partners such as the North Koreans or Iranians, whose services and supplies do not come for free, Moscow could have rallied its “allies” from the Collective Security Treaty Organization. 

On the top of the list is Belarus, where the regime’s stability hinges on Russia’s military muscle.  Furthermore, Belarusian troops speak Russian, use Russian kits, and practice regularly with their Russian colleagues. However, while Belarus provided a launching pad for the initial phase of the Ukraine invasion, it is now keeping a low profile.  

Belarus’ president, Aleksandr Lukashenka, is happy to recover at least some of his lost room for maneuver vis-à-vis Russia.  

Russia presents itself as the spearhead of a worldwide struggle against the West. It uses every opportunity to demonstrate that its friends in order to constitute a cohesive bloc, lately during the BRICS+ summit in Kazan, Russia. 

Rather, you have countries like Iran and North Korea willing to take a gamble on Russia’s war, making money and scoring political points. The great majority, including China, the big beast in the room, prefers to hedge bets and work with both Moscow and its Western adversaries. North Korea is the exception, not the rule.  

Dr Dimitar Bechev is the Director of the Dahrendorf Programme on Europe in a Changing World based at Oxford's European Studies Centre. He is also a Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe. His books include Turkey under Erdoğan (Yale UP, 2022), Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (IB Tauris, 2021), and Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (Yale UP,  2017).

Image: Shutterstock.

A Latin American country of ten million people, already in steep economic decline, moves into acute crisis as its entire electrical network shuts down. The U.S. government moves quickly to help stabilize the situation. The National Security Council convenes the full range of agencies to craft a response. The result: the State Department directs our ambassador to assure the country’s leadership of our ongoing support. The Energy Department sends a team to survey its power system and see what short-term fixes can be found. The Defense Department orders one of its hospital ships to the area to assist the collapsed healthcare system.

The Treasury Department reaches out to the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to see how financing for vital petroleum imports can be found. The Commerce Department mounts missions for the private sector to survey the range of opportunities for the trade and investment that the country desperately needs. Finally, the Agency for International Development brings its expertise to bear on different sectors that require assistance.

That is unless the country is Cuba. In the face of the collapse of its electrical system and the underlying economic decay, the White House has confined itself to stating that it is “monitoring” the situation. It is “concerned” about the humanitarian impact while stressing that the fault lies with the Cuban government’s “long-term mismanagement of its economic policy and resources” and pointedly noting that Havana has not requested any assistance thus far. 

The immediate reasons for the collapse of Cuba’s power grid lie in its aging, Soviet-built generation plants, which have suffered from chronic under-investment despite the more recent installation of some Spanish and Chinese equipment. Cubans also rely on imported oil. However, Venezuela, a major supplier at concessional rates, has been providing ever less in the face of its own problems. Mexico has apparently taken up some of the slack in transactions, which may also be below market prices, and some Russian oil has been provided. Evidently, not enough is reaching Cuban plants, and the country lacks the foreign exchange to go onto the spot market. 

We can expect that Cuba will be able to bring its grid back online after a fashion. Spare parts will be scrounged. Suppliers of cheap oil may provide a bit more. But at best, the system will function in the same spotty manner as it did before its complete collapse. Yet, behind the shortage of money and fuel for its electrical system is an economy incapable of providing necessary resources to its people. It remains trapped in a nether world between the communist system installed after the revolution and the only partially realized market-based reforms. The latter have stalled in the face of the regime’s fear of summoning social tensions that could ultimately threaten its hold on power.

The collapse of its electrical grid reflects the contradictions of Cuba today. The traditional mainstay of its state-run agricultural economy, sugar production, has almost disappeared as a result of mismanagement and under-investment. Tourism, the great hope for an economic alternative, saw significant European investment. Still, demand seems sluggish, with Cuba doing worse than regional competitors in the post-COVID environment (and indeed, the current electrical crisis will discourage future travelers).

Cuba undeniably suffers from the U.S. economic embargo. However, the extent of its impact is hard to calculate (and the official Cuban estimate of over $144 billion in costs since its inception obviously comes from an interested party). At the same time, Cuba has historically benefited from the flow of remittances (although this seems to be dropping as Cubans living abroad instead dedicate resources to resettling relatives emigrating from Cuba). Indeed, as the regime flounders, 10 percent of the population has left the island, according to official figures.

This somber picture in which a broken-down Cuba is left at the margin of global developments is remarkable when one remembers how large it once loomed on the chessboard of the Cold War. While there is room for debate as to whether the initial American response under Dwight Eisenhower to Castro’s triumph was too heavy-handed, ultimately, the two countries became locked into permanent confrontation as Fidel Castro (who reportedly had links to the Soviet Union well before he came to power) decisively aligned his country with America’s adversary.

Then, as the Kennedy administration looked to “support any friend, oppose any foe,” Cuba became an international flashpoint, first with the abortive 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and then the truly dangerous missile crisis of 1962. The resolution of the latter between the United States and the Soviet Union stabilized Cuba’s position as an irritant rather than an existential threat to the United States.

Castro, his survival assured, looked to export communist revolutions throughout Latin America in the 1960s. His acolytes saw the Andes Mountains as analogous to Cuba’s Sierra Maestra, the birthplace of his movement. This effort largely failed, most notably with the 1967 death of Che Guevara in Bolivia. U.S.-backed anti-communist governments suppressed other guerrilla movements. 

However, Cuba was able to carve out a more prominent international position in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. Castro aggressively supported Marxist movements and governments in Africa, most notably in Angola, where he was able to project power successfully 7000 miles away. But Cuba’s most important theater of action was Central America, where it provided support to the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador.

In Nicaragua, Cuba thus had what it had long sought: a friendly fellow revolutionary government in Latin America. And its successes both there and in Africa (with Soviet backing, of course) were impressive achievements for the government of a small country under constant economic pressure. However, this period was the high water mark of Cuba’s achievements, as the Reagan administration returned to Kennedy’s commitment to “support any friend, oppose any foe.” Then, Cuba’s great patron, the Soviet Union, collapsed in 1991.

It was not until 1999, with the triumph of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (a far larger and richer country than Nicaragua), that Cuba gained an important new ally, becoming a vital member of the ramshackle, but in some ways effective “Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas,” (ALBA) which had as its core Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua (with the Sandinistas back after a sixteen-year lapse). As Chávez sought to remake Venezuela in the image of “twenty-first-century socialism,” Cuban security and intelligence support, both for his inner circle of personal protection and for assuring the loyalty of Venezuela’s military, was vital.

Throughout its history (at least until its recent travails), the Cuban regime’s ability to survive and even to act outside its borders owed much to its success in attracting massive foreign assistance, first from the Soviet Union and then from Venezuela. Its support of Marxist movements, from the early 1960s into the 1980s, came as the Soviets provided large subsidies to Cuba’s economy by providing oil at below-market prices and, in turn, buying Cuban sugar above them.

This process culminated in Cuba’s integration into the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), the economic counterpart to the Warsaw Pact. While its long period of close connection with the communist bloc had included some stretches of real economic growth in Cuba, it all came to a crashing end with the fall of the Soviet Union, leading to the “special period in peacetime” of extended economic crisis.

The “special period” forced Cuba into harsh austerity and partial economic liberalization. Still, it then received a lifeline in the form of Chávez’s largesse, which was made possible by the rise in global oil prices after 1999. In a rough approximation of Cuba’s earlier relations with the Soviets, Venezuela provided subsidized oil and, in turn, obtained the services of Cuban doctors for its public health programs and also allowed Cuba to act as a middleman for the purchase of foodstuffs for its network of government-run stores for its low-income population.

But this process has been unwound as Venezuela has faced its own economic crisis; its corrupt, politically managed petroleum sector now produces far less than it did at its height, and what it does produce is needed to provide some semblance of the previous subsidization of its restive population. Its deliveries of cheap oil have been on a downward trend, contributing to the blackout in Cuba. However, the value of Cuba’s intelligence capabilities, as well as ideological affinity, may lead Venezuela to provide at least some further relief, even at the expense of its own population.

