As Ukraine battles near-daily Russian bombardment, Kyiv must be rueing the fateful decisions made by its leadership in the 1990s, which agreed to voluntarily degrade its military and nuclear capabilities.

Ironically, it was none other than the US and Russia that encouraged Kyiv to transfer/destroy its nuclear bombs, and other critical military assets like ballistic and surface-to-air missiles, and strategic bombers.

As fate would have it, some of the same nuclear-capable bombers that Kyiv transferred to Russia are believed to have been used by Moscow to attack Ukraine.

As the US pressures Ukraine to accept a ceasefire on Russia’s terms, including crippling limits on Ukrainian military size and power, Kyiv would think a million times before any commitment, which could degrade its military.

Ukraine’s Inheritance From The Soviet Union

On December 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin – President of the Russian Federation in the Soviet Union, Leonid Kravchuk – President of Ukraine, and Stanislav Shushkevich – Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, met at a hunting lodge in Belarus and signed an agreement declaring that the Soviet Union “as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality” had ceased to exist and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.

Nearly two weeks later, on December 25, the Kremlin lowered the Soviet Sickle and Hammer flag for the last time, and the Soviet Union became history, fragmenting into 15 new independent states.

At that time, the Soviet Union (USSR) was one of the world’s two superpowers.

It had the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear bombs, thousands of nuclear delivery platforms, including launchers and strategic bombers, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).

The 15 independent states did not divide these military assets orderly, and the country hosting the nuclear warheads and delivery platforms often became their de facto owner.

Ukraine, the second-most populous and economically powerful republic in the Soviet Union, inherited approximately 1900 strategic nuclear warheads, between 2,650 and 4,200 Soviet tactical nuclear weapons, 176 ICBMs (130 SS-19 and 46 SS-24) and associated launchers, nearly 600 nuclear-capable KH-55 cruise missiles, and approximately 102 strategic bombers: 23 Tu-95MS, 19 Tu-160, and more than 60 Tu-22M3.

This large nuclear arsenal would have made Ukraine the world’s third-largest nuclear power, after Russia and the US. Worryingly, Ukraine inherited not only nuclear warheads, but also delivery platforms, such as nuclear-capable missiles, launchers, and nuclear-capable strategic bombers.

The situation was a non-proliferation nightmare for the world, and the US and Russia, the long-time Cold War adversaries, soon found a common cause to come together and take away these new countries’ nuclear assets, in the process robbing them of their deterrence against external aggression.

However, the disarmament process forced Ukraine to transfer not only its nuclear assets but also its conventional military platforms, such as ICBMs, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers, assets that could have been crucial for Kyiv in defending its territory from Russian aggression.

On December 5, 1994, leaders of the US, the UK, and the Russian Federation met in Budapest, Hungary, and signed the Budapest Memorandum, under which the three countries gave security assurances to Ukraine in return for its accession to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapons state.

Under the agreement, Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia.

Further, under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the US-funded Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program (1993), Ukraine committed to dismantling all strategic nuclear delivery systems by December 5, 2001. This deadline was later extended to 2006.

The Degradation of the Ukrainian Air Force

Ever since the war in Ukraine started in February 2022, Russia has routinely used its strategic bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine.

In 1991, Ukraine inherited approximately 102 strategic bombers: 25 Tu-95MS, 19 Tu-160, and more than 60 Tu-22M3.

According to the Eurasian security think tank Jamestown Foundation, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine hosted two of its most important strategic air bases.

At Uzin, 70 kilometers south of Kyiv, the Soviets stationed 25 Tu-95MS turboprop nuclear missile carriers. At Pryluky, 130 kilometers east of the capital, the Soviet Union stationed its only operational unit of 19 new, supersonic Tu-160 Blackjack bombers.

In February 1992, the unit at Uzin declared allegiance to Ukraine. In May 1992, just one week after Russia announced it was forming its own national armed forces, Ukraine announced it was taking command of all long-range aviation units on its territory. This included the Tu-160 base at Pryluky.

The Tu-160s were particularly lethal. It was designed to match the American B-1B bomber, but was significantly larger and faster.

