US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged Western nations to return to what he called their civilisational roots and ensure the West "maintains its place at the head of the world" in a speech delivered against the backdrop of the Acropolis in Athens. The top US diplomat called on Europe to follow President Donald Trump's America in choosing the "unapologetic pursuit of national power" over the "global community".
The US Air Force’s next strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider, is moving from flight test to the flight line, and the industrial base is expanding to match that pace. As part of this effort, the Department of the Air Force and the manufacturer broke ground on a new bomber final assembly line at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
“It’s more than construction… we’re moving fast to build B-21s! The Department of the Air Force & @northropgrumman have broken ground in Palmdale, CA, on over 1M sq ft of new facilities that will be the final assembly line at Air Force Plant 42,” Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Troy E. Meink recently wrote in a post on X.
The B-21 Raider is the USAF’s next-generation nuclear- and conventional-capable, long-range penetrating bomber optimized for highly contested environments.
The new assembly line likely supports an agreement signed in February 2026 to increase annual B-21 production capacity by 25% using $4.5 billion in funding from the fiscal year 2025 reconciliation legislation.
Separately, Northrop Grumman is investing approximately $2.5 billion of its own capital over several years in related facilities and capacity. In September 2026, the company also opened the East Gate 3 manufacturing campus in Layton, Utah, to produce key B-21 components.
The construction of an all-new assembly line shows that expansion at the B-21’s production facility has moved from planning and funding to active construction.
This expansion is meant to give the service extra manufacturing capacity as the B-21 advances through flight testing and into initial operational deliveries.
The USAF plans to buy at least 100 B-21 bombers to replace the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit and eventually complement the B-52 Stratofortress.
The B-21 Raider program remains in low-rate initial production, meaning Northrop Grumman is building a small number of aircraft to test and refine the production process before full-rate production begins.
At the same time, senior officials have said the Air Force may need more than the current minimum of 100.
In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he believed “a lot more” B-21s were needed. Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo had earlier said he would favor a fleet of 200 for nuclear deterrence and penetrating strike.
A Mitchell Institute report has likewise argued that 100 is a raid force, not a campaign force. None of those comments changes the program of record, and the Palmdale construction is tied to the February capacity agreement, not to an approved increase in the buy.
A B-21 Raider conducts flight testing, including ground testing, taxiing, and flight operations, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Courtesy photo
Furthermore, a report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said the USAF’s current plans to purchase “at least” 100 B-21s match one-time operations into hostile airspace but are insufficient to maintain pressure in a larger conflict because they are “a raid force, not a campaign force.”
Meanwhile, the USAF has said the sixth-generation bomber—which currently has no analogs in the world—is “close” to entering service. In fact, it is expected to reach Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, one of the three bases selected to host the Raider, in 2027.
This bomber project has moved at a breakneck pace, going from the official public unveiling in December 2022 to the maiden flight in November 2023. In fact, an operational test pilot flew alongside a developmental test pilot, sharing the B-21 cockpit for the first time in June this year, underscoring the urgency of fielding the bomber.
The B-21 Raider’s rapid path from first flight to operational ramp at Ellsworth AFB in 2027 marks a striking acceleration in how the US fields a complex new strategic bomber.
Observers have lauded the speed, remarking that it has been unusually compressed for a program of this scale and sensitivity. This speed, however, was made possible because of a more fundamental shift: the B-21 was built virtually before it was ever built in metal.
B-21 Raider Rewrote Pentagon Acquisition Rules
For decades, major US defense programs followed the process, but aspirational designs fell behind schedule and prototypes revealed problems missed earlier, delaying programs and driving up costs. Northrop claims to be breaking away from this pattern.
Northrop states that it built the B-21 virtually first, using an extensive digital ecosystem and high-fidelity digital twins long before cutting metal. Succinctly put, unlike previous bombers that were primarily analog and later adapted for the digital era, the B-21 was built to function, endure, and evolve in the contemporary environment.
Developing and producing combat aircraft previously involved designing, building a prototype, testing it, discovering problems, and redesigning. However, Northrop essentially inverted this sequence, using a constantly changing digital model for the Raider.
This gave engineers, manufacturers, and operators a common reference point, enabling them to evaluate and implement design changes almost instantly.
This method enabled engineers to model aerodynamic performance, stealth features, structural loads, and systems integration long before components entered production.
This meant that design modifications that once required expensive rework could be assessed and verified virtually, often in a few hours rather than months.
The team simulated and refined structural loads, stealth characteristics, flight dynamics, and systems integration in the virtual environment before committing to physical hardware.
As a result, the physical aircraft that emerged from this approach matched or even outperformed the models’ predictions, according to the manufacturer.
This, in turn, has allowed the program to compress testing timelines, accelerate production, and keep costs under tighter control.
File: A B-21 Raider conducts flight tests, which include ground testing, taxiing, and flying operations, at Edwards Air Force Base, California
Unsurprisingly, the result was an unusually mature aircraft when the first Raider took flight. Northrop earlier said, “Before the B-21 ever took to the sky, the flying test bed completed more than 200 test sorties totaling more than 1,000 flight hours, testing production hardware, software, and sensors in a dynamic environment and enabling teams to tackle discovery well in advance.”
The speed with which B-21 moved from production to testing and into an operational setting at a USAF airbase was best demonstrated by the approach the manufacturer and the Air Force took during flight testing. A major 180-day test cycle was reportedly completed in just 73 days, as revealed in May 2026.
Officials have even stated that the program is exceeding expectations, as test aircraft are achieving high “code one” rates, which is the rate at which the aircraft is ready to fly again with minimal issues
The Combined Test Force achieved half the originally planned missions in less than half the planned time, while supporting significant contract value.
This compression was not the product of rushed flying, and reflected fewer surprises, higher aircraft availability, real-time data analysis, and the ability to clear multiple test points on single sorties.
The advantage of building the aircraft digitally has reportedly extended to the production lines. “Where the digital environment meets the production floor, this digital technology expedites configuration management, facilitating communication between technicians and engineers during the build, in some areas already reducing manufacturing hours by roughly a third,” according to the Northrop Grumman newsroom.
Nonetheless, the B-21 is not without risk, though experts think careful digital engineering, precise digital twins, and a conscious move away from sequential physical prototypes can break the long-standing pattern of delays.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
The counting of votes in the first round of Brazil’s general elections was the subject of great controversy. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, was ahead of Lula in the official count, with 49.6%, against 42.2% for the president seeking re-election.
64.8% of the polling stations had been tallied up to that point. But the count was halted for more than an hour. Strangely, the votes for governor, senator and deputies continued to be counted normally. Only the presidential count was halted.
And, even more strangely, when the presidential count resumed, Flávio Bolsonaro’s upward trend and Lula’s downward trend were reversed. The opposition candidate’s votes plummeted, while those of the current president rose. Flávio Bolsonaro was less than 0.5% away from the victory that would hand him the presidential sash. He lost more than 2%, ending with 47.03%, while Lula gained almost 3%, ending with 45.16%.
It seemed that Flávio Bolsonaro would dethrone Lula right in the first round. But, after more than an hour of halted counting, Lula managed to recover and the race will only be decided in the second round.
The count was halted at 7:06 p.m. (Brasília time), with 64.8% of the ballots tallied. Only at 8:08 p.m. were the new results presented, already with 84.96% of the ballots tallied.
The official justification was given by the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Kassio Nunes Marques, who is also a justice on the Supreme Federal Court (STF). “What happened was a data congestion. In every election, we are surprised by some incident, which is natural for those who deal with complex and highly varied systems,” he said. “At first, it is not known whether this was derived from another problem. What our IT found was a flow [of data] above the normal level, and that congestion caused a delay,” he added.
There is an aggressive propaganda campaign in Brazil, spearheaded by the Electoral Justice, to convince citizens that elections are 100% clean. The main focus of this propaganda is precisely the electronic voting machines. Judicial institutions and media outlets give wide dissemination to the Electoral Justice’s claims about the total reliability of the electronic voting machines, even highlighting that they are tested before the election and then sealed so that no one can access them.
So why did the machines suffer a kind of breakdown, if they had been rigorously tested? Well, the oh-so-wise TSE has full knowledge of the number of eligible voters and of the number of votes that can be recorded in the machines, including in each polling station. The Electoral Justice’s propaganda tells the public that the machines are fully prepared in advance to record and tally voters’ votes perfectly.
No flow of data “above the normal level” that would lead to system congestion should occur, because the most varied data and statistics regarding vote recording are known and the calculations are perfectly feasible. The infallibility of the electronic voting machines requires that all possible outcomes be predictable and that, therefore, there be no anomaly whatsoever.
So how is it possible, then, that such a perfect system – as it is portrayed by the institutions of the Brazilian State – suffers a failure which, once supposedly resolved, so radically changed the trend of the presidential votes?
It may be a coincidence that Flávio Bolsonaro plummeted and Lula rose after the voting machines failed. But who knows? The TSE president acknowledged that the electronic voting system is “complex.” Only highly qualified specialists, from the TSE itself and from technology companies, can access it and understand it, according to the Electoral Justice. Thus, the fate of an entire country for the next four years rests in the hands of these specialists – 150 technicians unknown to the public. The tally of votes from the machines is fully automated; it passes through no human being. An even more select number of 22 employees access the automated vote totalization.
This means that 214 million Brazilians need to trust those 150 or 22 Egyptian priests to interpret that occult science. They must be the most enlightened beings on planet Earth – 100% honest, upright, immaculate and virginal. Even the STF justices, who over the past 15 years have been presented as impeccable, virtuous and chaste individuals, now appear embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s recent history, yet those anonymous specialists deserve citizens’ most absolute trust.
It was for reasons such as these that the Supreme Court of Germany declared electronic voting unconstitutional: “every citizen must be able to understand and verify the central stages of elections in a reliable manner and without any prior specialized technical knowledge.”
The verdict, dated 2009, concludes:
“An electoral procedure in which the voter cannot reliably understand whether his or her vote was recorded in an unfalsifiable manner and included in the tally of the election result, and how the total of votes cast is assigned and counted, excludes central elements of the electoral procedure from public scrutiny and therefore fails to meet constitutional requirements.”
The Brazilian judicial system is mired in its greatest crisis in history and is living through a true Wild West, with partisan feuds interfering in the functioning of its work. Partisanship, in fact, has contaminated most of the judiciary, including the TSE. In the final stretch of these elections, decisions by the Electoral Justice, backed by the dominant wing of the STF, favored Lula.
It is evident that this dominant wing (represented by justices Alexandre de Moraes, Gilmar Mendes and Flávio Dino) does not want a victory of Bolsonarismo, for it is their declared political enemy. These justices have acted, in recent years, as true vigilantes against Bolsonarismo. Now that they themselves have been caught in extremely promiscuous dealings with a banker who corrupted countless high-ranking state officials, their bureaucratic careers are threatened. Lula’s continuity is a hope of salvation for these gentlemen, for the president is beholden to them and cannot break that commitment without risking his own neck, given the level of dependence Lula has contracted toward the STF’s top brass. Meanwhile, a Flávio Bolsonaro victory would tend to lead to a clash with the heads of these institutions – although the opposition candidate himself has shown little willingness to confront them, because those who control elections in Brazil (international financial capital) demand moderation and pacification, otherwise they will make life difficult for anyone elected president.
And the people are treated like cattle, victims of a system they cannot understand, so that their exploitation may be perpetuated through the staging of the “festival of democracy.”
Europe’s energy crisis isn’t over. Gas prices remain stubbornly high across the continent as Europeans confront a long winter.
In response to an energy crisis stemming from Europe’s continued reliance on imported liquefied natural gas against the backdrop of ongoing global geopolitical volatility, Europe’s leaders are pushing to diversify the bloc’s energy mix. While this means that Europe is rapidly expanding its renewable energy capacity, it also marks a significant return to the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel – coal.
Earlier this year, when the United States and Israel began an offensive in Iran and thereby instigated the disruption of one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas trades, Europe awakened to realize that it had sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis – its third in just four years. “We swore we’d learn. We promised things would change, but here we are,” a ‘highly frustrated European diplomat’ was recently (anonymously) quoted by the BBC.
“Instead of concentrating on much-needed long-term plans – about how to make Europe more competitive in this increasingly volatile world, [European] prime ministers and presidents are now in a panic over [energy] prices, worried about angry voters and scrambling for short-term solutions,” the source continued. “Just like the crisis after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Different conflict. Same European divisions; same dilemmas over energy. We can’t keep going round in these circles. Something’s got to give.”
Now, half a year after the outbreak of the war in Iran and the initial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Europe is still grappling with the fallout as gas prices remain brutally high. Just this month, gas prices hit their highest mark in three years, soaring above €80 ($90.98) per megawatt hour.