And it does not look like any other country is likely to resume the support that would provide sustained relief for Cuba’s economy. Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, retains a political and security relationship with Cuba and welcomes the opportunity to make mischief for the United States, as when it recently sent naval vessels for a port call in Havana. But it is dealing with the enormous costs of its war with Ukraine, as well as sanctions that target its hydrocarbons sector. Like Venezuela, it may be able to ship some more oil for Cuba, but it is in no position to assume the massive costs of re-creating Cuba as a true client state.

China, although never as close to Cuba as the old Soviet Union was, does have a positive political relationship with it and is an important economic partner. In theory, it could have a role in Cuba’s current plans to increase solar energy production, as it is the world’s largest producer of solar panels. However, Cuba has not produced a regulatory framework that would encourage such investment in solar energy.

Also, it lacks the money to purchase panels, and Chinese firms are not likely to want to extend credit to a country that is already heavily indebted and behind on its payments. China also has other priorities in the region. It has invested in infrastructure from Panama to Ecuador and Peru. It buys large quantities of agricultural and mineral products from Brazil. Taking on Cuba’s problems seems unlikely, tempting as it may be for it to aggravate Washington.

Mexico, which has a left-leaning government and a long history of friendly relations with Cuba, is providing some additional oil. 412,000 barrels of crude is on its way to Cuba. While this is doubtless welcome, it would amount to only a few days of Cuban demand. And Mexico cannot provide more than occasional help as its production has dropped in recent years. It has been reported that Mexico is looking to work with other potential suppliers on a longer-term solution.

As for the United States, it remains at a vast political distance from Cuba despite its geographic proximity, and a “whole of government” effort such as that outlined earlier is implausible. And, of course, it would make no sense without the rollback of its sanctions regime. However, the history of efforts to ease bilateral tensions does not bode well for such outreach. 

Jimmy Carter’s attempt at rapprochement, which included the opening of interest sections in both Havana and Washington, came to a frustrating end as Cuba ramped up support for revolutionary regimes and insurgencies and, in 1980, let 125,000 Cubans suddenly depart the country (the “Mariel boatlift”). Bill Clinton was stymied when the Cuban military shot down two civilian aircraft piloted by a Cuban exile group while flying within Cuban airspace (on an admittedly provocative mission). This, in fact, led to the codification of much of the U.S. sanctions regime into law as the Helms-Burton Act.

Barack Obama went as far as any U.S. president could in removing sanctions that were not locked into statutory law. However, this, in turn, was reversed by Donald Trump. The Biden administration partially reversed Trump’s decisions but has not gone as far as Obama did. Its refusal to make Cuba a priority is likely derived from a straightforward calculus. From Castro through to the current leadership, Cuba has always made it clear that any easing of sanctions on the part of the United States will have to be its own reward. There can be no quid pro quo in terms of democratic reforms.

Certainly, a case can be made that sanctions have outlived whatever usefulness they may have once had for U.S. policy interests. But Cuba’s insistence that the United States simply abandon them does not provide the minimum amount of political cover necessary for any movement on the American side, especially in our sharply divided and closely contested domestic environment. And with global crises from Ukraine to Israel-Palestine to Taiwan on the front burner, there is little incentive for any U.S. administration to reach out to a Cuban government that offers so little in return.

The United States has offered humanitarian assistance to Cuba in the past after natural disasters. However, in the current instance, the Cuban government has made clear that its only “ask” is the unconditional end to sanctions, a political impossibility. Thus, the United States is likely to remain an observer as the lights continue to flicker across the Florida Straits.

Richard M. Sanders is a Senior Fellow, Western Hemisphere at the Center for the National Interest. A former member of the Senior Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State, he served in embassies throughout Latin America and in positions in Washington dealing with the region.

Image: Shutterstock.com. 

What You Need to Know: The USS Wasp (CV-7), shaped by the limitations of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, is often cited as the worst aircraft carrier of WWII.

-Built with reduced tonnage, the Wasp was smaller, lightly armored, and equipped with inadequate firefighting systems.

-These design flaws left the ship vulnerable in combat, ultimately sealing its fate.

-In 1942, three torpedoes from a Japanese submarine struck the Wasp, and uncontrollable fires—due to subpar fire controls—led to its destruction, marking it as a carrier emblematic of treaty-driven compromises that backfired in wartime.

America is known as the world’s greatest aircraft carrier superpower. No other nation comes close to its carrier capabilities, although China is simultaneously trying to catch up as well as degrade America’s carrier capabilities today.

Back in the early twentieth century, though, America was still a rising power generally. Specifically, the United States was maturing its military capabilities. 

However, this maturation process was stunted by the fact that the U.S. had entered the controversial Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which imposed harsh limitations on the size and capabilities of warships belonging to the U.S. Navy, the British Royal Navy, and the Imperial Japanese Navy, as well as other navies.

Because of these limitations from the arms control agreement in 1922, the U.S. Navy developed what many believe to be the worst aircraft carrier ever built. 

That’s the USS Wasp (CV-7). Although the boat was commissioned later in 1940, its design was heavily influenced by the Washington Naval Treaty. 

The treaty limited the size of fleets and individual warships by tonnage. The logic is that smaller ships would create smaller fleets and these smaller fleets would be less capable than the larger warships that defined the era before the treaty was enacted.

Think of the treaty as rationing the total tonnage of a navy. In the case of the United States, the total tonnage of its fleet was allowed 525,000 tons. 

America’s Navy, therefore, built three aircraft carriers: the USS Saratoga, the USS Lexington, and the first carrier in the Navy, the Langley. With the remaining 14,700 tons in its allotment, the Navy built a small carrier, the USS Wasp. 

But to make the carrier comport with the tonnage limitations of the treaty, Navy planners compromised the basic engineering tenets that undergirded all carriers and created the equivalent of poison pills embedded within the carrier’s basic design.

For the United States, the Yorktown-class carrier was the definitive carrier of the Interwar Years. Washington wanted the Wasp to possess the same features as the larger Yorktown-class carriers.

The only problem facing the designers was the fact that the Wasp was 5,000 tons smaller than the Yorktown class. 

The Wasp had profound weaknesses because of its limitations. For starters, it was lightly armored. The design of the carrier lent itself to being easily damaged in combat compared to its larger, better-armored sister ships.

More importantly, the Wasp had poorly designed firefighting systems. In peacetime, this was not as much of a concern as it became in wartime. By the time the weaknesses of this system were revealed, it was too late to do anything about it. 

In 1942, the Wasp was attacked by the Japanese Navy. She was lambasted by three torpedoes fired from the Japanese submarine I-19. Despite having been hit, the Wasp was able to survive the initial attack. Uncontrollable fires, however, killed this ship.

The lack of fire controls destroyed this ship in combat. It is the worst carrier of WWII.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase.

Image Credit: Creative Commons. 

What You Need to Know: The Russian Sukhoi Su-57 "Felon" stealth fighter has faced continual challenges, with the latest embarrassment occurring at China’s Zhuhai Airshow. Poor build quality was apparent, drawing ridicule on Chinese social media and raising further questions about the jet's production integrity.

-Russia’s Su-57 program, hampered by Western sanctions limiting critical parts, remains devoid of foreign military sales, adding pressure to Russian aerospace industries.

-With only ten Su-57s operational and a larger order now in potential limbo, the Felon’s path forward appears precarious as it struggles to find international buyers or meet domestic demand.

Pity the poor Sukhoi Su-57 "Felon". 

Sure, the Fifth Generation stealth fighter has gotten off the ground, both literally and figuratively, and been deployed operationally with the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), albeit rather inauspiciously, which more than can be said for Russia’s other aspirational stealth fighter, the Su-75 (NATO “Checkmate”). 

However, the positives for the Su-57 pretty much end there. Much ado has been made (and rightfully so) about the alliance between revanchist Russia and China. However, it now looks as though even this budding buddy-buddy relationship between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping won’t be sufficient to boost the exonerate the reputation of the “Felon,” pardon the bad joke, even as China’s own Chengdu J-20 Weilong and Shenyang J-35 Gyrfalcon stealth fighter programs continue to progress.  

The latest bad news for the Su-57 comes from China’s Zhuhai Airshow, the ChiComs’ premier aerospace trade expo, wherein one of these much-hyped Russian fighters is scheduled to perform flight demonstrations while a second specimen will be exhibited as a static display. 

The embarrassing news is being reported on by multiple sources, including The National Interest as well as Greg Waldron of FlightGlobal. According to the former, “The Sukhoi Su-57 has had an inauspicious start to its Zhuhai air show appearance, with a close-up video revealing questionable build quality.” 