It remains the largest combat aircraft in the world; it could carry 45,000 kg of ordnance across its two internal bays, or up to twelve nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and fly 14,000 km without refueling. Its supersonic speed of 2,300 km/h and variable-sweep wings made it a standout in aviation history.

However, under the START-1 treaty and CTR agreement, Ukraine agreed to dismantle all of these strategic bombers.

Thus began the consensual elimination of Ukraine’s strategic aviation.

Under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the United States funded the destruction of some strategic bombers and missiles, including the extraction of valuable metals.

However, some bombers were not destroyed.

At the time, the newly independent Ukraine was struggling with debt. For decades, as part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine got access to heavily subsidized fuel and gas. When the Soviet Union dissolved abruptly in 1991, Moscow suddenly cut off this subsidized gas.

Struggling with mounting debt, Ukraine agreed to transfer eight Tu-160 and three Tu-95MS bombers to Moscow in exchange for US$285 million in debt relief. This decision remains controversial, as the estimated value of a single Tu-160 was between US$250 and US$300 million.

Between 1999 and 2000, Kyiv transferred Tu-95s and Tu-160s as partial payments on natural-gas debts, along with 575 Kh-55 missiles.

This fateful decision not only degraded Ukraine’s air power and deterrence, but it also multiplied Russia’s air power, creating a military imbalance that Moscow is exploiting in the current war.

In 2024, an investigation by Ukrainian investigative news site Skhemy found that six of the eight Tu-160 bombers transferred to Russia were still active in military operations against Ukraine.

The remaining strategic bombers in Ukraine were dismantled, often with technical and financial assistance from the US.

In March 2007, the US State Department reported that Ukraine had dismantled 57 Tu-22 bombers, 27 Tu-95s, six Tu-142s, 11 Tu-160s, for bomber trainers, 346 Kh-22 ASMs, and 483 Kh-ALCMs (air-launched cruise missiles).

While these platforms were nuclear-capable and theoretically could have been used to launch nukes, they also had conventional military capabilities.

By dismantling and transferring these military assets to Russia, Kyiv delivered a double blow to itself – degrading its own capabilities while multiplying its adversary’s.

In the annals of military history, few decisions have proven as fateful – or as irreversible.

• 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

The post The Bombers U.S. Paid to Scrap Weakened Ukraine, Helped Russia. Why Did Kyiv Clip Its Own Wings? appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

The world’s first supersonic passenger airliner—the Soviet Tu-144—may have become history after a brief but troubled stint that ended in commercial failure. However, some Russian volunteers refuse to let it vanish into oblivion and are reportedly advancing efforts to restore the aircraft for static display.

At the height of the Cold War, the Tu-144 “Concordski” was seen as an answer to the Anglo-French supersonic aircraft, Concorde.

The Russian airliner beat the Concorde in the skies twice: first with its maiden flight on December 31, 1968, two months before Concorde, and second with its first supersonic flight in June 1969, about four months before Concorde.

To preserve this legacy, a group of Russian volunteers has spent years coaxing life back into a Tu-144 airframe on the shared grounds of the Gromov Flight Research Institute and Zhukovsky Airport.

Interestingly, though, these volunteers are neither engineers from Russia’s state design bureau nor museum-paid technicians, but enthusiasts with limited resources aiming to restore a retired Tupolev Tu-144D. 

The aircraft, registered CCCP-77115, is parked on the shared grounds of the Gromov Flight Research Institute and Zhukovsky Airport outside Moscow. It served as a static exhibit at the MAKS air show for several years, but its fate remains unclear, as the air show has been suspended since 2021 due to the war in Ukraine.

Passionate volunteers have carried out extensive external and internal restoration work on the aircraft. One volunteer involved, Pavel Efter, has posted videos of the work on both airplanes on his YouTube channel, “Restorer144,” since 2023.

In the videos, volunteers can be seen turning on the electrical power supply and batteries, testing the fuel gauge, fuel pump, and fuel pressure indicator in the cockpit, checking the landing gear lights and inflating the tires, testing the cabin lighting, repairing the analog navigation system, examining the electrical schematics, cleaning the outside of the aircraft, inspecting the SSP-2A fire detection system and smoke sensors, raising and lowering the nose, testing the retractable canards, testing the APU’s bay doors beneath the aircraft, and actually installing the TA-6A Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).