Prices are so high, in fact, that coal-fired power has become cheaper than gas-fired power in Europe for the first time in years. This has pushed many European nations, and especially the European Union’s largest economy, Germany, back to coal. And, worryingly, experts contend that that trend will continue for years to come.
“Coal is expected to remain cheaper than gas for power generation through next year and potentially until March 2028,” Reuters reported earlier this week, based on a conversation with Marta Wroniszewska, an analyst at Veyt. “Longer-dated gas prices indicate traders expect supply constraints to persist.”
However, there are notable limits to coal’s growth potential in Europe. Years of policy aimed at phasing down and phasing out coal have left the continent with dramatically fewer coal-fired power plants than it had previously. In 1990, the European Union derived more than a third of its electricity production from coal. By 2025, that share had fallen to just 9.2 percent, according to data from Eurostat. So while Europe’s remaining coal plants will receive a windfall from the current gas prices, there is a ceiling to coal’s potential rebound in the region.
Outside of Europe, however, it’s a different story. Globally, coal is still the single-biggest source of power production. And while Europe is shutting down its coal-fired capacity, many emerging economies are continuing to build theirs up, with particularly strong growth from the Philippines, Indonesia, and other rapidly developing countries across Asia. Not coincidentally, this was also the region hit hardest by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
While coal is cheap, abundant, and seen as a critical tool for enabling economic development in poor countries, the continuously extending timeline of coal’s reign presents trade-offs that far outweigh the benefits. Coal is the single largest driver of global warming, responsible for about 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. However, it’s not all bad news – coal’s comeback is happening in tandem with a major global increase in clean energy resources. Increasingly, renewable energies are being adopted for their role in a more energy-secure future, and are seen as a critical buffer against the next global energy crisis.
Unlike natural gas, oil, and coal, “Wind and solar cannot be embargoed, blockaded, or shut off by a foreign power,” David Frykman, General Partner at Stockholm-based venture capital group Norrsken, wrote in an op-ed for Fortune earlier this year. “Every terawatt-hour of domestic renewable generation is a terawatt-hour that no adversary can weaponize.”
Washington has sent two contradictory signals on Taiwan in the last few days. Whether these signals reflect strategic ambiguity or strategic confusion in the coming days has become a matter of debate among the strategic experts.
On the one hand, Trump is holding back a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan, pre-approved by the U.S. Congress, despite a bipartisan group of senators explicitly urging him to “formally notify . But the U.S. President has described his decision to pause as a “very good negotiating chip” for his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Whether that worked in his summit meeting with Xi last week in Washington is not known. But Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo confirmed yesterday (October 6) that he has “not heard” of any new sale being cleared, even in smaller chunks.
On the other hand, the Pentagon is seemingly doing the opposite of this pause.
According to reports, the U.S. Department of Defense will station two representatives on a long-term basis inside Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense headquarters in Taipei from 2026 to 2028.
One official will come from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy [OUSD-Policy] — the office that writes U.S. national security and defense strategy. The second will come from the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] — a federally funded think tank that does mathematical modeling for war games and combat capability assessment.
The program is called the “Taiwan-US Defense Ministry Joint Cooperation Assessment,” with a total budget of NT$471 million [$14.8 million], including NT$152.5 million this year for personnel, consultancy, travel, data collection, and even interpretation for classified-level meetings.
This would mark the first time U.S. defense officials are permanently embedded inside Taiwan’s military headquarters, shifting cooperation away from traditional channels managed through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Washington’s de facto embassy.
The military relationship between the United States and Taiwan is highly integrated yet formally unofficial. It is governed by the legal framework of the “U.S. Taiwan Relations Act” (TRA), which Congress passed on April 10, 1979.
Congress enacted it immediately after the U.S. formally terminated its previous “Mutual Defense Treaty with the Republic of China (Taiwan)” to officially recognize “the People’s Republic of China (PRC)” in Beijing.
Rather than abandoning Taiwan, Congress designed the TRA as a legal framework to ensure that “robust, unofficial security, commercial, and cultural ties” continue uninterrupted.
In short, the TRA provides a domestic legal workaround for treating Taiwan as a country without formal diplomatic recognition. However, under it, the U.S. is also obligated to maintain Taiwan’s capacity to resist force or coercion in general and the forcible annexation by the PRC in particular.
Over the years, U.S. personnel have served in Taiwan as trainers and advisers. Hundreds of active-duty U.S. military advisors—often colloquially referred to locally as “English teachers” to maintain a low profile—are routinely deployed across Taiwan.
U.S. military observers are present within Taiwan’s annual “Han Kuang live-fire military exercises”. They actively guide Taiwan’s defense strategy toward decentralized command, logistics, and real-world combat readiness.
Taiwanese fighter pilots undergo advanced combat training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
The US remains Taiwan’s primary foreign weapons supplier, with a total backlog of orders nearing $20 billion.
In fact, Taiwan received its first new batch of two advanced Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 fighter jets on October 2. This was part of an $8 billion deal approved in 2019 for 66 new-build F-16 Block 70 jets, with the remaining 64 aircraft scheduled for future delivery. out of a 66-aircraft fleet on order.
A newly purchased F-16V Block 70 fighter jet lands at Chi-hang Air Base in Taitung on October 2, 2026. Taiwan received its first two US-made F-16V fighter jets as the island democracy upgrades its military capabilities to deter a potential Chinese attack. The warplanes are part of an $8 billion deal for 66 F-16Vs approved during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term and scheduled for delivery this year. (Photo by CHENG Yu-chen / AFP)
However, all these coordination efforts between Washington and Taipei are usually routed through the AIT intermediary, as the U.S. adheres to its One China” policy. In that sense, the new proposal to station Pentagon personnel directly inside the Taiwanese Defense Ministry represents a shift from this historical status quo.
The new arrangement puts Americans directly into the core of Taiwan’s defense policymaking, including policy coordination, Han Kuang exercise planning, asymmetric warfare doctrine, and major weapons procurement evaluations, it is said.
Of course, the U.S. routinely sends military and civilian defense officials to work directly inside the defense ministries of partner and allied nations. Established by the Pentagon in 2009, the Ministry of Defense Advisors (MODA) Program specifically trains and deploys high-performing senior U.S. Department of Defense civilians.
These advisors are embedded in partner-nation defense ministries to support institutional capacity building, strategy, financial management, and logistics.
The U.S. also actively deploys specialized defense consultants directly to the defense ministries of nations looking to transition away from historical adversaries such as Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and various Balkan nations looking to exit Moscow’s orbit.
The U.S. has a long history of embedding liaison officers in allied countries. For example, it has a Joint Political-Military Group in Israel that embeds officers in missile-defense cooperation for Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and now Iron Beam. But American officials do not operate inside the Kirya (Israel’s defense headquarters).
Similarly, despite 54,000 US personnel stationed in Japan, no U.S. officer sits inside Japan’s Ministry of Defense to assess combat capability.
Perhaps in NATO countries and South Korea, U.S. military officials are believed to sit together often.
There are also “Offices of Defense Cooperation” (ODC), or United States Military Groups, which are technically attached to the local U.S. Embassy for diplomatic protection. These teams provide security assistance and work in routine, day-to-day coordination with host ministry personnel.
However, what makes the proposed U.S. officials sitting directly within Taiwan’s military headquarters unique is that Taiwan is not an ally of America in the strict sense, as the U.S. lacks formal diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, and these officials will bypass the traditional AIT.
Of course, multiple reports in recent years have claimed that U.S. special forces are permanently stationed in Taiwan to assist its 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion special operations force, though Washington has officially denied it. The same has been the case with the speculations about the coming and going of U.S. military personnel from the Army Special Operations Command base in Taoyuan.
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) poses for photos with China’s President Xi Jinping during a visit to Zhongnanhai Garden in Beijing on May 15, 2026. (Photo by Evan Vucci / POOL / AFP)
How will Beijing React?
At the time of writing, Beijing had not issued an official reaction, possibly because Taiwanese media outlets only recently brought details of this long-term Pentagon deployment to light. It has not been declared officially.
But it goes without saying that Beijing would be “certain to protest” and could respond “with expanded exercises and intimidation”, according to Zivon Wang, a military analyst at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taipei.
He expects U.S. personnel not to wear uniforms at the Ministry of National Defense because it could be interpreted as a more formalized US-Taiwan military relationship and might further provoke Beijing.
Incidentally, China has made more air and naval incursions across the median line in the Taiwan Strait since 2022. Although Chinese military aircraft had occasionally crossed the median line (established informally in 1954) in the past, the practice became significantly more frequent from 2022, particularly after Nancy Pelosi (then Speaker of the House of Representatives) visited Taiwan in August that year. What had once been an informal but largely respected buffer increasingly became a zone of routine Chinese military activity.
Therefore, it remains to be seen whether China will respond to the Pentagon’s proposed deployment with loud exercises.
It may also remain silent, as nothing is official yet and Trump has his “negotiating chip” of holding back Taiwan’s military package.
Trump’s admirers often see his unpredictability as useful in negotiations with an adversary, because the other side cannot be sure how far he is willing to go.
But his critics argue that his unpredictability becomes counterproductive when allies cannot distinguish a negotiating threat from a real change in American policy.
It remains to be seen who will prove to be right in the case of Taiwan.
Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
The author can be reached at prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
The first round of Brazil’s presidential election ended with candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) ahead of Lula da Silva (PT), 47% to 45%. In the parliamentary elections, the PT and the left suffered overwhelming defeats across the country, indicating growing rejection of the left among ordinary Brazilians. Now, with only a few weeks remaining before the final decision on who will govern the country from next year onward, the question remains open: what factors will voters take into consideration when choosing the president?
The Lula government has taken several measures considered “desperate” attempts to reverse its popularity crisis and regain support in the final stretch of the election. Expanding social programs is one such measure, but its political effectiveness is becoming increasingly questionable. After decades of income redistribution under PT governments, without this producing any real transformation in the situation of working people, public perceptions of these policies have become increasingly negative.
Lula’s central problem is that a significant portion of the electorate appears less interested in new palliative measures and more concerned with problems that remain present in their daily lives. Public security, employment, income, inflation, and the quality of public services have a much more direct impact on the population than the major debates promoted by the government.
Security is perhaps the clearest example. The expansion of criminal organizations, the territorial growth of organized crime, and the perception of impunity have made violence one of the country’s main concerns. For millions of Brazilians, this is no longer an abstract discussion about security policy. It is a daily reality that determines where people can live, work, travel, and even open a business – particularly in major urban centers such as Rio de Janeiro, where organized crime is estimated to control between 60% and 70% of the city’s total territory.
In this context, proposals associated with the progressive cultural agenda may also carry significant electoral costs for the left. Brazilian debates over gender, identity, education, and minority rights have increasingly reproduced political conflicts originating in the United States and Europe. A considerable portion of the population, however, does not identify with this agenda and believes that the state should concentrate its efforts on more urgent material problems.
This helps explain why the runoff will likely be determined much more by domestic issues than by foreign policy – which is the aspect of the Lula government most frequently praised by the international expert community. BRICS, Palestine, or Brazil’s position toward the United States may mobilize politically engaged sectors of society, but they are unlikely to constitute the main concerns of the average voter when deciding how to vote.
Foreign policy has strategic importance for the Brazilian state. Ordinary citizens, however, tend to evaluate it through its concrete effects on their own lives. A foreign policy regarded as successful will not, by itself, compensate for perceptions of insecurity, unemployment, or deterioration in public services. As the Lula government avoids directly confronting the problem of organized crime, support may naturally grow for a right-wing camp that welcomes the United States’ designation of Brazilian criminal factions as terrorist organizations.
The same applies to the aforementioned income-transfer programs. Such mechanisms may have an important social function in a country marked by profound inequalities, but their use as the principal instrument of social policy has serious limitations. Transferring income can alleviate poverty, but it does not automatically create skilled employment, increase productivity, or rebuild national industry. Instead, it can contribute to the emergence of a large precarious population dependent on government assistance. When welfare becomes a permanent substitute for development policies, the structural problem remains.
This is precisely where the electoral dispute enters a decisive phase. Voters will have to choose between different proposals for addressing problems that have not disappeared in recent years. The ability to present convincing answers on security, employment, income, and social order may carry greater weight than speeches about major geopolitical projects.
The first-round result also demonstrates that Brazil’s right was able to transform domestic discontent into electoral strength. Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead and the composition of the new Congress indicate significant demand for change. This does not mean that all these voters share the same views on the economy, foreign policy, or cultural issues. It means, above all, that dissatisfaction has become sufficiently broad to alter the country’s political balance.
In the remaining weeks of the campaign, therefore, the fundamental question will be whether the government can convince voters that its policies offer lasting solutions, or whether the perception will prevail that it has adopted temporary measures to manage problems that remain unresolved.
Talking about gender, human rights, or Palestine will definitely not help Lula secure reelection.