Since a subscriber paywall prevents me from delving further into Mr. Waldron’s piece, I hereby defer to my esteemed colleague Mr. Suciu, whose article has already been republished on MSN and Forbes, for further details: 

“As previously reported, this is the first time that the Sukhoi Su-57 has been presented at the biennial airshow. The Kremlin likely expected that its highly-touted fifth-generation fighter would turn heads. It didn't count on Chinese social media, where the fighter was highly scrutinized and ridiculed…‘The oversight on the Russian [sic] part was that they failed to organize a no-access zone for spectators, and the Chinese event visitors could freely come up unprecedentedly close to the Su-57 model demonstrated at the exhibition,’ Defense Express reported…’What especially catches the eye is the huge number of bolts holding together fuselage panels but this is no news, as previous models had the same look. A whole different matter is that the quality of joints fails to meet any reasonable expectations,’ the Daily Express added.” 

That comment about the bolts and joints is strikingly reminiscent of the Western observations into the construction of the once-feared MiG-25 “Foxbat” interceptor in the 1970s, observations made possible by the daring in-flight defection of Foxbat pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko in 1976.  

Some assert that bad publicity is better than no publicity at all, but those folks aren’t familiar with building successful weapons systems! 

The Russian aerospace industry has already had enough trouble obtaining foreign military sales (FMS) customers for the Su-57, the current international customer count for the warbird is exactly zero, yes, zero. And news like this emanating from such a big-name airshow, and within the borders of Russia’s biggest-name new ally no less, isn’t going to help boost sales numbers. 

Moreover, assuming the recent reports from RBC-Ukraine are true, the production of the Su-57 has been suspended due to a dearth of key components thanks to Western sanctions. Among the specific affected parts are the WA36 attenuator, an electronic device that reduces signal amplitude or power without significantly distorting its shape, and the MPPU-50, a German-made device used to calibrate the fighter jet’s communication system.  

Meanwhile, according to the World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft (WDMMA), the Russian Air Force currently has 10 Felons in service, with an additional seventy-five airframes on order, which I reckon will have to go into “hurry up and wait” mode based upon the news reported in the preceding paragraph.    

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch , The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). 

 Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

What You Need to Know: Israel has secured a $5.2 billion agreement with Boeing to receive 25 advanced F-15EX Eagle II jets, designated locally as the F-15IA, with delivery starting in 2031. This deal will further enhance the Israeli Air Force's capabilities, equipping the jets with state-of-the-art Israeli and U.S. technologies, including extended range and increased payload.

-The acquisition will also allow upgrades to Israel's existing F-15I Ra'am fighters to an F-15I+ standard.

-The new jets will join the ranks of Israel’s growing air force fleet, bolstering its strategic advantage in the region.

Boeing has inked a $5.2 billion deal with Israel, which will see the Middle Eastern ally receive twenty-five new F-15EX Eagle II aircraft – with the first advanced multirole fighters to begin arriving in Israel in 2031. Batches of four to six fighters, which will be locally designated as the F-15IA, will be supplied annually.

The F-15s will be partially financed via U.S. military aid to Israel.

The F-15IAs will be "equipped with cutting-edge weapon systems, including the integration of state-of-the-art Israeli technologies," the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced. "The upgraded aircraft will feature enhanced range capabilities, increased payload capacity, and improved performance across various operational scenarios. These advantages will enable the Israeli Air Force to maintain its strategic superiority in addressing current and future challenges in the Middle East."

Washington approved the sale of 50 aircraft to Israel in August, along with 25 upgrade kits for existing F-15I Ra'am fighters. The kits will upgrade the Israeli Air Force's fleet of F-15I Ra'am fighters to the F-15I+ standard. The Ra'am is the Israeli variant of the F-15E Strike Eagle.

"Boeing is proud of its longstanding partnership with Israel, spanning from the nation’s founding until today," Boeing Israel President Maj. Gen. (res.) Ido Nehushtan. "The company will continue to work closely with the U.S. and Israeli governments to supply the advanced F-15IA aircraft within established military sales procedures.”

The IAF has operated the original F-15 Eagle since 1977, and it is service with the U.S. partner that it has seen the majority of its more than 100 aerial victories – with no combat losses. In 2014, the IAF also adopted the F-15E Strike Eagle.

According to Maya Carlin, writing for The National Interest, "The two-seat Eagle variant is equipped with an array of advanced avionics, weapons, communications, and electronic warfare capabilities. Unlike the F-15E Strike Eagle, the Ra'am is a dual-role fighter that combines air superiority and long-range interdiction."

The Ra'am is equipped with a Hughes APG-70 synthetic aperture radar, an Elbit display and sight helmet system, and the Kaiser holographic head-up display system. The APG-70 radar was developed to allow the Ra'am's crew to detect targets regardless of weather conditions.

"Each F-15I features a single 20mm M61MA1 Vulcan internal automatic cannon and can carry up to 18,000 pounds of fuel and munitions," Carlin added.

Israel has expressed interest in upgrading to the F-15EX since 2018 but only issued a formal request last year. 

"The Defense Ministry is constantly working, according to a structured plan, to strengthen the resilience and force-building capacity of the IDF," Defense Ministry Director-General Eyal Zamir said.

As the fighters arrive the IAF will form a new F-15 squadron, joining a third F-35I Adir squadron that was also raised earlier this year.

"This represents an unprecedented enhancement for our air force and the IDF’s long-term strategic capabilities, whose critical value was demonstrated in the Iron Swords war," Zamir added. "At this time, the Defense Ministry is promoting deals to strengthen all branches of the IDF­in the air, at sea, on land, in intelligence and beyond."

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

What You Need to Know: The USS Missouri, an Iowa-class battleship, is celebrated as one of the most iconic American warships. Commissioned during WWII, Missouri played crucial roles in WWII, the Korean War, and the Gulf War.

-Known as "Mighty Mo," this powerful ship boasted top-of-the-line firepower and advanced propulsion systems, capable of escorting carriers and launching formidable attacks.

-In 1945, Japan’s official surrender was signed aboard Missouri, cementing its historical significance. After its retirement in 1995, the legendary battleship became a museum at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it continues to honor its legacy.

As the last American battleship to be constructed and the final one to be decommissioned, the USS Missouri is widely considered to be one of the greatest warships of its kind to ever sail the seas. The legendary battleship is recognized for the critical role it played in the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Gulf War. 

Perhaps the greatest “fun fact” about Missouri is that Japan’s final surrender in 1945 was signed aboard the massive warship.

Before WWII, the U.S. Navy was already gearing up for a potential future war with the Empire of Japan. The Iowa-class battleships were designed with this conflict in mind. At the time, Japan possessed faster warships, including the Kongo-class battlecruisers and the 1st Air Fleet’s aircraft carriers. To create a more lethal successor to the Navy’s South Dakota-class battleships, the Iowa-class was conceptualized with larger engines and guns.

Missouri became the third ship to be named for the “Show Me State” when first introduced to service. She was nicknamed the “Mighty Mo” after she was christened by then Sen. Harry S. Truman’s (D-Missouri) daughter, Margaret Truman.

USS Missouri, like her sister ships, was developed to be able to reach upwards of thirty-three knots and to be able to travel through the Panama Canal. The Iowa-class ships are powered by four General Electric geared steam turbines using steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock and Wilcox burners. 

Armament-wise, Missouri’s guns were top-notch. The sixteen-inch/fifty-caliber weapons could fire a heavier shell at a longer range than those launched from the preceding South Dakota ships. As explained by analyst Robert Farley, “While the 18.1-inch guns of HIJMS Yamato launched a heavier shell, the sixteenth-inch/fifty-calibers had more penetrating power and could fire at a slightly faster rate.” 

These guns were so powerful that they recoiled four feet when fired, creating the illusion that the warship was moving sideways as the resulting blast pressure pushed the water out.

When Missouri first entered service in the mid-1940s, she joined Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Task Force 58 where she primarily functioned in the aircraft carrier escort role. During the war, Missouri supported the Iwo Jima invasion, the Ryukyus campaign, and other raids on Japan’s home islands. 