In Instagram comments, Efter told enthusiasts and followers that the Tu-144D is being refurbished only for static exhibition and will not return to flight.

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Notably, the TA-6A and other mechanical and electrical modifications to the Tu-144D (as seen in the video above) have recently been made, sparking rumors that the volunteers may be preparing the aircraft for another static exhibition at MAKS, probably in 2027.

Nonetheless, the volunteers have been working on restoring the aircraft for several months. In July 2026, media reports noted that the volunteers had already started the electrical system and connected a ground power source, adding that even the well-known nose-lowering mechanism had become operational.

Another Russian state-funded news website, Mir24, provided more details on the volunteers. “There is a problem with such glass fuses now. They aren’t used anywhere; you can’t always find them in old stock. We throw out a cry on the Internet: who has something, who can help with what,” Sergey Chechetkin told the publication at the time. Sergey is a former aviation engineer who devotes all his free time to the Tu-144.

The report also noted that volunteers have completely recreated the plane’s cabin. Volunteers collected the missing devices from across the country and began restoring the aircraft by tidying the service panels and lamps and installing the original chairs. Initially, the 77115 board wasn’t a passenger deck; it served as an experimental testbed. “We find it in different places. Old blocks are transmitted at the bases; you can find something here. Here we are installing the blocks on the mounts,” a volunteer named Alexey told Mir24.

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The project carries no grand political statement. The volunteers do not frame their work as resistance or protest. Instead, they speak of history. “This is not just a museum exhibit, but a legend that we should be proud of. You can still learn a lot from it; many developments aren’t available on other planes yet. It is still ahead of its time,” said Alexey Amelushkin, an engineer at the training and methodological center of PJSC Tupolev, earlier. 

Needless to say, returning this legendary airframe to flight is widely regarded as impractical, especially since Kolesov RD-36-51 engines are long out of production, spare parts are scarce, and certification requirements would be formidable.

Therefore, Efter and his colleagues are only restoring the aircraft’s ability to present itself: nose down in the classic pose, canards extended, cabin lights on, systems powered by its own APU.

First Into The Air, But Not The First To Succeed

The Tupolev Tu-144 was the world’s first supersonic passenger airliner.

Designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau, the aircraft was rushed into development after the then-Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, demanded a supersonic transport that would fly before its Western counterpart.

The prototype made its maiden flight on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, beating Concorde into the air by more than two months. Subsequently, the aircraft went supersonic for the first time in June 1969 and became the first commercial aircraft to reach Mach 2 in May 1970.

The Tu-144 was built to be larger and faster than Concorde, and featured a distinctive double-delta wing and a drooping nose for better landing visibility. Later models also added retractable canards to improve low-speed handling.

However, Western experts and officials claimed the Soviets stole the Concorde plans, which may have helped them build the Tupolev Tu-144 before the Concorde.

These claims reportedly stemmed (at least in part) from the uncanny design similarities between the world’s first two supersonic passenger aircraft.

Despite its early successes over the Concorde, the airplane faced technical issues.

For example, Tu-144’s early Kuznetsov NK-144 engines required constant afterburner use to sustain supersonic cruise, making it extremely noisy, fuel-thirsty, and shorter-range than Concorde, which could supercruise without afterburners. Moreover, reliability problems emerged during testing and maintenance, and the cabin was very noisy and vibrated a lot.

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On June 3, 1973, during a demonstration flight at the Paris Air Show, a production Tu-144 broke apart in midair and crashed into the French village of Goussainville, killing all six crew members along with eight additional people on the ground.

Although the most widely accepted explanation is that the crew overstressed the airframe during fast maneuvers, the precise cause of this disaster remains uncertain.

The Tu-144 entered limited commercial service with Aeroflot in 1975, initially carrying mail and cargo on the Moscow–Almaty route, followed by passenger flights in Nov 1977.

However, the aircraft flew only about 55 passenger services before a second major incident. In May 1978, a fuel-line rupture and fire during a test flight claimed the lives of two crew members and formally ended passenger operations.

After this debacle, the aircraft continued brief cargo and experimental work even as its rival program—the Concorde—struggled with its own set of issues.