Haiti has indefinitely postponed elections scheduled for December and February, the electoral council said Tuesday, citing technical and operational requirements as gang violence continues to disrupt preparations. The delay leaves Haitians without a democratic process as authorities struggle to register voters and secure areas needed for the poll.
Christa Pike is "angry and confused" after regaining consciousness almost six days after Tennessee's failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection, one of her attorneys said Wednesday. Pike, the first woman the state has attempted to put to death in 200 years, remains hospitalised with severe injuries to both arms.
Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros Discover on Tuesday, after a bidding war against Netflix. The deal closed following federal approval of a settlement between Paramount and 12 US states that tried to block the transaction on antitrust grounds. Opponents in the movie industry warned of job cuts, while media groups said Warner-owned CNN's independence could be compromised.
The enemy to be feared is the habit of deciding on the most serious matters without discussing them, and of presenting them as if they were inevitable.
There are phrases which, on their own, say more about a state than a Defence White Paper. One such phrase appeared in the Corriere della Sera on 4 October, in an interview with the Chief of the Army General Staff, Lieutenant General Carmine Masiello: “On the eastern flank, we were asked to deploy units capable of providing a real deterrent: we are leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria and are present in Latvia and Hungary. War does not ask for permission, and the contingent must be ready to respond.”
A few lines earlier, the same general had opened the interview as follows: “We are at war. A hybrid war, but war nonetheless.” The attentive reader will pause to consider three words. We have been asked. By whom? Real deterrence. Compared to what deterrence, until now, has been unreal? We are at war. Who has declared it? These are questions that the Italian public debate should ask itself seriously, without indulging either in the caricature of the warmongering military or in the conditioned reflex that treats every doubt as enemy propaganda. The argument put forward in these pages is simple: the idea of direct involvement by Italy and European countries in an armed conflict with Russia is strategic folly, and the bellicose rhetoric that is making it seem conceivable protects no one. It makes the situation worse.
It is best to start with the facts, because the controversy surrounding the interview has misrepresented some of them. The contingents mentioned by Masiello are not a development from the past week. Italy has been participating in NATO’s forward presence in Latvia since 2017 and, since 2022, has been leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria – established following Russia’s conflict with Ukraine alongside those from Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The Madrid Summit in June 2022 then committed the allies to strengthening these groups to brigade level ‘where and when required’. The general’s statement that ‘we were asked’ therefore has a clear source: the Alliance’s planning, approved by the North Atlantic Council, to which the Italian government has given its consent.
Parliament, too, has formally expressed its view. Law 145 of 2016 stipulates that the government must approve international missions annually and that Parliament must authorise them. For 2026, the Council of Ministers’ resolution is dated 14 May; the Chamber of Deputies approved the authorisation resolution on 28 July, for missions valid from 1 January to 31 December. On closer inspection, this situation is more serious than the mere omission denounced by many commentators. Parliament was not bypassed: it was called upon at the end of July to ratify what had been in progress for seven months, as part of a single package bringing together dozens of different missions, from Lebanon to the Horn of Africa. Voting against the eastern flank means, in this context, voting against the whole package. It is a procedure that produces consensus without generating debate.
The problem, then, is not strictly legal. It is political, and concerns the quality of the decision. It is one thing to maintain a contingent in an allied country for reassurance purposes. It is quite another to publicly declare that that contingent must provide ‘real deterrence’ and be ‘ready to respond’ to a war that ‘does not ask for permission’. This shift in function – from a symbolic presence to combat readiness – has not been the subject of any specific parliamentary debate. Italians learnt of it from an interview published at the weekend, in a tone one might use to describe the modernisation of barracks.
A war that no one has authorised
Article 78 of the Constitution is so clear that it sounds almost embarrassing today: ‘The Chambers shall declare a state of war and confer upon the Government the necessary powers.’ Article 11 adds that Italy repudiates war as an instrument of aggression and as a means of resolving international disputes. In this context, the phrase ‘we are at war’, uttered by the head of the Armed Forces, is not merely a lexical detail. Neither House has declared a state of war. No government has been granted extraordinary powers. If words have any meaning, that phrase describes a condition that is not recognised by the legal system.
The contrast with Masiello’s own words from two and a half years ago is striking. In May 2024, in another interview, the general had been unequivocal in the opposite sense: ‘Let’s be clear: we are not at war,’ he had said, referring to a ‘sub-threshold’ conflict. The material reality described then and now is essentially the same: cyber-attacks, sabotage, disinformation, airspace violations. What has changed is the verbal framework. And in international politics, the framework is never neutral. Those who repeat every day that we are already at war accustom public opinion to the idea that actual war is merely the next step on a path that has already begun. This is precisely the process that the literature on threat construction describes as securitisation: a problem is shifted from the ordinary political sphere to that of emergency, where the usual rules – including debate – appear to be a luxury.
It is no coincidence that, in that very interview, the priority highlighted is the distribution to military personnel of a ‘cognitive self-defence manual’ against disinformation. The stated aim is to protect personnel. The side effect is to delimit the scope of what is conceivable: if every voice that questions the necessity of conflict can be interpreted as an emotional lever wielded by the enemy, dissent becomes a security issue. A democracy that fears manipulation should respond with more debate, not less.
Deterrence that produces what it fears
The strategic crux of the matter is the very concept of deterrence. Deterrence works when the adversary perceives our stance as both defensive and credible. It ceases to work – and indeed becomes counterproductive – when the measures a state adopts to feel secure are interpreted by the other as offensive preparations. This is the security dilemma: in a system without a higher authority, many of the means by which a state increases its own security reduce that of others, triggering a spiral that neither actor had intended.
The eastern flank is where this spiral is most visible. From Moscow’s perspective, allied brigades permanently deployed a few hundred kilometres from St Petersburg and the Belarusian border, exercises in the Baltic and attempts to stop Russian ships in transit are signs of encirclement. Putin stated this explicitly at the Valdai Forum in early October, describing the Western manoeuvres in the Baltic as an escalation. One might regard that interpretation as self-serving, and in part it is. But deterrence is not measured by our intentions: it is measured by the perceptions of those who are to be deterred. Ignoring them does not make them go away.
There is also one factor that should be of the greatest concern, and it is Masiello himself who articulates it. In hybrid warfare, the general explains, the risk is ‘not only to suffer, but to slip, by mistake, into an open confrontation’. This is a valuable admission. It means that the Italian military leadership considers the possibility of an unintended war – arising from an accident, a misinterpretation or a chain of automatic responses – to be very real. Thomas Schelling referred to this mechanism as ‘the threat that leaves something to chance’: the more forces are in contact and ready to react, the more control over the crisis slips from the hands of political decision-makers. If the main risk is error, the rational response is to reduce friction and increase the number of communication channels. Yet whilst the readiness of troops near the border is being stepped up, the tone of rhetoric is moving in the opposite direction.
In Moscow, Putin spoke clearly
At the Valdai Forum, Putin reiterated that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone ‘neither in 2029, nor in 2030, nor in 2050’, adding that in the event of an attack, Moscow would respond with all means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons. A few days earlier, in St Petersburg, he had said that Russia is in no way preparing to go to war with Europe. The usual response in the Italian press is that these reassurances are worthless: Formiche pointed out, for example, that even the 1994 Budapest Memorandum contained written commitments that were subsequently breached.
This argument deserves a serious response, not a slogan. No one is obliged to take the statements of a head of state – be they Russian or American – at face value. But mistrust of others’ words does not justify abandoning diplomacy: it makes it all the more necessary. Public statements serve precisely this purpose: to establish commitments that can be verified, negotiated, translated into measures of mutual trust, limits on troop deployments, notifications of military exercises, and direct military lines of communication. This is precisely what Europe did during the decades of the Cold War, with the Helsinki Final Act and the subsequent Vienna documents, when mistrust of Moscow was at least as great as it is today. Responding to every overture by increasing military readiness amounts to choosing not to verify. And those who fail to verify their adversary’s intentions end up planning for the worst-case scenario, which, by dint of being planned for, becomes the most likely outcome.
The reverse is also true. If it is genuinely believed that Russia is preparing an act of aggression against an EU member state, then the matter is of such gravity as to demand a public and parliamentary debate commensurate with its importance, based on the available evidence, intelligence assessments and the alternatives under consideration. Not an interview. The two things are mutually exclusive: either the threat is existential, in which case the nation must be mobilised; or it is not, in which case the language of imminence is a mistake.
To die for whom and for what?
The question currently circulating on social media – whether Italians are prepared to die for the Baltic states or for Zelensky – is phrased brutally, but it hits upon a real issue. European public opinion, and Italian public opinion in particular, has never given an explicit mandate for direct military confrontation with Russia. Surveys in recent years have consistently ranked Italy amongst the European countries most opposed to sending troops and most in favour of a negotiated solution. A democratic system that prepares for war against the prevailing will of its citizens, without even consulting them, accumulates a debt of legitimacy that would be called in at the worst possible moment: precisely when national cohesion is most needed.
Nor is there any need to demonise the Baltic states to recognise the problem. Their perception of the threat has historical roots that a Western European struggles to fully comprehend. The point is another: in a thirty-two-member alliance, the most hardline positions tend to set the tone for the whole, because no government wants to appear the least supportive. Italy has different geopolitical interests, focused on the Mediterranean, Africa, the Balkans and its energy ties with the East. A country in that position has everything to lose from a conflict in the Baltic and nothing to gain. Its historical role, from Andreotti to Prodi, has been that of a mediator, not an outpost. To abandon this role in order to align with the hardline stance is a choice that someone should openly advocate, rather than letting it seep out through an interview.
Finally, there is the practical reality, which the general himself does not hide. Masiello speaks of the return of the ‘importance of mass’: forces are quickly worn down, and without the capacity to replenish them, a prolonged conflict cannot be sustained. In short: a conventional war with Russia would be a war of attrition, fought with ammunition stocks that Europe does not possess and with an industrial base that would take years to reconvert. Against a nuclear power that has just reiterated that it regards nuclear weapons as part of its defence. There is no rational interpretation of Italy’s national interest in which this scenario is acceptable.
Alternatives do exist and do not require naivety. The first is institutional: to separate missions on the eastern flank from the annual budget and subject them to a specific vote, preceded by a public hearing of military and government leaders on the nature of the mandate. If Italian soldiers are asked to be ‘ready to respond’, Parliament has the right and the duty to know to what, under what rules of engagement, and within what limits.
The second concerns language. The military leadership has a responsibility to prepare the forces, not to influence public opinion on the underlying political judgement – namely, whether or not Italy is at war. That assessment is the remit of the constitutional bodies. A return to verbal restraint is not a concession: it is the condition for deterrence to remain defensive even in the eyes of those observing it from Moscow.
The third is diplomatic. Any Russian declaration of non-aggression should be taken at face value in the technical sense of the term: put to the test with concrete proposals for risk reduction, starting with the Baltic, where the density of ships, aircraft and units in close proximity makes an incident more likely than elsewhere. Rome has the credibility and the history to champion such an initiative at European level. The fact that it is not doing so, and that the issue emerges only from the words of a general, is the real cause for alarm in this affair.
The enemy to be feared is not a country a thousand kilometres from our borders. It is the habit – which is taking root here – of deciding on the most serious matters without discussing them, and of presenting them as if they were inevitable; a psychopathology that is dramatically eroding the last remnants of common sense.
The US has pulled out all its B-1B Lancer bombers from RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom,a key forward operating location used for long-range missions against Iran.
The abrupt move appears to be an attempt by the US to safeguard its long-range strategic bombers from the fate suffered by other military aircraft destroyed by Iranian attacks in the Middle East.
The B-1B bombers arrived at RAF Fairford in March 2026 as part of Operation Epic Fury. Although the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire in April 2026, the B-1Bs remained stationed at Fairford amid sustained hostilities.
However, the US hastily withdrew all 12 B-1B Lancers from the base on October 4, 2026, amid renewed threats of an Iran-backed plot against the facility. The Pentagon confirmed the bombers have returned to their home bases.
“While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have re-deployed to their home stations in the United States,” a Pentagon spokesman reportedly said in a statement.
The pullout was extremely unusual since such actions are rarely taken so swiftly from an allied air base thousands of kilometers away from the combat zone. In fact, some of the bombers and their flight crews left RAF Fairford even as aerial refueling aircraft were still being rushed to support the missions to the United States, the New York Times reported.
These claims point towards an uncanny sense of urgency, although the US military has not officially cited a reason for this rushed exodus of bombers from RAF Fairford.
Nonetheless, the move comes days after five British men in their early 20s were arrested near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire after reports of three suspicious vans approaching the base hosting the US bombers.