Missouri was the only Iowa-class battleship to remain on active duty following WWII. In her later years, the battleship would partake in the Korean War and the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The warship was reactivated and fitted with new combat systems and launchers for Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and Phalanx close-in weapon systems to remain relevant in her later age.

While the sole-surviving Iowa warship was reactivated twice during her service life, Missouri was officially stricken from the Naval Vessel Registrar in 1995 and was converted to a museum ship. Missouri, arguably the greatest battleship ever built for the Navy, remains at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii today.

Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. 

 Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

As President-elect Donald Trump moves to build his second administration, will he follow the Reaganite path of smaller government and lower taxes, or will he instead break from traditional Republican doctrine to focus on industrial growth and pro-family policies? Will his national security team be hawkish or dovish? And just how serious is he about his proposed tariffs?

In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with Daniel McCarthy, the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. McCarthy is the author of a recent New York Times essay on the 2024 presidential election, “This Is Why Trump Won.”

Image: Shutterstock.com.

What You Need to Know: Russia's prolonged campaign in Ukraine has led to severe losses in armor, aircraft, and manpower. An estimated 3,000-8,000 main battle tanks (MBTs) have been lost, including hundreds of T-72s and T-90s, as anti-armor tactics devastate Russian forces.

-Aircraft losses include around 369 fixed-wing assets, with the high-maintenance Su-57 also impacted. Manpower casualties reportedly exceed 600,000.

-Sustainability remains challenging: Russian tank production is limited to 50 per month, Su-57 production faces sanctions-related delays, and recruitment is propped up by higher pay incentives. The war’s toll highlights potential vulnerabilities in Russia’s military structure.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s seemingly interminable “special military operation” in Ukraine, doncha dare call it an actual voyna (war) in Mr. Putin’s presence, or within earshot of his minions, unless you want to end up either in Russian prison and/or dead! It has resulted in grievous losses in terms of manpower and material alike.  

Just how severe have Russia’s losses been? Let’s break it down into three specific categories, and from there examine how Putin’s forces can continue to sustain such losses.  

As cited by the CBC back in March, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based defense and security-focused think-tank, believes Russia has lost at least 3,000 MBTs in the Ukraine campaign. Other reports indicate that the number could be as high as 8,000. Whichever statistic you’re more inclined to believe, given the advances in anti-armor weapons in the twenty-first century, it should come as little surprise that Russian armor is taking such a horrific beating. 

-According to my colleague Maya Carlin, “Oryx estimates that Moscow has lost at least 145 T-90s, which are considered to be the most capable MBTs Russia fields…The downward performance trajectory for Russia’s most modern tank does not bode well for the Kremlin’s offensive efforts.” 

Out of roughly 4,000 T-90 units built, 3,000 of those ended up in actual Russian hands (as opposed to foreign customers. So, assuming for argument’s sake that the 145 dead tanks tally is accurate, that equates to a loss rate of 4.8 percent.

-The National Interest’s Harrison Kass reports that roughly 1,200 T-72s have been destroyed in Ukraine. This past July, Forbes staff writer David Axe reported that the oldest T-72s alone account for ten percent of the total fleet’s losses. SlashGear reported that 2.034 of them were still in Russian army service as of 2020, so those 1,200 dead T-72s equate to a mind-blowing 58.9 percent loss rate! 

Mind you, back in the latter three decades of the twentith century, the T-72 was one of the most vaunted MBTs of the Cold War era, especially on account of its performance in the Iran-Iraq War and the 1982 Lebanon War.)  

Older tanks such as the T-62, and T-54/T-55, which are being pressed back into service out of sheer desperation, are also taking a shellacking. For good measure, according to Newsweek, Russian APCs losses could be as high as 18,000. 

These severe losses have led to Russia’s unwillingness to deploy the newer T-14 Armata MBT, though the Armata’s exorbitant expenses and production shortfalls are also a demotivational factor. 

Granted, technically speaking, Russia’s fixed-wing military aircraft actually belong to the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) as opposed to the Russian Ground Forces, but since how the term “army” is ofttimes generically used as an all-encompassing term for a nation’s entire armed forces as opposed to just the actual army, why nitpick? 

The New Voice of Ukraine claims that 369 Russian aircraft have been destroyed thus far, and though admittedly these claims must be taken with a grain of salt, a more objective source, that being Michael Bohnert of the RAND Corporation stated, “After two years of air war, [Russia’s] total force is slightly less than seventy-five percent of its prewar strength…The VKS has directly lost approximately sixteen fighters over the past eight months. However, this does not account for the imputed losses, that arise from an aircraft accruing more flight hours than planned, reducing its overall life. Based on updated information, the VKS is on track to suffer approximately sixty imputed aircraft losses this year from overuse. That is equivalent to losing twenty-six new airframes.” 

These losses include the Russkies’ top-of-the-line fighter jet, the Sukhoi Su-57 “Felon” Fifth Generation stealth fighter, and the Beriev A-50 “Mainstay” airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) warbird.  

Mechanical/technological losses are plenty concerning, but of course, none of those high-tech, and not so high-tech, machines are any good without human beings, i.e. the flesh & blood troops who operate the war machines on the frontlines to begin with, and thus we come to the most morbid numbers in the metaphorical butcher’s bill that Russia is paying on the Ukraine front. 

As reported last month in Defense News, Pentagon officials stated that Russian casualties hit the 600,000 mark.  

What about the sustainability issue?  

Let’s start with the armor category. Fast-forward to this past April and Russia’s then-Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russian tank production was booming, boasting that, “The Omsk plant [in Siberia] is fulfilling the program, I can say it is even over-fulfilling the program. The issues and tasks that we decided on during our last visit have almost all been resolved.’” 

However, the aforementioned David Axe Forbes article painted a less rosy picture, that seems to belie nothing that Russian tank production is topping out at fifty per month.  

As for aircraft? Well, the Su-57 is currently facing a production halt thanks to a shortage of key components stemming from Western sanctions. Meanwhile, the Russkies’ other aspiring stealth fighter, the Su-75 “Checkmate” stealth fighter is languishing in Development Hell. RAND’s Mr. Bohnert notes that, “Meanwhile the VKS currently procures only about 20 total Su-30, Su-34, and Su-35 aircraft per year.” 

Last but not least, the human factor, i.e. replacing the flesh & blood cannon fodder of the Russian Army. Defense News states that, “So far Russia has been able to recruit more soldiers mostly through higher pensions and pay. The growing losses along the front may challenge that approach.” 

Then, of course, there’s that augmentation service being provided by the North Koreans.  

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch , The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). 

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

Tuesday’s presidential election represents just the latest clash in an ongoing epic struggle in America and throughout much of the West between the globalist elites of our time and a growing anti-elitist movement spawned and nurtured in the United States by Donald Trump. Despite his often outlandish manner and brutish expression, or perhaps in part because of them, he has forged a true national political movement bent on upending the elites and leading America in a new direction.

Before Trump’s emergence on the political scene back in 2015, both major parties had largely embraced an ethos of globalism, lenient immigration (including illegal immigration), free trade (even when it savaged domestic employment), anti-nationalism, identity politics, and cultural liberalism. Democrats embraced these attitudes avidly, while Republican leaders did so defensively out of a fear that the emerging world of ethnic diversity would leave them behind if they didn’t get with the program.

Then along came Trump with his blanket condemnation of the entire leadership class and his stark pronouncements denoting his intent to apply a political wrecking ball to the status quo. Political leaders of both parties were aghast, but, lo and behold, it turned out there was a serious constituency waiting for such a leader to emerge. Trump’s followers carried him into the White House, and the first big clash in the epic struggle ensued.

Trump lost that first clash. Part of the reason could be attributed to his own political naivete and inability to navigate the labyrinthine corridors of Washington, as well as his own egotistical temperament and narcissistic ways. He never managed to build upon the knot of political sentiment he had summoned during the 2016 campaign and create the kind of governing coalition that every president needs for success–and reelection. He lacked the intellectual tools, political acumen, rhetorical touch, and perhaps the fundamental decency to effectuate that. It often seemed that he simply had no interest in talking to people who weren’t already wearing MAGA hats.

Of course, he also was undermined by one of the most outrageous political maneuvers of recent memory: the bogus allegations of Russian collusion (treason) leading to a special counsel investigation that, in turn, severely undermined Trump’s political standing with much of the electorate. The nefarious nature of this stealthy assault is well documented in the report filed by special counsel John Durham in the spring of 2023.