Both programs were eventually canceled because of poor safety records and concerns about economic viability. However, Concorde was far more successful than the Tu-144 and wasn’t discontinued until 2003.

The Soviet Union, for its part, built only 16 airframes before operations ceased in 1983. A few surviving examples later trained pilots for the Soviet Buran space shuttle, and one modified aircraft served as a flying laboratory in a joint NASA–Russian research program from 1996 to 1999, conducting its final flights in support of future supersonic transport studies, as earlier explained in detail by the EurAsian Times. 

Though neither the Tu-144 nor the Concorde survived, both programs have inspired people worldwide to make supersonic commercial travel a reality. Earlier this year, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) CEO Vadim Badekha confirmed that the Zhukovsky National Research Center is working on a supersonic airliner prototype. He said the effort had moved beyond paper studies into “hardware,” with UAC providing active support, and expressed confidence that the center would complete the work.

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“Yes, such work is underway at the Zhukovsky Research Center, and we are actively assisting. The work is no longer confined to paper – it is already being carried out in hardware. A prototype of such an aircraft is under development, and we believe the Zhukovsky Research Center will successfully complete this work,” he told TASS.

Meanwhile, NASA is advancing work on the X-59, an experimental aircraft in the agency’s Quiet Supersonic Technology (Quesst) program that could go supersonic without generating a sonic boom or a loud, thunder-like sound when it exceeds the speed of sound.  In addition, China is developing a supersonic passenger aircraft that could make its maiden flight by 2027. Last year, reports noted that the Chinese commercial aerospace company leading the project conducted the first test flight of a detonation ramjet engine. 

As for the Tu-144, this aircraft is remembered as a bold but ultimately unsuccessful engineering achievement. It is, perhaps, for this reason that the volunteers outside the state machinery of Russia are doing everything they can to ensure that the supersonic airliner does not get lost in pages of history.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

The post Russia’s ‘Concorde’ is Back: World’s 1st Supersonic Passenger Airliner Lives On as Volunteers Fix Tu-144 appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

Bulgarian Air Force scrambled its MiG-29 fighter jets to escort an Austrian Airlines flight that was diverted to Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, after a bomb threat. 

The Austrian Airlines crew decided to land in Sofia after reportedly receiving a bomb threat near Romania, Bulgaria’s transport ministry said in a statement, adding that passengers were evacuated after landing.

Austrian Airlines Flight OS82 had 51 passengers and six crew members on board. It departed from Israel’s biggest and busiest airport, Ben Gurion.

The Austrian Airlines flight, cruising at around 38,000 feet near the Romanian border, declared a general emergency and reportedly transmitted squawk code 7700.

Bulgaria scrambled its aging but potent MiG-29 jets from the 3rd Air Base at Graf Ignatievo. The MiG-29s intercepted the airliner, identified it, and escorted it south to Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport under pre-defined protocols.

Earlier, Air Force Commander Major General Nikolay Rusev said the F-16s will enter these roles once they are fully equipped and operational. Bulgarian pilots are already flying the Fighting Falcons for training, domestic exercises and intelligence-gathering missions, with the number of qualified pilots expected to reach 11 by the end of 2026.

Bulgarian officials say delivery of a second batch of eight F-16s, originally planned for 2027, has been delayed until 2030. Until the F-16s can fully take over, the Air Force continues to rely on its Soviet-era jets.

The F-16 Block 70 represents a major upgrade in sensors, weapons, and interoperability with NATO systems compared with the MiG-29. However, fully integrating a new fighter typically requires several years of pilot and ground-crew training and infrastructure readiness, which is why Bulgaria keeps the MiG-29s on the front line of its air-policing missions.

Air Force Commander Gen. Nikolay Rusev has said the MiGs will fly until their remaining service life ends around 2030 or until a second F-16 squadron fully replaces them.

For now, maintenance relies heavily on support from neighboring Poland, mainly for spare parts and engines.

This was not the first scramble by MiG-29s. Earlier, on June 30, a Bulgarian MiG-29 dashed after an Airbus A320, a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Tel Aviv, after the airliner signaled unlawful interference.