They were held on suspicion of Explosives Act offenses and preparing a terrorist act, but were released on police bail with strict conditions the next day. However, a sixth man—identified as a 25-year-old dual UK-Iranian national—was later arrested in London on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. He was later released on bail.
An investigation into what was believed to be a sabotage operation is now underway. However, both the United States and the United Kingdom have since hinted that Iran has links to the potential attack or sabotage operation.
US President Donald Trump said the suspects had been looking to do “big damage” whereas Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it involved the “hands of a foreign actor,” without directly naming Tehran. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there are “strong indications” that Iran played a role in the security incident at a crucial base that hosts US assets and troops.
Iran dismissed the allegations and has denied any link to the suspected security incident.
“PM Burnham says the UK Government ‘can confirm our belief that we believe Iran to have played a part’ in the RAF Fairford incident,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X last week. “I can confirm Iran’s belief that releasing supposed terrorists working for foreign states really says it all. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Iranian Threats Triggered A Pullout?
The US military has not given any information on the urgent threat, whether it was an imminent strike or a sabotage- or terror-related incident. However, the threats issued by the Islamic Republic and its forces in the past may have influenced the decision to withdraw the bombers.
As the hostilities resumed between the US and Iran in July this year, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed that the US was launching bomber sorties from RAF Fairford to attack Iranian cities, adding that any base used to carry out such strikes would be a legitimate target.
“The American aggressor army, which used to launch cruise missiles from its vessels in the Indian Ocean in its aggression after the official resumption of the war, with the end of the missile reserves of the aforementioned vessels, yesterday switched to using B1 planes flying from Fairford Air Base, England,” Tasnim News Agency quoted the IRGC as saying on July 23. “As the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated, any base that is used to invade Iran’s territory is our legitimate goal.”
In March 2026, Araghchi told the UK Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, that Iran views the UK’s decision to let the US use British bases as “participation in aggression.” Later, it fired two mid-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, the Indian Ocean military outpost jointly operated by the US and the UK. Although none of the missiles reached their designated targets, the attack was launched after the UK approved the US use of its bases as launchpads for attacks on Iranian sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz.
RAF Fairford – Wikimedia Commons
RAF Fairford, for one, has been a key hub for US heavy bombers—including the B-1B and the B-52—conducting missions against Iranian missile infrastructure. Although Washington could fly long-range bombers to attack Iran from its own soil, using RAF Fairford has been significant because it enables long-range strikes and reduces flight times to Iranian targets by over 50% compared to US-based launches, allowing higher sortie rates.
According to media reports, a proxy sabotage or terror operation by Iran on RAF Fairford remains a major possibility. In the past, the United Kingdom has accused Iran of conducting cyberattacks and employing criminal networks and proxies to strike at its critics and dissidents on British soil for years.
Apart from a terror plot, it is hard to say whether Iran has the capability to strike RAF Fairford, or any other base in the United Kingdom.Iran has long claimed a self-imposed limit of about 2,000 kilometers for its ballistic missiles. However, its March 2026 attempted strike on the US-UK base at Diego Garcia demonstrated a much longer reach, and analysts have said it could potentially strike parts of the United Kingdom.
The US currently has about 45 operational B-1B bombers in its inventory, and many are aging airframes with very low readiness rates.
Therefore, losing even a single bomber would remove a scarce, high-payload platform that cannot be rapidly replaced, particularly while the B-21 Raider remains in the early stages of introduction. Additionally, a successful Iranian strike on a high-value asset at a known forward location would also carry symbolic weight, demonstrating an ability to impose costs far from the primary theater.
Vortices and moisture stream from the wings of a B-1B as it flies behind a US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker, assigned to 506th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, during a Bomber Task Force mission over the Pacific Ocean, June 25, 2022. (USAF)
Moreover, the US military has already faced a trial by fire in the Middle East during the course of this war and lost several military aircraft, many of them on the ground, a fate that it may not wish to befall its highly potent but limited bomber fleet.
On March 27, 2026, for instance, an Iranian drone struck an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft during a strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Photos published after the strike showed that the rear fuselage of E-3 #81-0005 was completely burned out and destroyed, with debris scattered around the aircraft.
On March 2, CENTCOM reported that three F-15Es were shot down and destroyed by friendly fire over Kuwait; all six aircrew ejected safely and were recovered. The fourth F-15E was shot down by Iran during combat operations over Iran on April 5; both aircrew were safely recovered during separate search-and-rescue operations.
On March 14, media reports stated that five additional KC-135s were damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia during an Iranian strike.
Later, Iran managed to damage an F-35A fighter jet over Iranian airspace. A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report stated that replacing/repairing the aircraft would cost $120 million, without saying whether it would be written off or repaired.
On April 5, the US forces were forced to destroy two MC-130J Commando II special operations aircraft inside Iran after the planes became stuck and immobilized while supporting combat search-and-rescue efforts for a downed F-15E aircrew. Meanwhile, the US lost an HH-60W Jolly Green II combat search-and-rescue helicopter after it took damage from small-arms fire during the same operation.
In addition to these manned aircraft, the US lost several unmanned aerial vehicles, including MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1C Tritons. The US has now lost more than 30 Reapers in the conflict with Iran, several destroyed on the ground by Iran across Middle East bases.
If Washington is preparing another round of strikes on Iran, and Tehran answers as it did against US bases in the Middle East, then RAF Fairford could be in the firing line. The IRGC has already called the base a legitimate target. The Pentagon has not said the B-1Bs left because of that threat. Moving all 12 in a day, while tankers were still being scrambled, suggests commanders were not willing to leave a scarce bomber fleet on a base they could no longer treat as safe.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
The recent summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping may have projected an image of renewed engagement; however, while two Presidents negotiated above the surface, their navies were preparing for a contest in which nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) could play a decisive role.
The strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing seems to be moving on a very different track—especially under the waters of the Indo-Pacific.
At the moment, the United States may have a substantial lead in the number of SSNs, technology, and operational experience, but China is rapidly catching up by expanding its undersea capabilities.
In its quest to narrow the gap with the US, China has entered a race for undersea advantage across the Indo-Pacific, which could shape deterrence, sea control, and the strategic balance of power for decades to come.
For maritime domination, both SSNs and SSBNs (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines) play critical roles.
SSBNs primarily provide nuclear deterrence by ensuring a credible second-strike capability, whereas SSNs are essentially designed to conduct hunter-killer missions, including tracking and, if necessary, engaging adversary SSBNs, as well as escorting carrier strike groups (CSGs) for sea control missions.
As Korean scholar Dongkeun Lee points out, in the context of the Indo-Pacific, SSN operations can be broadly classified into two primary missions: (1) countering SSBN capabilities and (2) escorting CSGs. The former is closely associated with nuclear deterrence, whereas the latter reflects the traditional sea power function of controlling and protecting key sea lines of communication (SLOCs).
Both missions are particularly important in this part of the world as its principal flashpoints, including the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait, are all maritime domains. Maintaining credible naval capabilities, therefore, is essential to advancing both deterrence and broader strategic objectives in the region.
Incidentally, around one-third of global shipping traverses the South China Sea. The maritime gateways here are critical not only for China but also for Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
American CSGs continue to play a major role in controlling and protecting these critical SLOCs. Consequently, SSNs play an equally crucial role in escorting CSGs. By providing lethal undersea capabilities that can silently target threats across multiple domains, including surface and subsurface targets, SSNs can effectively eliminate threats to aircraft carriers.
The United States permanently deploys an aircraft carrier to the Seventh Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan, and it is common for more than one CSG to be present in this region at any given time. SSNs’ presence here serves both to protect US carrier groups and to create the possibility of threatening Chinese nuclear submarines.
Likewise, the PRC is rapidly developing its own CSG capability to counterbalance that of the United States in the South China Sea. China’s Yulin naval base on Hainan Island is an important center for its nuclear submarine forces.
Until recently, the undersea dominance tilted heavily in favor of the US. But the alignments are fast changing.
Though the US Navy still leads with an all-nuclear fleet of 71 active submarines (including 51–53 SSNs/SSGNs), China has now surpassed Russia to command the world’s second-largest nuclear submarine fleet with an estimated 9 to 12 SSNs (such as the Type 093 and Type 093A/093B Shang-class) and 6 SSBNs (Jin-class Type 094), totaling roughly 32 active nuclear submarines across its entire naval forces that operate primarily in the Indo-Pacific region.
People walk past an illustration of a Chinese nuclear submarine at the Military Museum in Beijing on March 3, 2024. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)
In a recent IISS assessment, China launched 10 nuclear-powered submarines between 2021 and 2025, totaling 79,000 tonnes, against America’s 7 boats at 55,000 tonnes. For the first time, China out-built the US in both numbers and tonnage in a five-year window, it is argued.
“Most significantly, this includes the seventh and eighth Type 094 (Jin) nuclear-armed ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs), which come as part of the emergence of Beijing’s nuclear triad,” the IISS study says.
It noted that commercially available satellite imagery taken in early 2026 showed six Type 094s in total, spread between the Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co (BSHIC) shipyard in Huludao, the 1st Submarine Base at Jianggezhuang, the Xiaopingdao test facility and the 2nd Submarine Base at Yalong Bay on Hainan Island.
“Allowing for additional boats either on deterrence patrol or under cover for refit during this period, it is almost certainly the case that China has launched a seventh and eighth Type-094 in 2024 and 2025, respectively,” the IIISS study concludes.
In addition to the Type 094s, Bohai is also producing nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines (SSGN) for the People’s Liberation Army, with the study suggesting that nine Type 093B (Shang III) boats have been launched between 2022 and this year, based on commercial satellite imagery of the facility and US government assessments.
Incidentally, in March this year, the US Navy’s intelligence chief, Rear Admiral Mike Brookes, testified before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) that China is undertaking a major shift toward building an all-nuclear submarine fleet as part of a broader effort to strengthen its undersea warfare capabilities and expand blue-water naval power.
According to Brookes, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), which operates more than 60 submarines in total, including roughly 50 conventional diesel-electric boats (SSK) and a smaller number of SSNs and SSBNs, is transitioning away from conventional submarines toward a predominantly nuclear construction program to support sustained operations, strategic deterrence and sea-lane interdiction.
Brookes also pointed out that China had expanded submarine production infrastructure across three major shipyards, tripling construction hall capacity and more than doubling production capability to sustain higher output of advanced nuclear boats through the 2030s.
By 2027, China’s submarine force is projected to reach roughly 70 submarines, adding up to six SSGNs, three smaller-class SSNs, and two SSBNs while retiring older Chinese and Russian-built submarines. By 2035, continued expansion could yield up to 80 submarines, with about half nuclear-powered—a major shift in force composition—and projections for the early 2040s include around 20-30 new-class SSGNs and SSBNs.
These platforms will be designed from the keel up for blue-water operations and persistent presence beyond the first island chain, representing an evolution in PLA Navy undersea operational capabilities. China will likely field a more survivable and numerous ballistic missile submarine force equipped with longer-range, more accurate SLBMs, enabling patrols in bastions closer to home waters while holding the US homeland at risk.
A man looks at a submarine during a media tour by the PLA Naval Museum, organized by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ahead of the Defense Ministers’ Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member States in Qingdao, in eastern China’s Shandong province on June 25, 2025. (Photo by Pedro PARDO / AFP)
Broader deployment of long-range, potentially hypersonic anti-ship and land-attack missiles from undersea platforms is anticipated, along with more sophisticated torpedoes and unmanned vehicles for ISR, mine warfare, and strike missions. Substantial investments in seabed sensors, undersea cables, and unmanned systems will enhance China’s situational awareness while creating vulnerabilities for the US and allies in crisis or conflict.
The Indo-Pacific will remain the PLA Navy’s primary focus, but by 2040 routine submarine deployments to the Indian Ocean, Arctic approaches, and possibly the Atlantic are likely, Brookes cautions.
However, as noted above, the US Navy currently has superior acoustic quieting, combat experience, and highly advanced Virginia-class SSNs. But as the EurAsian Times once explained, the US has a backlog of 12 Virginia-class submarines, in addition to three Columbia-class ballistic submarines.
Its production rate of 1.2 per year falls far short of the required 2.33 per year to meet its own needs and those of its allies (under the AUKUS pact, it is supposed to provide at least three Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the early 2030s).
Only three US shipyards can build nuclear-powered attack submarines (Groton, Connecticut; Quonset Point, Rhode Island; and Newport, Virginia). Only two of them are functional at the moment.
While the US defense industrial base is severely strained, China’s naval shipyards are said to be outperforming. With about 9 older Shang I/II boats plus an estimated 16 Type 093B hulls in service, in trials, or under construction, China is said to have the largest SSN series under construction anywhere.
The 093B reportedly features a vertical launch system for 24 YJ-12/YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missiles and six torpedo tubes, shifting China from torpedo brawls to long-range strike.
In the Indo-Pacific, the undersea race seems to change three fundamentals.