In any event, Trump’s first term came a cropper when he failed to win reelection in 2020. A president who fails to win reelection is, by that criterion, a failed president, and Trump seemed to undermine his future political prospects even further with his actions on January 6, 2021, in relation to the repugnant Capitol riots. He seemed to be finished as a political figure.

But his followers didn’t go away because they had nowhere to go. And they rebelled when they saw President Biden doubling down on the globalist vision, already so entrenched within the top echelons of American society--the federal bureaucracy, the media, academia, big corporations, big finance, Hollywood, think tanks, and nonprofit NGOs with easy access to federal money. With all these institutions arrayed against the Trump followers, it wasn’t difficult for the Trumpists to see that all they had on their side was Trump himself. So they rallied to his banner throughout the year’s campaign with the aim of continuing the fight.

What are they fighting for? Their beliefs include:

-America’s experiment in nation-building, with an attendant propensity for regime change, has been a failure and needs to be replaced. America must be in the world but shouldn’t try to dominate it.

-Nationalism is a hallowed sentiment tied to old-fashioned patriotism and shouldn’t be denigrated or rejected.

-Identity group politics is eroding national cohesion and, through political correctness, is threatening free speech on the country’s college campuses; that threat will grow throughout society if not checked.

-Borders matter; countries without clearly delineated and enforced borders soon cease to be countries. Immigration should be calibrated to ensure smooth absorption and assimilation.

-Free trade, as practiced in the post-Cold War era, is killing the middle class, hollowing out the country’s industrial base and devastating its middle class. There needs to be more balance in trade relations.

-Islamic radicalism represents a potential threat to the homeland and needs to be monitored closely.

All this is anathema to the globalist leadership class, which had been seeking to fashion a governing coalition along the lines of political analyst Ron Brownstein’s concept of a “coalition of the ascendant,” encompassing racial minorities, immigrants, millennials, and highly educated whites. And one more: “just enough blue-collar Midwestern whites to put the president over the top.” With enough of those blue-collar whites, Brownstein figured, the Democrats could control the “Blue Wall” of crucial Great Lakes states and dominate the Electoral College. It was a nice theory, even after Trump’s 2016 triumph, because Joe Biden pulled that coalition together in 2020 in ousting Trump from the White House.  

But this week’s election results shattered that coalition concept and maybe forever. The Blue Wall didn’t hold, and minorities didn’t stick with the Democratic Party in the numbers needed for democratic victory. Trump built upon his numbers from previous elections, while Democrat Kamala Harris slipped below her party’s previous vote levels.

That leaves the Democratic Party in a political bind. It lost the White House Tuesday largely because Biden’s performance in office was so bad as to make the incumbent party ineligible for rehire. The border mess, the inflation surge, the fiscal promiscuousness (which contributed to the inflation), the foreign policy fiasco in Afghanistan, and the bumbling in Ukraine – all left the incumbent and his party looking hapless and incompetent. Exit Kamala Harris; enter Donald Trump.

However, Trump won’t succeed unless he can consolidate his constituency and build on his base through effective governance and deft political maneuvering. He needs, and his country needs, an effective governing coalition. He didn’t manage to build one last time around. This time might be different–or maybe not.  

Robert W. Merry, former Wall Street Journal correspondent and Congressional Quarterly CEO, is the author most recently of Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War (Simon & Schuster). Merry is the former Editor of this publication.   

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock. 

What You Need to Know: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has suffered severe losses since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with about half of its fleet damaged or destroyed. Ukraine’s effective use of asymmetrical tactics—maritime drones and anti-ship missiles—has crippled Russian naval operations, including key vessel losses like the Moskva cruiser.

-This attrition has allowed Ukraine to secure shipping lanes, notably for grain exports, while forcing Russia to shift naval resources away from Sevastopol.

-With Russian resources stretched across multiple fronts, rebuilding its navy may not be a priority, leaving it unable to mount significant naval power in the near future.

The Russian Navy has not fared well since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. About half of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been damaged or destroyed since hostilities began, severely impacting Putin’s naval abilities in a war that has cost Russia egregiously in troops and equipment.  

Putin’s naval losses are hardly an outlier. Russia’s figures for troop casualties, armored vehicle losses, and aircraft losses have all turned heads. And while the ground-based war has drawn focus away from the war’s naval element, Putin’s naval losses are head-turning, too. 

“The Ukrainians have destroyed or damaged roughly half of the Russian fleet’s warships, including one submarine, per publicly available information,” Business Insider reported.  

Curiously, the Ukrainians have not used their navy to destroy Russia’s navy, but instead, have relied upon maritime drones and long-range anti-ship missiles. Ukrainian tactics, and the success of those tactics, suggest that asymmetrical warfare may be an efficient way to thwart traditional naval power consisting of battleships and submarines. Naval action elsewhere, specifically, off the coast of Yemen, suggests similarly, where Houthi rebels using drones and missiles have disrupted operations for American supercarriers.  

The implications are huge: low-tech weaponry can disrupt and, in some cases, destroy multi-billion dollar vessels loaded with high-tech firepower.  

At the onset of the Russo-Ukraine War, Putin’s Black Sea fleet consisted of eighty warships. However, the Ukrainians are boasting that, “the Black Sea fleet operations have been greatly complicated, if not paralyzed.”  

Ukraine’s efforts have had practical benefits; Ukraine has been able to resume the use of shipping lanes to transport grain for export,  a crucial development given the importance of grain export to Ukraine’s economy, and to food stores globally. Further, Ukraine’s effectiveness at targeting the Black Sea fleet has required Russia to reallocate naval resources away from the homeport of Sevastopol.  

The list of ships that the Ukrainians have sunk is long. The most glaring and significant ship on the list is the Moskva guided missile cruiser. The Moskva had been the flagship of the Black Sea fleet; her sinking, in spring 2022, was one of the first suggestions that the Russians may be in for a longer, and more difficult, process than originally expected. 

Other sunk vessels include the Saratov amphibious landing ship, the Vasily Bekh rescue tugboat, the Ivan Golubets minesweeper, and the Rostov-on-Don submarine. 

There are more. “Several Russian ships that Ukraine claimed to have destroyed have yet to be fully identified, but reportedly among them are Raptor-class patrol boats, a BK-16 high-speed assault boat, Serna-class and Akula-class landing craft, and a Stenka-class patrol vessel,” Business Insider reported. 

Cumulatively, the losses mean that Putin is incapable of fielding a proper navy. And given the more pressing need to regenerate stores of lost armored equipment and aircraft, the navy is unlikely to receive the attention that would be required to regenerate itself.  

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken. 

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

What Does Trump Victory Mean For NATO?: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte congratulated President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying he looked forward to working to "advance peace through strength" via the international military alliance. Rutte highlighted the threats from a "more aggressive Russia" and from an "increasing alignment of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran."

Rutte also reminded the former and now future president that the U.S. could be far stronger thanks to its commitment to the organization.

"Through NATO, the US has 31 friends and Allies who help to advance US interests, multiply American power and keep Americans safe," said Rutte. "Together, NATO Allies represent half of the world's economic might and half of the world's military might."

By working with NATO members, Rutte further suggested that it will support the greatly intertwined economies, and that President-elect Trump should understand that NATO is now "stronger, larger, and (a) more united Alliance." Rutte also stressed that the members have fulfilled their commitment to reach spending goals.

"Two-thirds of Allies now spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence, and defence spending and production are on an onward trajectory across the Alliance," Rutte added.

The question being asked the day after Trump won a historic election is whether Trump will remain committed to NATO. On the campaign stump, he often talked about how America would not only turn its back on its allies but would allow Russia and other nations to essentially do "whatever the hell they want" as in perhaps invade, annex, or otherwise take over a NATO member that failed "pay its fair share."

At a South Carolina rally in February, Trump told attendees, "I said: Everybody's gotta pay. They said: Well, if we don't pay, are you still going to protect us? I said: Absolutely not. They couldn't believe the answer."

It remains unclear when that conversation occurred, or what nation's leader Trump made the comment to, and Trump further claimed he was asked if the U.S. would support a nation attacked by Russia if they failed to meet the 2% GDP spending requirements.