The airliner entered Bulgarian airspace over the Danube, and the MiG-29 intercepted it within minutes. The Bulgarian pilot identified the aircraft and escorted it south through Bulgarian airspace.

At the Turkish border, two Turkish Air Force F-16s took over the escort. The incident was later attributed to a technical fault in the aircraft’s transponder that sent a false 7500 signal. The plane eventually returned and landed safely at Burgas after a second MiG-29 scramble.

The MiG-29 jets remain Bulgaria’s key aircraft for Quick Reaction Alerts, despite being unpopular with some citizens because of their Soviet origins. 

Maj. Gen. Nikolay Rusev made an interesting post in June 2026 on MiG-29 and F-16 and said: “Dear friends, followers, random passers-by and ordinary haters, I constantly try, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to explain that we, the people with blue epaulets, are not divided into philists and phobes!

We do not belong to parties and NGOs, and we are not interested in the momentary stumbles and hesitant movements of mentally unstable individuals!

Be they various politicians or ‘understanders’… In short – we are not slaves to ideologies!

MiG-29 or F-16?! Both, grandpa, both!

They are Bulgarian and paid for with public money!

Our job is to keep them serviceable and use them until the end of their service life, as all other European countries do!

The MiG-29 will fly as much as necessary, and the F-16 will be on duty when it is ready. It has long been clear to all of us why there is this hatred and malice only towards the MiG-29 and no other older but still reliable equipment, right?! But we survived that too.”

Mikoyan MiG-29

The MiG-29 is a twin-engine fighter aircraft designed in the 1970s as an air superiority fighter. Developed alongside the larger Sukhoi Su-27, it was primarily designed to counter two US fighter jets: the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon.

The MiG-29 entered service with the Soviet Air Forces in 1983, and Bulgaria began receiving deliveries in 1989. The aircraft was designed with positive but near-neutral longitudinal stability, allowing good maneuverability. The aircraft also had a high thrust-to-weight ratio, allowing high sustained turn rates.

Later variants had improved engines, glass cockpits with HOTAS-compatible flight controls, modern radar, and infrared search and track (IRST) sensors, and increased internal fuel capacity. They were equipped for aerial refueling.

The Russian Aerospace Forces wanted to upgrade its existing fleet to the modernized MiG-29SMT configuration, but financial difficulties after the Soviet Union’s dissolution slowed the process. Today, nearly 728 MiG-29 variants remain active in many air forces, making it the 6th most common active fighter jet.

Its powerful engine gave it great acceleration, and its swept wings made it difficult to catch in a chase. Later, the Soviets began developing the “Advanced Lightweight Tactical Fighter” MiG-29 to compete with the F-16.

The MiG-29 kept getting radar, avionics, and weapons upgrades. In the 1980s, the MiG-29S could carry the longer-range R-27E air-to-air missiles. It received a dorsal ‘hump’ on the upper fuselage to house a jamming system and additional fuel capacity. The weapons load was increased to 4,000 kg with airframe strengthening.

The baseline MiG-29 radar was the Phazotron N019 Sapfir S-29 look-down/shoot-down coherent pulse-Doppler radar. Later, the improved Sapfir-23ML was introduced, coupled with a new digital computer. The upgraded MiG-29M offers the N010 Zhuk-M, which has a planar array antenna rather than a dish and better processing.

The carrier-based MiG-29K was never produced in large numbers. The Indian Navy operated it only on INS Vikramaditya, and the Russian Navy on the Admiral Kuznetsov-class aircraft carriers.

The MiG-29 has two widely spaced Klimov RD-33 turbofan engines, producing up to 81.3 kN of thrust. Powerful, they were fuel guzzlers and left a thick smoke trail. The MiG-29 engine intakes were complex, with auxiliary intakes operating during takeoff, landing, and low-altitude flight to prevent ingestion of ground debris.

The MiG-29’s internal fuel capacity was rather low, limiting its range and endurance. Major modifications were needed to increase this in later models and the MiG-35. It also added an in-flight refueling probe.

Bulgaria’s new F-16 is way superior to the older MiG-29s.

While the MiG-29 is a high-agility dogfighter designed to counter the F-16, the Block 70 is a modernized version with an AESA radar, advanced electronic warfare suite, a glass cockpit, and full NATO-standard data links.