First, the era of uncontested US undersea dominance is over. US SSNs have long hunted Chinese SSBNs inside their bastion, keeping Beijing’s deterrent vulnerable. But now, China can sustain continuous at-sea deterrence patrols from Hainan’s Yalong Bay, protected by surface fleet and seabed sensors. That forces US SSNs to operate closer to Chinese waters, at higher risk, stretching ASW resources thin.
Second, the proliferation of quiet Chinese SSNs with VLS—at least six SSGN hulls launched in the past five years with vertical launch systems that could fire high-speed anti-ship missiles displayed in Beijing—means every US carrier entering the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea now faces a multi-axis underwater missile threat. The carrier’s sanctuary beyond the first island chain, once assumed, is no longer safe.
Third, China’s rapid maritime expansion has fundamentally altered the Indo-Pacific security landscape, prompting Australia and Japan to aggressively build strategic counterweights. Rather than acting in isolation, Canberra and Tokyo have pivoted toward minilateral security alliances, military modernization, and supply chain diversification to offset Beijing’s growing naval dominance.
Australia and Japan, alongside the United States and the Philippines, have formalized a security grouping explicitly designed to counter Beijing’s aggressive maneuvers in the South and East China Seas. This alliance focuses on joint maritime patrols, intelligence sharing, and military interoperability to safeguard freedom of navigation under international law.
Driven by the need to project power across its vast northern approaches, Australia has fundamentally reshaped its defense posture. This is anchored by the AUKUS pact—enabling Australia to acquire conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines—positioning the nation as a formidable southern anchor against Chinese naval projection.
For India, which has no SSNs in service (it previously leased from Russia and now plans indigenous production) and operates only three SSBNs (Arihant, Arighaat, and Aridhaman), the implications are significant.
Against India’s slow naval expansion, Chinese nuclear submarines, including intelligence-gathering vessels, now regularly traverse the Indian Ocean.
Overall, one could say that “the silent service” in the Indo-Pacific is becoming loud.
During the Cold War, the submarine race was primarily fought in the Atlantic. Now, it is shifting to the Indo-Pacific, raising uncertainties over whether it will remain free and open.
Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
The author can be reached at prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
The Pentagon recently announced a whopping US$24.4 billion contract to defense giant Raytheon to speed up the production of “three-in-one” SM-6 missiles.
The Pentagon called the SM-6 “a critical anti-air and anti-surface warfare munition.” It said the five-year agreement, with two additional option years, “will drive faster production, increase manufacturing throughput, and deliver significant cost savings.”
The deal “provides the defense industry with the long-term predictability needed to expand workforce capacity and secure critical supply chains,” the Pentagon added.
The award lands after a year in which interceptor stocks were burned down. The US Defense Department’s inspector general reported last month that acquisition officials said: “the munitions expenditure on Operation Epic Fury has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.”
A September 15 Congressional Budget Office assessment said the United States has probably used between one-half and two-thirds of its stocks of certain missile-defense interceptors since June 2025, naming the SM-6 alongside Patriot, THAAD and the SM-3.
Rebuilding those inventories would take at least five years even if production rose, the agency said, and would leave the Pentagon with fewer interceptors for a possible clash with China.
The CBO put the cost of a Patriot or an SM-6 at about $4 million a round, compared with about $12 million for a THAAD interceptor and $28 million for an SM-3. It said the weapons were used in large numbers defending Israel and then during Operation Epic Fury.
Outside estimates run higher: a table compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and carried by the Financial Times in April put the SM-6 at $5.3 million a round, with a pre-war stock of about 1,160 and wartime use of 190 to 370.
The Pentagon has not published an SM-6 round count for the war.
Raytheon confirmed in a statement that its SM-6 “has been successfully fired from various US Navy ship-based platforms and launchers on land,” calling it a “combat-proven weapon.”
The weapons-maker also acknowledged increased efforts to meet demand. “By continuously investing in our operations and facilities, we are removing constraints and boosting capacity to ensure we deliver this critical capability our sailors depend on,” Raytheon President Phil Jasper said.
SM-6 Missile
The SM-6 missile was created for extended-range anti-air warfare (ER-AAW), including defense against UAVs, military aircraft, anti-ship cruise missiles, and terminal ballistic missile defense. It also acts as a high-velocity anti-ship missile.
The SM-6 is based on the earlier SM-2ER Block IV (RIM-156A) missile airframe, with the AIM-120C AMRAAM active radar-homing seeker replacing the former design’s semi-active seeker.
File Image: SM-6 fired from HMS Sydney during Exercise Pacific Dragon
The official designation is RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile, or ERAM. It is fired from the Mk 41 vertical launching system already fitted on US and allied destroyers and cruisers, so a ship does not need a new launcher to carry it.
What makes the SM-6 different from the older Standard missiles is that it does not have to rely only on the firing ship’s radar. Through Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air, or NIFC-CA, it can take targeting data from an E-2D Hawkeye, another ship, or a fighter such as the F-35, and engage a target beyond the horizon of the ship that launches it.
The active seeker then finishes the intercept on its own. In plain terms, the missile can be cued by a sensor the target cannot see, and still home in the last miles.
Raytheon describes the SM-6 missile as “three missiles in one,” and says it is the only weapon that can perform anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare, and ballistic missile defense or sea-based terminal missions.
The Block IA and IB updates improve the seeker and guidance against harder, complex targets, while the Block IB adds a larger rocket motor for more range and speed against high-end air threats. Its exact range remains classified, but it is widely believed that it could reach over 200 nautical miles and fly at roughly Mach 3.5.
That spread of roles is also why the missile is expensive, and why magazines matter. A destroyer that fills its cells with SM-6s gains reach, but it burns through a scarce inventory if it uses the same missile for aircraft, cruise missiles, ships, and terminal ballistic shots.
China has reportedly been wary of the missile because of its capabilities. US allies in the region, including Japan, Australia, and South Korea, are lined up to acquire it.
The SM-6 on the Typhon Mid-Range Capability launcher is a ship missile adapted for strikes against land and sea targets. The Army has described the battery as a “strategic” weapon system to be used against higher-value targets such as air defense facilities and command and control centers — an important weapon given the region’s prevailing tensions.
In that ground-launched form, it sits alongside the Tomahawk, giving land forces a strike option that once belonged only to ships.
The US has also developed an air-launched variant of the SM-6, known as the AIM-174B, mounted on a US Navy Super Hornet, which broke cover during RIMPAC 2024. Fired from altitude and speed, it pushes an air-to-air engagement far outside the range of a carrier group’s older missiles.
Contact EurAsian Times at admin (at) eurasiantimes.com
The US military lost three military aircraft during peacetime in September 2026 alone, highlighting that accidents continue to hit even the world’s most advanced air force. These incidents also reminded us of the mid-air collision between a KC-130J and an F-35B in September 2020 that ended in one of modern aviation’s most remarkable saves.
On September 28, 2026, two naval aviators ejected from an EA-18G Growler assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 130 after an arresting gear failed during recovery on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier.
Both aircrew were recovered safely. It is currently unknown whether the aircraft was lost or escaped with some damage, and an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident.
Earlier in the month, two F-16 Fighting Falcons were destroyed in separate training accidents.
On September 17, an F-16 from the Texas Air National Guard’s 149th Fighter Wing went down in rural Michigan during training from Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, and on September 22, a US Air Force F-16 from the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, crashed on approach after a routine training sortie.
In both cases, the pilot was able to eject, but the aircraft was fully destroyed.
While September was particularly painful for the US military and its prized military aircraft, it also reminds us of the time six years ago when a mid-air collision over California nearly claimed the lives of eight Marines aboard a KC-130J.
When A KC-130 Collided With an F-35B
On the afternoon of September 29, 2020, a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II, call sign “Bolt 93,” and a KC-130J Super Hercules tanker, call sign “Raider 50,” collided at around 4:00 p.m. while conducting air-to-air refueling operations in the Kane West Military Operations Area near the Salton Sea in Southern California.
The aircraft were participating in Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) Course 1-21, which is a demanding seven-week advanced training program conducted by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. The course reportedly emphasized integrating Marine aviation into Marine Air-Ground Task Force operations under realistic, high-tempo conditions.
The Raider, assigned to Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 352, had already refueled one F-35B and was orbiting to tank the second. The F-35B approached the hose and drogue extended from the refueling pod on the tanker’s right wing and struck the underside of that wing.
As expected, the F-35B arrived for aerial refueling. However, as it approached, the hose and drogue extended from the tanker’s right wing, and it struck the underside of the right wing.
The impact was so massive and violent that it sheared off all propeller blades on the tanker’s two right-side engines, damaged the right fuel tank and refueling pod, and caused severe structural damage, including to the landing gear compartment.
Immediately after, fuel began leaking, raising concerns about a potential onboard fire.
The F-35B that collided with the massive refueller aircraft was critically damaged, forcing the pilot to eject. The aircraft crashed in the Ocotillo Wells area near Salton City, according to reports from the time. However, the KC-130J—piloted by Capt. Michael Wolff and co-pilot Maj. Cory Jones—had a gargantuan task ahead of them. They had to land.
USMC F-35B (For Representation)
“It was a really violent collision,” Wolff later recalled, adding that everything happened within “1.2 seconds or something. Not enough time to really react and do anything.” Days after the incident, he said the collision was so violent it sent everything flying inside the aircraft. “It was pretty violent… I got my headset back on, grabbed the yoke, and I got the plane back under control,” the pilot of the unfortunate aircraft told USNI News.
After the impact, the crew discovered the collision had left a hole in the aircraft, letting in a blast of outside air as they braved glaring lights and blaring alarms in the cockpit, while the displays lit up with cascading caution and warning messages.
The collision wiped out both engines on the KC-130J’s right (starboard) side. Yet “the impact did not damage our ailerons, elevators or rudder, so we still have all of our primary flight control surfaces,” Wolff later recalled in his interaction with USNI. “At that point, I’m like, OK, let’s get figuring out what’s going on and the best course of action.” “That’s when – it’s kind of cliché – the training kicks in,” he added.
The crew drew on their deep familiarity with the KC-130J, forged through countless flight hours and simulator sessions rehearsing emergency procedures in the air and on the ground. Aircrews are well known for their rigorous adherence to detailed checklists, along with the almost automatic responses and ingrained knowledge that come from repeated practice. “We start running through everything,” Wolff told USNI News later, “and figuring out where to go and communicating to the crew and then outside” to air traffic control.
An F-35B approaching a KC-130J for refueling (Image only for Representation purposes)
The KC-130J crew declared an emergency to Los Angeles Center, reporting a mid-air collision, damage to two engines, a fuel leak, a possible fire, and an emergency descent, as later revealed in the emergency call recording. “We are declaring an emergency. We still have partial control of the aircraft,” Wolff was heard saying in a rather calm manner.
Thick black smoke streamed behind Raider 50 as flames roared from its burning fuel tanks, and the rear crew members confirmed the severity of the damage to engines No. 3 and No. 4. The crew then focused on keeping control of the aircraft and getting it safely back to the ground. “I can see the far right engine – the #4 – from my seat, but I can’t see the #3,” Wolff said. Crew members in the rear of the aircraft “gave me confirmation that [the] thing was toast, and we pulled the fire handle and [made] sure nothing got worse.”
He needed constant updates on whether the fire was dying down or if fuel was still leaking from the wing, stressing that “that communication from the back [crew] is extremely vital to get down safely.”
The crew aboard the aircraft on that fateful day had practiced for an emergency with two engines out, but never for multiple emergencies.
With the tanker still heavy with fuel and only five parachutes available for eight Marines, bailout was not a practical option. The crew committed to landing.
Determined to land safely, the pilots surveyed the surrounding terrain and found Thermal Airport—officially Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport—a viable landing site. “We had a lot of open space between where we were and there – the Salton Sea and a lot of farmland – and we’re not worried about populated areas,” Wolff said.
However, their troubles were far from over.
A Marine KC-130 crash-landed on September 29, 2020 (Photo circulated online after the incident)
Just as the crew lined up for a runway landing, the aircraft began drifting right because of the ongoing malfunctions and the distance involved.
With only five parachutes for eight crew members and the aircraft still partially controllable on the remaining engines, they committed to a forced landing rather than a bailout.
After roughly 12–13 minutes of fighting for control—facing multiple system failures, an uncommanded right turn after dipping below minimum control airspeed, and other issues—they executed a gear-up or belly landing in a farm field near Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal, California.
The aircraft skidded several hundred yards and came to rest with extensive damage but intact enough for the entire crew to walk away with only mild injuries.
“It wasn’t quite like the movies where you see you have like a 747 that plows through … We came to a stop pretty quickly,” Wolf said.