"No, I would not protect you," Trump said at the rally. "In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay."

Trump's apparent "friendship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin has also been seen as a concern, and as to whether the U.S. will simply allow Russia to prevail in its ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Moreover, the president-elect has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "one of the greatest salesman" for the military aid he received from Washington under the Biden administration.

That doesn't mean Trump would actually pull out of NATO.

"To be perfectly blunt, no one knows. He has no deep commitment to NATO and he has long argued that Europe should do much more to defend itself," Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School told Newsweek. "But he may prefer to stay in NATO in order to have influence over its policies, while constantly complaining about what the Europeans are doing and using the threat of withdrawal to coerce them on both economic and security matters."

The final questions that really need to be asked is not whether the United States should leave NATO, or even if Europe is paying its fair share, but whether the U.S. can afford to leave NATO.

The U.S. Navy is a rusting mess that will need a decade or longer to reach its ship strength goals, while the U.S. Air Force is also struggling to fund its expensive programs. Even if the U.S. were to adopt a more isolationist stance, the military has only reached recruiting goals for the first time in nearly a decade.

The U.S. military needs allies in NATO, as well as in the Indo-Pacific to stand up to Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other global threats.

An America First agenda could be a step backward. While the oceans once kept America safe that likely won't be the case in the day of stealth aircraft, hypersonic weapons, and China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

Won't Happen?: Russia’s long-delayed Tupolev PAK DA bomber, codenamed “Poslannik,” aims to replace aging bombers like the Tu-95 Bear. Although slower than other bombers, the PAK DA focuses on advanced stealth capabilities and can carry nuclear payloads and hypersonic missiles.

-However, its development has faced consistent setbacks since 2007, compounded by engine issues and resource diversions to the Ukraine conflict.

-With deployment expected by 2027, Russia faces a growing strategic gap as U.S. and Chinese stealth bombers advance. Despite delays, Russia may prioritize the PAK DA, driven by necessity in an increasingly competitive global arms race. However, Moscow has a long history of making big military platform claims and never delivering. 

Codenamed “Poslannik,” (which means “envoy” or “messenger” in Russian), Russia’s Tupolev PAK DA bomber is the Russian Aerospace Forces’ newest toy. It is a long-range, stealth strategic bomber that is intended to ultimately replace the aging Tu-95 Bear bomber. The Poslannik has a projected range of 12,000 km (7,500 miles) and can stay airborne for 30 hours while carrying a nuclear payload. 

Russia’s new warbird is a bit of a slowpoke. It cannot reach supersonic speeds. But, according to the designers of the Tu PAK DA, their emphasis was less on speed and more on stealth capabilities. 

In fact, the plane’s designers have argued that the plane’s slower speed allows it to carry a larger payload package that not only includes nuclear weapons, but Russia’s innovative hypersonic missiles. The Poslannik bomber is rumored to have a payload capacity of 30 tons, which exceeds the US Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber maximum payload capacity. In fact, the PAK DA bomber has elements that stealth plane geeks would recognize from America’s B-2 stealth bomber plane. 

Like American stealth bombers, the Russian Tu-PAK DA is commanded by a powerful suite of sophisticated computers that do everything from maintaining flight control to monitoring enemy movements. 

The Tupolev designers believe that the PAK DA’s superior stealth technology coupled with its ability to launch hypersonic payloads negates the need to outrun enemy air defenses. Although, it should be noted that a persistent problem in Russian bomber design has been its engines. When Tupolev designed the Tu-95, for example, they opted to make the long-range nuclear-capable bomber a turbo-prop-driven plane rather than a turbojet-driven plane, as the American B-52 Stratofortress is. 

It is possible that the Russians are again having issues with their engines for this new, fifth-generation stealth bomber and they are simply opting out of acquiring more powerful engines altogether.

Looking like something that a Marvel Comic book villain would fly, the Tupolev PAK DA is probably Russia’s best attempt at employing stealth technology. I say “probably” because the warbird has yet to take flight. Russian sources report that Moscow plans to deploy the Tu-PAK DA Poslannik in service at some pointbetween now and 2027, with most acknowledging that it’ll be closer to 2027. The issue at hand for Russia is the longer the stealth bomber’s deployment is delayed, the greater the capabilities gap exists in Russia’s offensive air capabilities.

In the meantime, the Russians have upgraded their Tu-160 “White Swan” bombers to continue fulfilling mission critical roles. Although, these planes are not of the fifth-generation series and, therefore, Moscow wants to ultimately place the Tu-PAK DA’s as their lead bomber in today’s age of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) warfare. This has led to some speculation in the West that the Tu-PAK DA Poslannik will never fly. 

After all, it has been in development since 2007. 

Faced with delays for 17 years (and still counting), whatever progress has been made on the planes, now that the Ukraine War has erupted and is diverting considerable Russian resources away from such projects, like the Tu-PAK DA bomber, one can anticipate more delays.

The Russians have been lying for a few years about how far along they are with the Tu-PAK DA’s development. After all, the Russians were supposed to have a demonstration plane ready for use by 2023. Now, Russia’s defense ministry says it won’t be until next year, two years after it was originally supposed to be ready for use, that a demonstration Tu-PAK DA will be available.

And the longer the delay lasts for the deployment of the Tu-PAK DA, the greater the capabilities gap is for Russia’s air force. Not only have the Americans outpaced the Russians with the recent successful demonstration of the B-21 bomber, but the Chinese have gotten their own long-range stealth bomber, the H-20, which Beijing claims can “out-bomb” US Air Force facilities in the Indo-Pacific.

One thing that is working in Russia’s favor is the fact that the Ukraine War has forced its manufacturing sector to go on a war-footing—where it will likely remain for some time to come. 

Still, Russian aerospace firms are having difficulty meeting increased demand for their products. This has especially been felt in the Su-35 series, a “fourth-generation ++” warplane. Nevertheless, the Russians have remained in the fight. What’s more, as I have noted previously, the Russians are winning and are likely to defeat Ukraine (and their NATO backers) simply through attrition. 

Inevitably, the Russians will have to prioritize the creation of their Tu-PAK DA bomber. 

Otherwise, they will have left a significant strategic gap for the Americans to fly through with their B-21. 

As an American, I hope this remains the case. Although, after two years of the Ukraine War, the Americans should learn never to underestimate the Russians. Theirs is a society that is compelled by necessity, the kind of necessity that total war brings. At some point, they’ll get the Tu-PAK DA right.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is out now from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

All images are Creative Commons. 

When should you hazard pricey, hard-to-replace capital ships in battle? That question has vexed wartime naval commanders as long as there have been navies to command. Nor is it hard to see why. Societies sink inordinate resources into ships of war. Cruisers, destroyers, and submarines are what economists term “lumpy capital,” costing taxpayers upwards—commonly well upwards—of $1 billion per copy. Aircraft carriers are the lumpiest of them all. Any sane commander would think twice before sending a $13.3 billion ship of the line like a Ford-class nuclear-powered carrier in harm’s way.

That’s a lot of public capital to wager—and perhaps lose—in an afternoon. That America’s standing in the world depends on sea power only compounds commanders' qualms before giving the order dispatching major combatants into a fleet action.

That being the case, fashioning a risk calculus ahead of time is no idle exercise. Senior uniformed and civilian leaders warn that the balloon could go up in the Western Pacific in the next two or three years. Many within the Beltway bandy about 2027 as the prime danger zone. When and if it breaks out, a new Pacific war would presumably see a domineering China mount a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. Chinese Communist Party supremo Xi Jinping has certainly ordered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready for military action by 2027, while confounding aggression and preserving the island’s de facto independence would be the point of U.S. and friendly military intervention.

Predominant trendlines, then, make the waters, skies, and landmasses shoreward of Asia’s second island chain today’s likeliest oceanic battleground. That’s where commanders and their political masters may have to gauge whether to risk the U.S. Navy battle fleet. Some pivotal questions they must ask themselves:

Who wants it more? Naval historian and theorist extraordinaire Alfred Thayer Mahan explains how to size a fleet or fleet contingent for high-seas success. Simply put, a fleet must boast enough combat power to win the fight it seems likely to fight. A “broad formula,” writes Mahan, is that the fleet “must be great enough to take the sea, and to fight, with reasonable chances of success, the largest force likely to be brought against it . . . .”