It carries cutting-edge BVR missiles like the AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-120C-7, and the latest AIM-120C-8 variant, and offers much greater range and endurance than Bulgaria’s older MiG-29A/UB jets.

In close-range dogfights, the MiG-29 remains competitive, but the F-16 Block 70 is far more capable for modern air-policing missions, air-defense missions, and BVR (beyond visual range) conflicts.

For now, Bulgaria’s F-16s are not ready for Air Policing and Quick Reaction Alert missions. Until then, the older MiG-29s continue to defend the country’s borders and play a vital role in NATO duties.

Mail us at: editor (at) eurasiantimes.com

The post No F-16s — Why Bulgaria Scrambled MiG-29 Fulcrum Jets Over Fighting Falcons to Escort Austrian Flight? appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

Amid global demand for Patriot interceptors, Lockheed Martin recently unveiled its most advanced interceptor, the PAC-3 Edge, which could offer improved performance against ballistic missiles and hypersonic threats.

EurAsian Times takes a deep dive into the evolution of Patriot Air Defense Systems, but before that, let’s start with the news.

PAC-3 EDGE

The new interceptor missile builds on the combat-proven PAC-3 MSE technology, which has proven its worth in multiple conflicts, including Ukraine and the Middle East.

The new PAC-3 Edge incorporates a new seeker, an upgraded control system, and a more advanced solid rocket motor developed with Northrop Grumman.

These new features will improve the missile interceptor’s range, altitude, speed, and precision.

It is part of the US Army’s Future Interceptor program, which is currently in competition.

“The Army’s decision to progress Lockheed Martin into the next stage of development affirms its confidence in Lockheed Martin’s proven Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) experience and the company’s ability to deliver an advanced, layered defense,” the company said in a statement.

Lockheed Martin will advance development and begin testing PAC-3 Edge in 2027 to prepare for rapid deployment by 2031, it added.

“Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 Edge interceptor leverages the combat-proven PAC-3 MSE, delivering even greater maneuverability, power and velocity to ensure the Army’s layered defensive architecture remains the most advanced in the world,” said Tim Cahill, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control president.

PAC-3 interceptors come in three variants: the lower-cost PAC-3 ACE, legacy PAC-3 CRI, and the prestigious PAC-3 MSE.

The company said it invested US$250 million in the Strigo Product Center to fund new, industry-leading seeker technology that increases precision and maneuverability against evolving threats.

PAC-3 Edge is designed to be integrated with existing and future Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capabilities, including the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), the M903 launcher, containerized launchers, and HIMARS Flex.

The US Army’s selection of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 Edge program highlights the service’s efforts to improve its existing layered air defense systems to address evolving aerial threats.

While the company did not provide technical details of the new seeker technology, analysts believe that it could be a dual-mode or multimode configuration that integrates multiple sensors to better detect, track, and intercept evolving threats such as hypersonic cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), maneuvering ballistic missiles, and the ability to distinguish real threats from decoys.

In the war in Ukraine, while the PAC-3 MSE interceptors have proved highly effective in countering ballistic missiles and aircraft, they have struggled to intercept Russia’s hypersonic missiles, such as Oreshnik, Zircon, and Kinzhal.

Furthermore, while PAC-3 MSE interceptors were highly effective against ballistic threats in the initial phase, their performance gradually declined as Russia adapted its missiles to perform increasingly complex terminal maneuvers.

According to a Financial Times report based on Ukrainian Air Force data compiled by the Center for Information Resilience, Patriot interceptors’ ballistic interception rate reached 37% in August 2025 but fell to a low of 6% in September.

This decline was linked to Russian tactical improvements, such as missiles changing trajectory and missiles capable of performing terminal maneuvers.

However, despite this drop in interception rates, Patriot batteries remain Ukraine’s only defense against Russian ballistic threats.

The new PAC-3 Edge interceptors will provide increased protection against such maneuvering missile threats and hypersonic missiles.

Notably, the unveiling of new PAC-3 Edge interceptors comes as global demand for PAC-3 interceptors has increased, and Lockheed Martin is establishing new facilities to raise its interceptor production rate.