Pilot sure earned that DFC
September 29, 2020: a US Marines KC-130 and an F-35 collide during mid-air refueling over California (US). Fighter crashes, pilot ejects safely, KC-130 crash-lands in a carrot field, all 8 aboard survive.
The collision, resulting fire damage, and emergency landing meant the aircraft had to be written off. After investigators finished examining the wreckage, Marine Corps teams spent roughly a week removing it from the field. They recovered the rear stabilizers and the aircraft’s tail section, set them up outside the squadron, and painted them in the unit’s distinctive Raider black as a permanent display and reminder.
For their actions, both Capt. Michael Wolff and Maj. Cory Jones received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest award in flying and the fourth highest award for bravery. The award recognized the skill, discipline, and crew coordination.
The collision, engine failure, and safe landing marked one of the rare incidents in which every crew member survived, including the F-35 B pilot.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
The US honored seven airmen who piloted F-22 Raptors in combat operations in the Middle East with the “Distinguished Flying Cross” (DFC), even as the United States has relaunched a military buildup in the Region.
Of the seven airmen, six were awarded the DFC for their role in “Operation Midnight Hammer,” launched against Iran in June 2025, while one was honored for a mission in the Middle East without disclosing details.
The DFC is the fourth-highest award for gallantry in the military and honors acts of bravery or exceptional accomplishment in the air.
The USAF launched Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 following 12 days of intense clashes between Iran and Israel. The operation included an armada of 125 combat aircraft, including B-2 stealth bombers, F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters, F-16s, F-15Es, and several aerial tankers for refueling, as the EurAsian Times previously reported.
Although the role of the seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers that dropped 14 bunker-buster GBU-57 MOP bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities has been widely recognized, the F-22 Raptors also played a crucial role in the operation.
These air superiority stealth fighters moved ahead of the B-2 bombers along with the F-35s, conducting air superiority and air defense-suppression missions to clear the way for the B-2s to operate safely and effectively and bomb the three Iranian nuclear sites.
Of the aviators who received the DFC for Operation Midnight Hammer, four came from the Active-Duty 94th Fighter Squadron, part of the 1st Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., while two came from the associated Virginia Air National Guard’s 149th Fighter Squadron of the 192nd Wing.
Air Combat Command commander Gen. Adrian L. Spain presented the medals to the aviators in a ceremony at the Virginia base on August 31, 2026.
“Their job was to provide air superiority,” Spain said, referring to the F-22s. “The bombers and the rest of the support package relied on these Raptor pilots to clear the skies, shield them from surface threats, and ensure a safe route through heavily contested airspace.”
The F-22 is the USAF’s premier fifth-generation air superiority stealth fighter, allowing it to evade radar detection unlike the 4th- and 4.5th-generation fighters. In fact, the Raptor was purpose-built as an air dominance fighter, optimized to clear the skies of enemy aircraft, escort high-value assets, and operate in the most hostile environments.
Before Operation Midnight Hammer, the F-22 Raptors were also deployed against the Yemen-based Houthis in 2024, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time.
File: F-22 Raptor flying over Langley Air Force Base
Earlier this year, the F-22 Raptors were once again summoned to the region for Operation Epic Fury, launched against Iran on February 28, 2026, together with Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion.
The F-22 Raptors of the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base were deployed to the Ovda Air Base in Israel for the first time ahead of the operation.
During the initial days of Operation Epic Fury, F-22s reportedly suppressed advanced Iranian air defenses, such as the S-300 and Bavar-373 systems, clearing the way for B-2 bombers and other strike packages.
Flying deep into Iranian airspace, the stealth fighters reportedly carried out pinpoint strikes on high-value targets between March 1 and 9, 2026, including military sites, nuclear-related infrastructure, and IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) command nodes.
The Raptors also reportedly targeted the “infrastructure connected to the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant and Natanz Nuclear Facility,” as US Central Command (CENTCOM) previously noted. It “also coordinated with B-2 Spirit bombers and EA-18G Growler electronic attack jets in layered strike packages designed to overwhelm Iran’s integrated air defenses,” it added.
File: U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, U.S. Air Forces in Europe – U.S. Air Forces Africa commander, pins a Distinguished Flying Cross medal onto a U.S. Air Force pilot during a ceremony in Essen, Germany, Sept. 22, 2026.
The seventh F-22 pilot—whose name was withheld—received the decoration on September 22 from Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, commander of US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), for commanding a strike package during a Middle East mission in contested airspace.
The pilot faced “challenging conditions including enemy threats” and “directed the aircraft formation, making critical decisions with limited time and little margin for error,” the USAFE stated.
“For more than an hour, [the pilot] remained focused on protecting teammates” and “acted decisively to protect the larger force, and ensured the formation could safely return,” Hinds said. “Their actions helped give the strike package the time and freedom needed to accomplish its mission.”
Interestingly, the DFC was awarded and publicized by the US Air Force at a time when tensions are escalating between the United States and Iran.
US Commences Military Build-Up in Middle East
The US is deploying a third US aircraft carrier to the Middle East as part of a fresh military buildup as President Donald Trump weighs new strikes.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group departed its San Diego base last week on the Pentagon’s order. The USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group followed, with its two amphibious landing ships. About 9,000 sailors, 7,000 aboard the carrier and 2,000 aboard the amphibious ships, are en route to waters near Iran.
With USS Theodore Roosevelt’s arrival, three aircraft carriers would be standing guard in West Asia by late October, according to US officials who spoke to the media. As of now, the carriers USS George HW Bush and the USS George Washington, along with the USS Boxer amphibious readiness group, are in the region amid ongoing hostilities.
This would bring the overall US naval presence to more than 20,000 sailors and Marines, along with hundreds of aircraft, significantly expanding the military posture.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) has left San Diego to build a three-carrier presence in the Middle East
Ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, officials confirmed the Roosevelt will join the USS George Washington and the USS George H.W. Bush, a rare trio of supercarriers,… pic.twitter.com/yisXp9TAVu
Additionally, reports citing informed sources suggest that the US military sent two additional Patriot missile batteries to protect oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in recent weeks.
Notably, the two sides have remained locked in a tense battle since July, when they started trading fire after a long lull that followed the June memorandum of understanding.
Last week, Iran proposed a new deal in which it would open the Strait of Hormuz in return for lifting the US blockade of its ports, unfreezing funds, and removing sanctions on Iranian oil. However, Trump rejected the proposal, saying Iran is seeking an agreement now because it is losing so badly.
The two sides later held indirect talks, signaling that they may be open to negotiating a fresh deal. However, Trump caused a stir again as he told Time magazine this week that the US military could ramp up bombing of Iran after the November 3 midterm elections that will be held amid continued disapproval of the war at home.
Furthermore, the President said that Iran may have something to do with the recent incident involving the FlyDubai flight, adding that it will be hit very hard if Tehran’s connection is verified.
For now, a deal between Washington and Tehran looks more elusive than ever, especially as the Pentagon is moving major military assets to the region. If Trump decides to resume the bombing, the presence of three aircraft carriers will significantly expand his options and fighter jet presence near Iran.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) F/A-18F Super Hornet was pictured carrying an AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM) during a US test event in California. The development comes weeks after RAAF said it would become the first operator, outside the US, of the JATMs.
The image, clicked on Sept. 11 at Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu and released by the U.S. Navy, shows aircraft A44-209 of No. 1 Squadron during Exercise Gray Flag 2026. However, the missile’s ownership remains unconfirmed.
The Navy caption does not name the weapon. Analysts identified the weapon as an AIM-260 training round, citing blue bands that mark an inert motor or warhead. No live firing was reported. The sortie appears to have been a captive-carry flight.
Earlier, as EurAsian Times reported, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said at Exercise Pitch Black on 6 August that Australia would invest almost A$736 million, about $518 million, to buy the missile through US foreign military sales.
Canberra did not say how many rounds that sum would buy. A separate U.S. notification in March covered a possible sale of up to 450 AIM-260s, plus test vehicles, estimated at $3.16 billion.
“This announcement is the latest milestone in the delivery of long-range, high‑tech capabilities for our Defense Force,” Marles said in Darwin. “The Albanese government continues to deliver critical capabilities that will allow the ADF to strike at a longer range, deter any adversary, and protect our national interests. It is fitting to make this announcement at Exercise Pitch Black, which is an important demonstration of Australia’s commitment to the peace, stability, and security of our region.”
A Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to No. 1 Squadron takes flight at Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu during Gray Flag 2026, Sept. 11, 2026. Via U.S. Navy photo by Dana Rene White.
Australia will integrate the missile first on the F/A-18F, then on the F-35A and the EA-18G Growler. Canberra said Australia would be the first country to field the AIM-260 outside the United States, and that it would complement existing air-to-air missiles.
“The acquisition of the AIM-260 JATM will provide Air Force platforms with a credible deterrent against airborne targets, complementing existing air-to-air missile capabilities and other surface-based missile capabilities across the Australian Defense Force (ADF). It will also further enhance Australia’s interoperability with the United States,” the Australian Department of Defense earlier said in a statement.
The existence of the AIM-260 JATM was initially confirmed in 2019 during an Air Force Life Cycle Management Center industry conference. Because of its sensitivity, the AIM-260 JATM is classified as a Special Access Program (SAP), and details have remained mostly classified.
In 2022, General Mark Kelly, the head of the United States Air Force’s Air Combat Command, shared an artist’s concept of the Lockheed Martin F-22 firing an AIM-260 JATM.
An F-22 Raptor firing AIM-260 JATM in a USAF rendering
More recently, the US Navy publicly revealed the rendering of the missile in February 2025. At the time, experts said it looked similar to the AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missile.
Nonetheless, the AIM-260 appears to have a larger rocket motor section and no mid-body surfaces, unlike the AIM-120. Although little is known about the JATM, reports suggest it will use dual-pulse rocket motors or ramjets to increase range and performance.
The AIM-260 could carry an advanced multi-mode seeker system that may include infrared imaging and active radar. The dual-seeker system could improve resilience to electronic warfare countermeasures and increase accuracy.
Like the AIM-120D-3 AMRAAM derivative, the AIM-260 is anticipated to have a two-way datalink. This feature would greatly increase the missile’s efficacy in networked battle by enabling mid-course targeting upgrades or re-targeting.
The missile is intended to keep valuable airborne assets, such as tankers and AEW&C aircraft, safe deep into contested airspace. Analysts say it would be designed to combat stealth aircraft and operate in disputed areas with heavy electronic jamming, increasing its effectiveness against enemies such as China and Russia.
The JATM “is the number-one air-delivered weapon priority for both the Air Force and the Navy, and out-prioritizes other weapon system improvements and modernization efforts on any fielded aircraft,” the USAF earlier stated.
The planned US sequence has the AIM-260 entering service first on the F-22 Raptors, then the F-35s and the Navy’s F/A-18E/F. Australia intends to integrate it on the F/A-18F before the F-35A and EA-18G.
US Arms Australia
The Indo-Pacific landscape is rapidly changing, with China emerging as a global military power and intimidating its neighbors. Although not an immediate neighbor, Australia is also concerned by Beijing’s growing military might and ambitions.
Australia has emerged as one of America’s strongest military partners. At the heart of this security architecture is the AUKUS submarine pact, signed alongside the UK.
Under this pact, Australia will acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered (not nuclear-armed) submarines. Nuclear propulsion would give the Australian Navy unparalleled stealth, range, and endurance, allowing it to operate deep within contested waters without surfacing for oxygen, as conventional submarines do.
Washington is also strengthening Australia’s strike capabilities. The RAAF has also acquired F-35 stealth jets, ensuring seamless interoperability with the US military and allies like Japan.
To complement these platforms, Washington has approved the sale of advanced long-range strike weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, HIMARS, and AGM-158B JASSM-ER missiles. These weapons effectively shift Australia’s military posture from territorial defense to robust power projection.
The US is boosting Australia’s capabilities to establish domestic guided-missile manufacturing, securing a resilient supply chain outside the American mainland. Increased rotations of US bombers, maritime patrol aircraft, and troops to northern Australian military bases further cement this partnership.
While Washington and Canberra frame these advancements as essential steps to maintain a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” Beijing views the militarisation as an encirclement strategy. By arming Australia with these cutting-edge capabilities, the US is ensuring that any potential conflict in the region would face a highly sophisticated and unified allied front.
Taiwan has received its first F-16V (Viper) fighter jets from the US amid serious tensions with China, which calls the island a ‘renegade province’.
The Vipers are part of an $8 billion deal for 66 F-16Vs approved during US President Donald Trump’s first term.
The two Lockheed Martin F-16 Vipers touched down at Taiwan’s Chihhangair Air Force Base in Taitung. President Lai Ching-te hailed “a major milestone in elevating Taiwan’s air defense capabilities” and thanked Washington for its “long-standing support”.