An easy formula to state, a hard one to implement. We’ll come back to the operational part—reasonable chances of success, to borrow Mahan’s phrasing—below. For now let’s estimate, or at least ponder how to estimate, how large a share of its navy each antagonist seems likely to commit to battle in the Western Pacific. What each contender commits sets the standard of adequacy for its opponent. This is a geopolitical question. Answering it is largely subjective. In the Western Pacific, it involves estimating how much American and Chinese societies treasure conflicting goals in a war over Taiwan. The more ardently each contestant craves its goals, the more generously it will apportion forces to obtain those goals.

How much you want something governs how much you're willing to pay for it, and for how long.

China covets Taiwan a great deal indeed, which is why Beijing tends to keep the bulk of the PLA Navy and affiliated joint forces concentrated close to home. The leadership is prepared to invest heavily in conquest of the island, and to sustain the investment for as long as it takes. The United States, on the other hand, ranks Taiwan’s de facto independence as one desirable goal among many scattered across the globe. U.S. leaders could waffle in times of strife as they debate priorities. Whether they would stomach the opportunity costs of leaving, say, the Red Sea uncovered for Taiwan’s sake appears doubtful judging from the fleet’s current disposition. Fleet units are dispersed on various errands, chiefly around the Eurasian periphery. They are not concentrated in the Indo-Pacific, the theater successive presidential administrations have assigned paramount importance.

Advantage: China.

That being the case, it seems clear that a fraction of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, operating alongside the Air Force, the Army, and whatever allied forces join in, will confront the combined weight of the Chinese armed forces on China’s home ground. As the lesser combatant, at least at the outset, Washington will court severe risk to the fleet should it take a Mahanian approach to shielding Taiwan from assault. The White House must consult with Congress and the American people, appraising—and, if necessary, combusting—popular passion on behalf of the island’s defense. No liberal society can sustain a strenuous war effort for long absent such fervor.

Better to forego the endeavor if popular sentiment fails to catch fire. The White House should reject wagering precious ships and crews for a cause about which ordinary citizens and their elected representatives care little. Conserve the fleet for another day.

Think grand strategically. Admiral Chester Nimitz had it easy by comparison to today’s leadership, and the reason why was industrial in nature. When Nimitz assumed command of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in late December 1941, he knew that shipwrights were riveting together a shiny new fleet back home, courtesy of the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 and past naval expansion laws. In effect America was constructing a second complete U.S. Navy. New hulls would start appearing in Pacific waters in mid-1943. Knowing that allowed Nimitz to gamble with the remnants of the fleet battered at Pearl Harbor. He might lose the remains of the prewar armada, but defeat would be temporary and reversible. In the meantime he might do the cause some good.

If you have a spare of something on the way, why not roll the dice with the one you have?

The outlook is less sanguine today. Nimitz’s distant successor, Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the joint U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, will fight with the fleet he has. That’s because an atrophied U.S. maritime-industrial complex is struggling to manufacture and maintain surface combatants in peacetime. How will shipbuilders cope when battle losses mount up, imposing extra demand on the system? If Admiral Paparo cannot count on industry to repair or replace damaged ships, a risk-averse posture seems like his best bet.

The ability to regenerate strength after a fight cushions against catastrophe, and permits risk-taking with the force. That is not a luxury Paparo enjoys. Circumstances will compel him to husband his capital ships while his PLA Navy antagonists, backed by China’s mammoth industrial complex, could choose to fling caution to the wind.

But winning might not demand a Mahanian fleet-on-fleet engagement. The upside to this dreary prognosis is that the U.S. Navy might not have to wage a titanic fleet engagement early on in order to vanquish China’s strategy. Heck, conceivably it might not need to risk a high-seas engagement at all. Wise strategic and operational design could spare the fleet a decisive battle until such time as the U.S. military can amass combat power in the theater sufficient to win a Mahanian encounter. Risk postponed is risk managed if commanders play things right.

Success requires that commanders keep their priorities straight. Sinking the PLA Navy in battle is not the point of U.S. Western Pacific strategy, desirable though it might be. Defeating China’s strategy is the point. Ensuring Taiwan’s survival means preventing an invasion fleet from crossing the Taiwan Strait, mounting amphibious landings, and occupying the island. And many implements out of the martial panoply—not just capital ships—could stymie an amphibian offensive.

Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti alludes to this in her recent “Navigation Plan,” where she exhorts the sea service to gird itself for “nontraditional sea denial.” Admiral Franchetti tacitly and correctly admits that the U.S. Navy will be the lesser contender on day one of a Western Pacific maelstrom. After all, sea denial is a strategy of the weaker pugilist, designed to balk a brawnier foe by denying it the fruits of maritime command. Fruits such as the ability to move amphibious shipping across the sea to land on hostile beaches.

That sounds discomfiting for a force like the U.S. Navy, accustomed as it is to ruling the waves. But take heart: the weak sometimes prevail in warfare provided they do things right.

And indeed, embracing a sea-denial strategy in the Western Pacific should comfort fretful stewards of the U.S. Navy battle fleet. It doesn’t necessarily take a capital ship to bar the PLA’s access to vital seaways. Missile- and torpedo-laden submarines are sea-denial assets par excellence. So are surface missile patrol craft such as those deployed by allies. Moreover, fighting jointly spreads risk across the entire force, encompassing not just the seagoing but land-based arms of maritime might. Missile-toting aircraft can strike out to sea, lending their firepower to the sea-denial mix. Unmanned aerial, surface, and subsurface craft have a growing part to play. Strategically placed minefields can encumber Chinese maritime movement.

And don’t neglect ground forces. Bodies of missile-armed troops dispersed along the island chains can cut loose against naval and merchant shipping, obstructing access to waters Chinese vessels must traverse to help China fulfill its war aims. The U.S. Marine Corps and Army are planning to do just that.

U.S. military lingo awkwardly dubs nontraditional implements of sea power “riskworthy.” They are the opposite of lumpy capital. Some—uncrewed vehicles in particular—are altogether expendable. In short, commanders can take a venturesome attitude toward platforms that are plentiful and inexpensive by contrast with high-tech destroyers or lumbering, scarce, über-capital-intensive flattops. Sea denial lets maritime overseers delay risking the capital-ship fleet until a more favorable correlation of forces beckons. Once U.S. naval and joint forces have gathered in the theater and outmatch the foe, then commanders may opt to launch into an offensive culminating in a—yes, risky, no escaping it—decisive Mahanian engagement.

In short, senior leaders can conserve lumpy capital through sea denial—expending lesser assets as an interim measure pending more auspicious times.

Embrace “calculated risk” at the operational level. Depending on how their sea-denial strategy unspools, U.S. commanders may ultimately bid for maritime supremacy in the Western Pacific. Enfeebling the PLA Navy would solve many problems. They are far from the first to face the quandary of whether to risk the fleet. On the eve of the Battle of Midway in mid-1942, Admiral Nimitz instructed task-force commanders Rear Admiral Raymond J. Spruance and Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher to engage the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Kidō Butai, or mobile aircraft-carrier striking force, based on the “principle of calculated risk.” In effect Admiral Nimitz told Spruance and Fletcher to attack if they expected to do worse to the Japanese fleet than the Japanese fleet would do to them.

U.S. commanders appraising the People’s Liberation Army should undertake calculations similar to Nimitz’s. If they expect to get worse than they give, they should refrain from risking the fleet. If they expect to give worse than they get, they should act. They should also bear in mind the sage but caustic words of another World War II sailor, Rear Admiral Daniel Gallery, who reputedly wisecracked that “the definition of a calculated risk is a gamble which military men take when they can’t figure out what else to do and which turns out to be right. When it turns out wrong, it wasn’t a calculated risk at all. It was a piece of utter stupidity.” Gallery's words should temper any impulse at derring-do.

Commanders should strike the golden mean between foolhardiness, meaning an excess of risk-taking, and timidity, meaning excessive aversion to risk, when debating how to deploy precious assets.