Lockheed produced nearly 620 interceptors in 2025; however, it plans to triple Patriot interceptor production to 2000 by 2030.

Patriot PAC-3 interceptors are also included in the Pentagon’s Munitions Acceleration Council (MAC), which is targeting 12 legacy and two “emerging” munitions as part of its ambitious plan to ramp up production and ink a series of agreements with key vendors to ensure cost efficiency while maintaining production stability, according to fiscal 2027 budget documents.

Rising global demand for PAC-3 interceptors, requests from multiple countries to establish Patriot interceptor production facilities, and the unveiling of the advanced PAC-3 Edge interceptors underscore the Patriot air and missile defense system’s continued relevance more than four decades after it first became operational.

The Evolution Of Patriot Air Defense Systems

The MIM-104 Patriot is the US Army’s primary air-and-missile defense system.

Although it was initially designed as an anti-aircraft system, newer Patriot variants can engage ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, loitering munitions, and aircraft.

A typical Patriot battery includes a radar set, an engagement control station, power generation, other support vehicles, and several launch stations.

The US Army Missile Command first developed the Patriot concept in 1961 as the Army Air Defense System for the 1970s (AADS-70s).

The AD system was meant to be mobile and replace the static HAWK and Nike Hercules emplacements.

In 1964, the US Army renamed it Surface-to-Air Missile, Development (SAM-D).

Three years later, in 1967, the Department of Defense selected Raytheon as the prime contractor. SAM-D’s first flight test took place in November 1969.

Although Raytheon won the prime SAM-D contract in 1967, it did not build everything alone. Martin Marietta joined early as a major subcontractor to handle missile assembly, launcher vehicles, and canister production.

In 1974, the Department of Defense reoriented the SAM-D program to support a Track-Via-Missile (TVM) guidance system and a simplified concept of operations.

The revised and re-engineered system was renamed PATRIOT (Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept On Target) in 1976.

Patriot entered full-rate production in September 1980, and the US Army activated its first Patriot missile battalion in May 1982.

The Army added significant upgrades to the Patriot system throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1985, the Department of Defense (DoD) started efforts to add a ballistic missile defense capability to the system.

In 1986, the Army upgraded Patriot to the Patriot Advanced Capability-1 (PAC-1) standard, which included software changes that allowed it to engage tactical ballistic missiles.

The PAC-1 was deployed by 1988.

Soon, the US Army began efforts towards the PAC-2 standard, which involved modifications to the missile fuze, warhead, and guidance to engage more capable ballistic missiles like the Soviet OTR-23.

The Patriot system first saw combat service during the 1991 Gulf War, defending critical assets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel. The PAC-2 missiles were used to intercept Iraq’s Scud missiles.

Martin Marietta built the PAC-2 interceptors.

In 1993, the US Army added remote launch capability to Patriot systems, allowing missile launchers to be deployed over 10 km from the radar. This also more than tripled the system’s defended area.

Later, the US Army also developed the PAC-3 standard.

The most significant PAC-3 upgrade was a new interceptor with hit-to-kill technology, developed by Lockheed, which defeats targets by striking them directly rather than using a blast-fragmentation warhead.

Lockheed achieved the first-ever hit-to-kill intercept in 1984 with the Homing Overlay Experiment, using impact force alone to destroy a mock warhead outside Earth’s atmosphere. Further development and testing produced today’s PAC-3 missile, which won a 1993 competition to become the US government’s first hit-to-kill interceptor.

In 1995, Lockheed Corp merged with Martin Marietta to create one of the US’s largest defense aerospace companies, combining two key components of the Patriot program: Martin Marietta’s established Patriot infrastructure and production facilities and Lockheed’s cutting-edge hit-to-kill technology.

This newly formed mega-contractor rolled out the PAC-3 missile interceptor.

The PAC-3 standard itself included three distinct configurations, Configuration 1, 2, and 3, which improved its radar, seeker, and range.

The US declared PAC-3 Configuration 3 combat-ready in August 2002.

PAC-3 Configuration 3 had its first combat test in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In 2010, the US Army successfully tested an upgraded PAC-3 interceptor, the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE).