Former Air Force serviceman Eric Chan, 57, praised the F-16’s advancements over the past three decades and said the fighter jets based in Taitung will “play a very important defensive role” against China.
“The threat from the CCP has always been there, so we definitely need to strengthen our defense capabilities,” Chan told AFP, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
F-16 vs F-16 Viper
Earlier, as EurAsian Times reported, Taiwan’s first two F-16 Vipers — serials 6727 and 6728 — were on the Pacific ferry to Taitung’s Chihhang Air Base.
Deliveries were expected to begin in 2023, and all 66 warplanes were scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2026. However, supply-line pressures due to COVID-19, followed by Lockheed Martin’s decision to shift the F-16 assembly line from Fort Worth to Greenville, pushed the timeline back.
The jet’s electronic-warfare suite has been a separate problem. The embedded AN/ALQ-254 Viper Shield, built by L3Harris, ran into production bottlenecks because it is built into the fuselage rather than carried as a pod.
Taiwanese reporting in July 2026 said the first Block 70s would be delivered without it, with the suite to be fitted later. An AESA radar without the planned internal jammer makes the aircraft thinner than the one in the brochure, and it is a capability gap, not just a reason the schedule slipped.
Lockheed later started two shifts to prioritize Taiwan’s order to deliver the combat jets. Still, the full 66-jet order is not expected to be delivered before 2028.
When Lockheed Martin delivers the 66 new jets by 2028, the Taiwanese Air Force will have more than 200 F-16 Viper fighter jets, making it the largest Viper-standard fleet in the Indo-Pacific region.
A newly purchased F-16V Block 70 fighter jet lands at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung on October 2, 2026. (Photo by CHENG Yu-chen / AFP)
F-16 vs F-16 Viper
Both the legacy F-16 and the latest F-16V jets share a common airframe shape, a single-engine layout, 9g capability, and basic flight characteristics.
The main differences are in sensors, computers, cockpit, electronic warfare, and modern weapons/data-link integration.
However, the biggest capability jump is perhaps in the radar system.
The legacy F-16A/B jets used the mechanically scanned AN/APG-66 radar. Most F-16C/D (Blocks 25–52) used the mechanically scanned AN/APG-68.
These radars have slower scan rates, more limited multi-target tracking capabilities, and poorer jamming performance.
For the F-16V, however, Lockheed Martin uses Northrop Grumman’s AN/APG-83 SABR AESA radar.
It uses electronic beam steering, supports simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground modes, high-resolution SAR mapping, better jamming resistance, and tracks more targets at longer ranges.
Lockheed Martin states it delivers 5th-generation radar capabilities through hardware and software commonality with F-22 and F-35 radars.
“It delivers greater situational awareness, flexibility and quicker all-weather targeting and provides pilots with unprecedented target area detail and digital map displays that can be tailored with slew and zoom features,” said Lockheed Martin in a factsheet about the Block 70/72 jets.
The new Viper standard jets also provide enhanced battlespace awareness.
Block 70/72 features a new high-resolution Center Pedestal Display (CPD), which provides critical tactical imagery to pilots and enables them to take full advantage of AESA and targeting pod data.
The new CPD enables color moving maps, larger and easier-to-manage air-to-air Situation Displays, zoom functionality with the ability to switch information among displays, digital display of Flight Instrument Data, and a color/night helmet-mounted display.
An inside view of the F-16 Viper’s cockpit. Credits: Lockheed Martin.
The F-16V also provides better pilot protection. Lockheed Martin’s Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS) was purpose-built to prevent deadly crashes and has already saved the lives of multiple pilots and F-16s since the system entered service with the U.S. Air Force in late 2014.
The Auto GCAS is designed to reduce incidents of controlled flight into terrain, or CFIT. According to U.S. Air Force statistics, CFIT incidents account for 26 percent of aircraft losses and a staggering 75 percent of all F-16 pilot fatalities.
The F-16V also provides extended structural capabilities.
The Block 70/72 has an extended structural life to 12,000 hours – more than 50 percent beyond that of previous production F-16 aircraft. The older F-16s had a structural life of around 8,000 hours.
According to Lockheed Martin, the F-16V could serve for 40 years without any major repairs.
The conformal fuel tanks provide increased fuel capacity and range without sacrificing the jet’s aerodynamic performance.
Furthermore, legacy F-16s relied on multiple older computers with limited processing power, whereas the F-16V has a single high-performance Modular Mission Computer (MMC) and a modernized avionics architecture. This gives far higher computing power for sensors, weapons, and data fusion.
The F-16V is certified for a very wide range of modern weapons, such as AIM-120D AMRAAM, AIM-9X, JASSM, JSOW, JDAM variants, and SDB, and uses Link 16, which provides enhanced situational awareness and enables real-time command, control, and tactical data exchange among military aircraft, ships, and ground forces.
They also have greater electrical power, cooling, and data-processing capacity to support the future integration of advanced electronic warfare equipment, weapons, and infrared search-and-track systems.
F-16 Viper. Credits: Lockheed Martin.
Because of all these capabilities, even though both the older F-16 and the latest F-16V share the same airframe design, the F-16V is a much more lethal aircraft.
Modern sensors, avionics, radars, an electronic warfare suite, Link 16, structural improvements, and an improved weapons package and ferry range mean the F-16V is a much more capable jet. That is why operators such as Taiwan, Greece, Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Turkey are upgrading their existing F-16 fleets.
According to Su Tzu-yun, a senior analyst at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, the AN/APG-83 radar was designed to detect targets with small radar cross-sections and could “improve the F-16V’s chances of detecting PLA stealth aircraft such as the J-20 and J-35”.
Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
More than a year after Donald Trump unofficially offered the F-35 to India, the fighter jet debuted in India’s multinational exercise Tarang Shakti 2026.
For the first time, six US F-35 Lightning II fighter jets and more than 200 airmen joined the Tarang Shakti multinational drills in Jodhpur, western India.
Photos of the jets appeared on social media ahead of their participation in tactical exercises alongside the Indian Air Force’s stalwarts, including the Rafale, the Su-30MKI, and indigenous Tejas fighters in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force published a video on September 29, 2026, showing an F-35 and Tejas flying together.
The @usairforce F-35A Lightning IIs are making their exercise debut in India at Tarang Shakti.
Combining stealth, advanced sensors, and information-sharing capabilities, the F-35s bring new opportunities to train with the Indian Air Force and other partners, strengthening… pic.twitter.com/wGfT6OxtAc
The exercise comes more than a year after US President Donald Trump offered the F-35 to India during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February 2025. So, while the deployment is meant to provide the IAF practical exposure to the aircraft’s operations and sensor integration in a multinational setting, it has inevitably sparked questions about whether the US is signaling its intent to sell the fighter.
F-35 for India?
“Starting this year, we will be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We are also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters,” Trump told reporters in February 2025.
Vice President J.D. Vance reiterated the offer during his visit to India in April 2025, saying, “We, of course, want to collaborate more. We want to work together more. And we want your nation to buy more of our military equipment, which we believe is the best in class. American fifth-generation F-35s, for example, would give the Indian Air Force the ability to defend your airspace and protect your people like never before.”
These pitches took many by surprise, but there was a catch: they were merely verbal pitches, not official offers accompanied by formal discussions.
So, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, chief of the Indian Air Force, ultimately told reporters that India was not considering the F-35 option, adding that it had not received a formal offer. A fervent supporter of augmenting Indian air power, the IAF top boss emphasized that purchasing a fighter jet was not like “buying a washing machine or refrigerator,” implying that the appropriate process must be followed. “We haven’t examined it [F-35].”
Later that year, the Minister of State for External Affairs, Kirti Vardhan Singh, told Parliament that it had held no formal discussions with the US about acquiring F-35 fighter jets.
However, more than a year later, the deployment of the F-35s for Tarang Shakti gives the impression that the exercise may be an attempt by Washington to keep the door open or provide useful exposure that could entice the Indian Air Force (IAF).
Meanwhile, the Russian envoy to India praised the F-35 fighter jet in a rare move while arguing that it was not suitable for India.
Speaking at the NDTV Defense Forum 2026, Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov said, ”The US is welcome to promote its product. It’s a good aircraft, no doubt about that. But way too expensive. If India goes for that, well, that would be India’s sovereign decision. But we are offering a much better deal. Next year we are going to see hopefully many firsts at the Bengaluru air show.”
It appears the Russians might be smelling the US offer.
Russia has also been aggressively pursuing to sell India its fifth-generation Su-57, which Moscow positions as a competitor to the F-35.
It has offered New Delhi a host of options, including an off-the-shelf purchase of Su-57 fighters, full licensed production in India, technology transfer, a “two-seat variant,” and help with India’s own fifth-generation aircraft, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).
IAF veteran and commentator, Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), told the EurAsian Times, “IAF has trained alongside the F-35s in the past, such as in the Pitch Black exercise. The deployment is likely meant to test the waters by enticing the IAF, and probably to create conjecture, considering that no official offer was ever made. They could also be creating a deliberate distraction for India, particularly since the Russians have sustained their Su-57 campaign and expanded the scope of the initial offer to make it more and more appealing.”
“As for the cost factor mentioned by the Russian envoy, everything we buy is expensive. The Su-57 may be cheaper than the F-35 initially when looking at per-unit price, but it wouldn’t be cheap in the long term,” Chopra added.
That said, since both Su-57 and F-35 offers were made to India around the same time, the two jets have been viewed as competitors in the context of India’s acquisition of a fifth-generation fighter to augment its airpower.
As Air Marshal Chopra added: India may need a fifth-gen fighter as a stopgap solution till the AMCA arrives. If the US makes an enticing offer and meets India’s core requirements, American jets offered to the IAF are “quite possible”, but India should best avoid letting the USA get into its fighter aircraft ecosystem.
F-35: Image via US Embassy, New Delhi
F-35 vs Su-57 Showdown?
Although India is developing its own fifth-generation stealth aircraft, the AMCA, it is unlikely to be delivered to the IAF before the mid-2030s. Defense Secretary R.K. Singh recently said the first flight is targeted for September 2028, but the aircraft may take time to become operationally available to the IAF.
This means waiting for the AMCA would leave India with a glaring capability gap vis-à-vis adversaries China and Pakistan. China already operates two different fifth-generation stealth fighters: the J-20 and J-35A, and is currently testing two sixth-generation fighter prototypes. Meanwhile, Beijing could export its 5th-gen J-35A to Pakistan.
File: F-35 Lightning II and Su-57 Felon captured in the same frame for the first time in history at Aero India 2025
However, Air Marshal Chopra had earlier told the EurAsian Times that the decision not to show any interest in the Su-57 and the rhetoric about focusing on AMCA is meant to keep American ire and sanctions at bay.
For now, India’s path to bolstering its airpower includes accelerating Tejas production, advancing work on AMCA, and signing a deal for 114 Rafale fighters with France.
Observers have noted that India’s sustained disinterest in buying the F-35, arguably the best fifth-generation stealth fighter on the market, stemmed mainly from American unreliability, including painful delays in delivering F404-IN20 turbofan engines for Tejas Mk-1A jets.
So far, the US has not been able to break into the Indian fighter jet ecosystem, and has pitched multiple warplanes to the IAF, including F-15EX, F-21 (modified F-16), and F/A-18 Super Hornets. However, none of them appears to have lured the Indians. Can the F-35 do? Only time will tell.
Indians are reportedly also concerned about operational costs linked to the F-35, anxiety over introducing a complex Western platform to its fleet, Washington’s unwillingness to transfer the technology and allow local manufacturing, and potential operational restrictions on F-35 use.
Skeptics have noted that the sale may never go through, given that India operates the Russian S-400 air defense system and has integrated it into its layered air defense network.
Earlier, the US expelled Turkey from the F-35 consortium for buying the S-400 and has not yet approved the F-35 sale to it, despite Ankara’s assurances that it would never activate the system.
Meanwhile, India is also aggressively evaluating the French 6th-gen FCAS program.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
After a long period of uncertainty and an ice-thin contest with Northrop Grumman,Boeing has won the US Navy’s F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter contract, making it the sole developer of America’s crewed sixth-generation combat jets, after F-47.
On September 29, the Department of War awarded Boeing a $20 billion contract for the F/A-XX’s full-scale development phase. The contract covers multiple test aircraft for ground, airworthiness, systems, and weapons integration testing.
“The F/A-XX is a critical pillar in our commitment to maintaining peace through strength. F/A-XX will dominate contested airspace, extend operational reach, and deliver a decisive combat advantage for the warfighter,” Michael P. Duffey, Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, was quoted as saying in the official statement.
Boeing had already secured the Air Force’s F-47 program in March 2025, defeating Lockheed Martin—the company behind both of the service’s fifth-generation fighters, the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II.