The best strategic offense is a good tactical defense. A final consideration is tactical in nature. If the U.S. Navy can defend its capital ships effectively, carrier groups in particular, then commanders can afford to strike a daring attitude vis-à-vis the foe. If not, they should exercise restraint. Navy weapons tactics specialists seem remarkably comfortable with the sea service’s ability to protect itself against antiship missiles and drones. The campaign against the Houthis in the Red Sea has been indecisive in the strategic sense, falling short of its goal of restoring merchant traffic through that swathe of the nautical common. But it has been a resounding success in the tactical sense. No warship has absorbed a hit in almost a year of warfare. Moreover, new defensive weaponry—not just extended-range precision munitions but directed energy, more robust electronic warfare, counter-drone drones, and so forth—is making its way out to the fleet. Things are looking up.

Newfangled weaponeering could hold down the risk to the fleet—making the decision whether to hazard lumpy capital more palatable. Commanders can take a more offensive stance if they repose confidence in the fleet’s ability to withstand punishment.

Naval commanders have an unenviable lot in the Pacific. They have to prevail with the force they have against a more numerous antagonist that’s able to rebound after taking heavy blows. But if they harness the assets at their command cleverly, they might yet face down or defeat aggression.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University. The views voiced here are his alone.

What You Need to Know: Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is known for thick black smoke emissions due to its outdated Mazut fuel system, adding to its long list of mechanical issues.

-Currently in dry dock for extensive repairs since 2018, the vessel has faced numerous setbacks, including multiple fires, crane accidents, and allegations of budget embezzlement.

-With a damaged dry dock delaying repair work further, the Kuznetsov's return to operational status seems unlikely.

-The carrier's infamous smoke, a relic of its obsolete fuel system, is a testament to its troubled history and Russia's struggling carrier program.

As if the deadly mishaps and accidents were not bad enough, this ship belches out an embarrassing amount of thick, black smoke that reminds everyone how clunky the vessel is. I’m talking about Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, that is now in dry dock for many months.

It may not even go out to sea again due to all its maladies.

It seems like the Russians are not making carrier operations a priority, which is good for the United States and NATO as the Russian Black Sea fleet currently idles off the coast of Ukraine in danger from further hits from Ukrainian anti-ship missiles.

One aspect of Russia’s struggling aircraft carrier program is the Kuznetsov’s propensity to throw out a plume of dark smoke when sailing.

The smoke is a telltale sign the ship is steaming when it’s not in hung up in maintenance. This is a curiosity that prompts further investigation.

The Kuznetsov runs on a thick, smelly, and toxic substance called Mazut. The only other Russian naval ships that are fueled by Mazut are the Sovremenny-class destroyers. Mazut is a heavy oil product that has varying amounts of sulfur which is harmful to the environment.

After the fuel refining process, it has a sludge-like residue. Mazut is also classified in the West as “Bunker-B or Bunker-C” very heavy fuel oils. 

Mazut requires a complicated system of boilers and pipes to process.

It is long out-of-date as Western ships began to move away from heavy fuel oils to adopt gas turbine engines for propulsion in the 1960s and 1970s. More advanced navies converted to nuclear power as well.

When the Kuznetsov underwent sea trials in the 1990s there were problems with propulsion. Pipes were defective and this contributed to more issues with the boilers. At one point, the Kuznetsov had only one functioning boiler that resulted in a languishing speed of 4-knots.

The boilers are still a problem, and the carrier has resorted to being pulled by tugboats in embarrassing spectacles that happened as recently as 2016. 

The boiler difficulties have led to Mazut not being fully combusted and this has been the culprit of all the black smoke. Excess engine lubricant contributes to the problem as well.

The Russians hoped to replace the boilers and the primary diesel generator to help the combustion in 2020, but it remains to be seen if this work has been accomplished.

What’s more humiliating is that the Kuznetsov has been in re-fit mode since 2018. Little has gone right.

A crane fell on the flight deck in an accident that killed one laborer that year. There was a fire in the engine room in 2019 and two people perished while 14 others were injured. To add to the difficulty, a shipyard director was charged in 2021 for embezzling around $600,000 from the repair budget at the Polyarny Yard. 

The dry dock itself is also damaged which means those repairs will elongate the time horizon for ship-work. The carrier may not hit the seas for trials for many months or even years. 

There was another fire as well back in 2022. 

As for the black smoke, it will likely not be addressed by workers before the dry dock is fixed. It seems that Mazut is the least of the ship’s worries. The Admiral Kuznetsov is under plenty of duress that will make its return unlikely any time soon. The black smoke is just a reminder that the carrier has led a cursed life.

Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood.

All images are Creative Commons. 

What You Need to Know: At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. secretly acquired 21 MiG-29 warplanes from Moldova to prevent their potential sale to Iran, fearing that the nuclear-capable MiG-29C variant might end up destabilizing the region.

-The U.S. transported these aircraft to Ohio in 1997, where they became invaluable for intelligence and training.

-Both American and Israeli pilots tested the MiG-29, gaining critical insights into Russian aerial tactics.

-The MiG-29’s thrust and helmet-mounted cueing system impressed pilots, providing Western forces with an understanding of Russian capabilities and refining U.S. and Israeli combat tactics for today’s air battles.

The Soviet-made MiG-29 warplane was equal to and, in some cases, surpassed the capabilities of the American F-15 and F-16 fighters. That was the conclusion of one of the American test pilots who flew the MiG-29 at the end of the Cold War. That pilot was one of many Americans. 

No, that test pilot was not brought over to consult with the post-Soviet Russian government like so many Westerners were back in the 1990s. That test pilot flew the MiG-29 at an American military base. Because, unbeknownst to the public, the US military had purchased 21 MiG-29 warplanes at the end of the Cold War. 

Moldova is a tiny country that sits dangerously near to Russia. 

After the fall of the USSR, the tiny country found itself in possession of a fleet of 34 MiG-29s and eight Mi-8 Hip Soviet helicopters. Moldova could not afford to maintain this arsenal. Washington feared that the Moldovan government, desperate for funds, and with little else of value to sell, would sell these planes to Iran. 

Specifically, America’s leaders were concerned that Moldova would sell the MiG-29C variant to the Iranians. This is the MiG-29 that is equipped to carry nuclear weapons. Since Iran has been dedicated to acquiring nuclear weapons since the 1980s - at least, according to many experts -  and the Americans believe such a move would be highly destabilizing for the Middle East region, Washington has striven to prevent such developments. 

So, America bought a large tranche of these warplanes and shipped them covertly back to the United States aboard C-17 transports. They arrived in Dayton, Ohio, in 1997.

At that point, these birds became a favorite new, exotic toy for the US Air Force to play with (in secret, of course).

More than that, though, the Americans were able to glean significant intelligence on a warplane that it had otherwise had only limited working knowledge of. What was learned was helpful, especially now that, unfortunately, Russo-American relations are at their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. 

Russian warplanes are a continual threat to US and NATO forces operating in Europe. 

For American pilots to have an understanding of what their possible rivals in the Russian Air Force are trained to do, it could help them understand how to survive—and win—against them in a dogfight.

It wasn’t only the Americans who gained access to MiG-29s. The Israelis did, too. Likely out of concern that the Iranians might someday gain access to the MiG-29, the Israelis wanted to know what they were possibly up against. So, they also trained on these birds. The Israelis fell in love with the warplane. Like the Americans, they determined that the MiG-29 is a very difficult plane to dogfight with—unless it is in the hands of an experienced pilot.

That’s because the thrust on those birds is phenomenal. 

What’s more, it lacks many of the accoutrements that pilots in American warplanes rely on. Although, the MiG-29 is not entirely lacking in high-technology. In fact, many reports suggest that the MiG-29’s helmet-mounted cueing system was more advanced than anything in either the American or Israeli arsenals when the MiG-29s were first tested by the West. This system the MiG-29 pilots to have more accurate targeting at greater angles than their American rivals. 

Ultimately, that advantage would go away by 2003. But for more than a decade, the Russian MiG-29 had a better targeting capability than any American warplane did. The American acquisition of the MiG-29 might have even helped enhance the American warplane targeting systems. After all, exploitation units for the Air Force were given the MiG-29 to experiment with. The entire purpose of those units is to identify foreign technologies that might be useful and reverse-engineer them.

The acquisition of MiG-29s at the end of the Cold War was a bold and brilliant bit of intelligence work. It likely had immeasurable assistance in getting the Air Force to understand what they might be up against. Further, the Air Force probably perfected technologies that are now essential for US pilots in combat today. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is out now from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

All images are Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.