Responding to the Navy award, Steve Parker, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, stated: “Delivering two advanced fighters in parallel was always our plan, and we invested accordingly. We are ready and able to build multiple concurrent future combat aircraft franchise programs.”
The decision ends nearly a year of ambiguity surrounding the F/A-XX, which will eventually replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets in US Navy service since the 1990s. Last year, the Pentagon said it was prioritizing the F-47 over the F/A-XX, and asked the House and Senate defense policy committees to divert $500 million from the “accelerated development” of a Navy stealth fighter to the F-47.
However, the US Navy’s leadership and Congress pushed back against the Pentagon and called for increased funding and award of the contract.
In January 2026, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees negotiated a draft defense spending bill that earmarked nearly $900 million for the F/A-XX, a stark increase from the $74 million the Pentagon sought.
File: Artist rendering of the F/A-XX (Boeing Image)
Naval officials and analysts made the case for the F/A-XX by pointing to its utility amid the burgeoning threat from China in the Indo-Pacific theatre. Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., the head of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said, “We need sixth-generation fighters. The US Navy needs sixth-generation fighters. I’m concerned that any hesitancy on our part to proceed with the planned procurement of the sixth-gen fighters for the Navy will leave us dangerously outmatched in a China fight.”
Meanwhile, Daniel Cheever, Commander of Naval Air Forces, was quoted saying: “I’m looking forward to [the F/A-XX] because that sixth-generation means air superiority in that timeframe in the future, which means sea control. And as long as you have air superiority, you have sea control around the globe.”
Beijing has been flying two different prototypes of sixth-generation fighters—the J-36 and the J-50—one of which could possibly evolve into a carrier-based sixth-generation fighter aircraft. This sparked concerns across the US Navy that the service that fielded the world’s first-ever carrier-capable stealth fighter may lose out on this crucial race.
“This achievement marks a new era for the US Navy,” said acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao. “The Sixth-Generation fighter is a generational leap in air superiority and will provide the world’s best aviators with unparalleled capabilities to fight, win, and come home safe. We are excited to partner with Boeing, and for our warfighters to continue to dominate the skies and defeat our nation’s enemies.”
Unlike the USAF NGAD program, the US Navy has released little information on a futuristic F/A-XX, although authorities have said the F/A-XX will have a longer range than current aircraft and serve as a covert tip of the spear for the carrier air wing. In addition, the F/A-XX will be interoperable with manned and unmanned platforms such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and increase the capability of every CCA it teams with.
However, a pressing question experts have been discussing after the award was presented to Boeing is whether the naval fighter will be a navalized variant of the F-47, or the aerospace giant will build a new fighter from the ground up.
F/A-XX vs F-47
Boeing can leverage relevant production experience, supply chains, and design work it has already completed for the F-47 program.
Many aviation enthusiasts have wondered if Boeing will produce the F/A-XX as a navalized version of the F-47; the two aircraft are built for fundamentally different environments and missions, which will influence their design differences.
The F-47 is a land-based air-superiority fighter focused on speed, altitude, long-range penetration, and counter-air roles to succeed the F-22, whereas the F/A-XX is a carrier-based multirole strike fighter to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler.
This distinction means that the naval F/A-XX next-generation fighter jet must be designed for catapult launches, arrested landings, folding wings for carrier storage, saltwater corrosion resistance, and high sortie rates in a maritime environment, while prioritizing range for Pacific operations and multirole strike capability.
F-47 artist rendering-Wikimedia Commons
Notably, several past studies examined a joint sixth-generation solution and concluded it was unworkable. For this reason, the USAF and the Navy formally split their paths and decided to pursue separate programs based on specific requirements.
The US Navy has consistently asserted that its fighter will have a separate airframe from the Air Force, rejecting the joint approach controversially used for the F-35 program for many practical reasons.
The Navy’s carrier version, the F-35C, required extensive modifications from the USAF’s F-35A baseline, including a larger wing area, stronger landing gear and structure, folding wingtips, a tailhook, corrosion-resistant materials and coatings, and revised fuel and internal arrangements. The changes added weight, cost, and complexity, contributing to schedule delays and performance compromises.
When every percentage of range, stealth, and kinematic performance matters against near-peer threats such as China, the structural and aerodynamic penalties of carrier suitability become more painful for a pure air-superiority fighter.
Boeing’s previously released concept rendering of F/A-XX (Via X)
That said, the F-47 and F/A-XX may share some basic commonalities, which may even help the US Navy’s next-generation fighter program.
The first question is how quickly a workable F/A-XX can be fielded—which really comes down to how much it draws on the already-developed F-47. If the two designs share much commonality, or were developed together, an F/A-XX could fly much sooner than expected.
Boeing released F/A-XX concept renderings, including one shown at the 2025 Tailhook Symposium and newer ones after the award,that visually resemble its F-47 concepts in areas such as cockpit shape, overall planform, and possible canard-like foreplanes.
Moreover, the two Boeing designs can share high-value subsystems, sensors, software, open mission systems, Artificial intelligence, or Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) integration, and design philosophy without locking both aircraft into the same airframe.
This level of commonality could offer high cost and risk benefits while preserving optimization.
US Navy’s Fighter Program Trails Yet Again
While the F-47 is on track for its first flight, the F/A-XX has yet to receive a designation, and concerns remain about how Boeing will manage the industrial constraints of pursuing two contemporary programs at the same time.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich, the service’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft, recently stated, “We’re not too far away from an F-47 production line, which will be additive to the production capacity.”
By contrast, the F/A-XX is roughly 18 months behind the F-47 in program phase and several years behind in physical hardware maturity.
Boeing has already invested heavily in expanded, secure St. Louis facilities sized for multiple advanced fighters. However, with the F/A-XX, the company will likely face significant industrial constraints developing both aircraft simultaneously while still supporting F-15EX and T-7 production. The company is likely to be constrained by a limited specialized workforce and potential supply-chain bottlenecks.
Against that backdrop, the F-47 will likely receive priority focus first so manufacturing lessons, tooling, supply-chain fixes, and digital production processes can be refined on the Air Force lines before F/A-XX ramps into full-scale assembly in the early 2030s.
Notably, the delay in awarding the F/A-XX contract somewhat mimics a historical pattern of laxity in advancing the US Navy’s fighter jet programs, giving dominant USAF programs more leverage.
The US Navy formally launched the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet program in 1992 as a lower-risk alternative. Although the aircraft made its maiden flight on November 29, 1995, its Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase faced intense political scrutiny and budget constraints throughout the mid-to-late 1990s over its effectiveness and cost.
Meanwhile, a comparable multirole fighter for the USAF, the F-15E Strike Eagle, progressed much faster.
Selected for the Dual-Role Fighter program in February 1984, the Strike Eagle flew its first production model on December 11, 1986, and reached Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in September 1989—a full decade before the Super Hornet entered fleet service in 1999 and reached IOC in 2001.
Later, the Joint Program Office-managed F-35 program prioritized the F-35A and F-35B because of their earlier operational needs and less complex technical requirements than the F-35C. In fact, the F-35C carrier variant was the last to achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in 2019, following the F-35A (2016) and the F-35B (2015).
Since both contracts are now with Boeing, whether this historical pattern will reverse or shrink remains to be seen.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
The perspective on the Brazilian elections after the 1st round is unanimous: Lula and the Workers’ Party were swept away and humiliated, and the prospects of a turnaround in the presidential elections are minimal.
Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, received 56 million votes, or approx. 47% of valid votes, while Lula received 53.8 million votes, or approx. 45% of valid votes – the result leads to a 2nd round, to be held on October 28. The problem for Lula is that the electorate of the candidates who placed 3rd, 4th and 5th have a greater tendency to vote for Flávio Bolsonaro than for Lula himself.
Lula can only pull votes by trying to convert those who did not vote, or those who voted null. There are 30 million voters in these conditions, so it is not a small number. But historically, the tendency is for this slice of the electorate to increase from the 1st to the 2nd round, rather than decrease.
Lula’s setback, however, is not only in his own dispute with Bolsonaro.
In number of state governors, his party, the PT, falls from 4 to 3 governors. And the party even managed to preserve its seats in the Senate and add 1 more federal deputy in the Chamber, but its Bolsonarist rivals from the PL gained 13 more seats in the Senate and 21 seats in the Chamber. In other words, even if Lula won, he would not be able to govern.
The reaction of Lula’s party and its militants is the worst possible: they blame the people for “not knowing how to vote” or for “being fascist,” the candidates of small left-wing parties for not having withdrawn their candidacies, they allege fantastical narratives of “manipulation” on the part of the U.S. and social networks – anything, except admitting that Lula’s government suffered from serious problems and was incapable of dialoguing with the population and understanding its demands.
Worse: they embrace an illusion in which Lula’s government would have been, in fact, exceptional and in which all economic indices would be marvelous, and “the poor” should thank Lula on their knees and vote for him forever.
Reality, however, is that except in the northeast region, where Lula was born, the PT became the party of the progressive middle class and the urban centers, while small and medium-sized cities and a significant portion of the popular sectors embraced Bolsonarism. And why?
Regarding the economy, the perception of improvement is false. The Lula government created or increased more than 30 taxes and fees of all types, mostly aimed against the middle and working class. To make matters worse, it tightened the regulation of micro-entrepreneurs, making their lives harder regarding tax issues.
The jobs created were mainly in the services sector and in extractivism, not to mention autonomous and precarious work. On the other hand, the government multiplied to infinity the “social benefits,” granted mainly to the lumpen layer of society, parasitic and hated by the positive sectors. Incidentally, only the richest sectors linked to finance received as many benefits as the lumpenproletariat in Lula’s government. And not coincidentally, the support classes for the PT were class A and class E, the two ends of the parasitic and unproductive system, which crush the productive classes (B, C and D) from above (through usury) and from below (through criminality).
One cannot underestimate, moreover, the problem of public security, to which we have been alerting for a long time. Lula’s discourse on sovereignty is empty when ¼ of the Brazilian population (according to a study by Cambridge University Press) lives in territory controlled by drug trafficking organizations. The Brazilian’s tolerance for this situation is over.
But the government’s leniency is not. On the contrary, Brazil lives the schizophrenic situation of being soft with dangerous criminals and extremely repressive against those who say politically incorrect things on the internet. It has become commonplace in Brazil for ordinary people to be arrested and convicted of “hate crime” when refusing the entry of some “trans” person into a women’s restroom.
And in a gross error of judgment, the PT decided to associate its own fate with the STF, exactly the core of liberal power that guarantees the implementation of all globalist agendas in Brazil and that operates a draconian apparatus of repression and silencing. Lula forgot that he himself was persecuted and imprisoned by the Brazilian Judiciary, and decided to ally himself with this sector to try to impose the same fate on Bolsonaro.
The shot, however, backfired. Lula’s dispute is with Flávio Bolsonaro. But whoever won this election, being convicted, imprisoned, ailing and censored, is Jair Bolsonaro.
Speculations about “foreign interference” in the elections are futile and puerile since they are unnecessary. All the causes of Lula’s defeat are in his own government.
Not even in foreign policy – the area most praised by foreign colleagues – do we escape the contradictions: condemnation of Nicaragua in the UN Human Rights Council, veto of Venezuela’s entry into BRICS and delegitimization of Nicolás Maduro’s reelection, tacit alliance with Macron’s France, EU-Mercosur Agreement, ABIN’s collaboration with French and German intelligence, pressure to try to slow down the growth of BRICS, and we could continue at length.
That is why within Brazil, the foreign policy element cannot be seen, in these elections, in the “dualist” way it is seen from outside in (in which there is the myth of a “multipolarist Lula” and an “Atlanticist Bolsonaro”). In truth, both Lula and Bolsonaro play with both sides of the geopolitical field; it is only their discourses that are slightly divergent. Naturally, the propagandists of both sides will swear that it is not so, but that is what the cold analysis of facts points to.
In the end, we are at the gates of the “end of the Lula Era,” and of the final moments of a political career that marked the history of Brazil, which had its highs and lows, its positive and negative points, but which ends in a bittersweet way, due to the absence of a nation project and the opportunistic obsession of perpetuating itself in power at any price – including at the price of betraying the principles of the time of the founding of the Workers’ Party.
Lula will leave the PT orphaned. There was no concern with forming a successor worthy of Lula. Worse: the praxis of the PT led it to crush the smaller left-wing parties and to absorb their main cadres to prune and control them before they could become bigger than Lula.
In this sense, with the end of Lula’s political career, the left dies. Or at least ONE left. The liberal-progressive left of the Sixth Republic and the 1988 Constitution. What remains to be seen is whether what will triumph in the inevitable dispute over its legacy is an even more radically progressive left, or whether a nationalist left will return, such as already existed in Brazil in other eras.
Even a victory by Lula, today improbable, will do no more than give a survival and prolong the agony in a false sense of stability. Not only of the left, but also of Brazil.
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