According to CSIS’s Missile Threat, the PAC-3 MSE features an enlarged motor and other enhancements to nearly double the PAC-3’s range. It achieved initial operational capability in late 2016.

The PAC-3 also features an active Ka-band radar seeker for endgame guidance. With its lighter weight and newer propulsion system, the PAC-3 can reportedly defend an area seven times greater than the PAC-2.

Patriot currently employs a single AN/MPQ-53, AN/MPQ-65, or AN/MPQ-65A radar set to detect and engage targets. Unlike other air defense systems, the Patriot radar combines surveillance, tracking, and engagement in a single unit.

The AN/MPQ-53 was the world’s first phased-array air defense radar and was employed with legacy PAC-2 systems.

The AN/MPQ-65A is the most advanced Patriot radar; however, the US Army is currently transitioning to use the new Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radar, which offers 360-degree coverage and significantly greater detection range.

Furthermore, while the AN/MPQ-53 and -65-series radars are passively scanned arrays, LTAMDS is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) that uses gallium nitride (GaN) power amplifiers, offering greater jamming resistance, beam agility, and power efficiency than previous systems.

360-degree coverage is essential to counter Russia’s evolving “wolf-pack tactics,” which involve launching dozens of aerial targets simultaneously, including drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, that approach from different directions and strike at once.

Only the US and Poland are procuring the LTAMDS at present. In September, the US awarded a US$1.7 billion contract to produce nine radars for the two users.

Currently, 18 countries operate the Patriot AD system. These include the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan, Greece, Spain, South Korea, the UAE, Ukraine, Qatar, Romania, Sweden, Poland, and Bahrain.

In 2023, the US allowed countries to transfer Patriot batteries to Ukraine, where they have repeatedly intercepted Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

For instance, on May 16, 2023, the Ukrainian Air Force claimed it used Patriot to intercept a salvo of six Kinzhal missiles over Kyiv.

However, rising global demand for PAC-3 MSE interceptors and Russia’s adaptive missile technology, which involves terminal-phase maneuvers, have necessitated a two-pronged strategy: boosting PAC-3 interceptor production and developing more advanced interceptors.

The PAC-3 Edge will keep the Patriot AD system relevant amid evolving aerial threats.

• 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

The post New U.S. Missile Aims To Outmaneuver Russia’s Maneuvering Missiles: Here’s Patriot’s Evolution to PAC-3 Edge appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

There is now a growing debate over what constitutes war and whether it should include strikes on data centers. They represent a new front in warfare, in which facilities powering the technology behind many critical industries have become targets.

As it is, the definition of a military attack seems to be changing over time.

Conventionally, it was understood to occur when tanks or fighter planes crossed a border. Then it was expanded to include the use of missiles that were fired without crossing the border but hitting a city and causing physical destruction of “vital infrastructure and death”.

Such attacks justified a country retaliating under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which legitimizes a war under “Right to Self Defense” if an “armed attack occurs.”

Now there is a growing school of thought that “vital infrastructure” must include any disruptive attack on data centers, whether kinetic or non-kinetic, amounting to significant loss of function. It should be treated as a use of force and trigger the affected country’s right to self-defense under Article 51, the argument goes.

Apparently, vulnerabilities in modern digital infrastructure have turned data centers into primary targets in contemporary warfare. As society becomes deeply integrated with cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and automated logistics, data centers have evolved into the nervous system of modern statecraft.

Attacks on digital infrastructure are no longer limited to cyberattacks (non-kinetic) that cause banking collapses and disrupt vital systems like power grids and hospitals by cutting off Internet access; they now include kinetic strikes on data hubs that affect nations’ military capabilities and expose financial vulnerabilities.

After all, modern defense systems rely heavily on cloud-based logistics. Data centers process satellite imagery, coordinate drone operations, run predictive maintenance algorithms for fighter jets, and host classified communication networks. Thus, taking down these nodes effectively blinds an adversary’s command structure.

This has been noticed in the recent conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. For instance, on September 23, Russian Geran-5 jet drones hit the Inkom Business Center in Kyiv,  housing Datagroup’s data center. Four people died, and internet service for 100,000 households was down for hours.

On September 27, Kyivstar — Ukraine’s central mobile operator — and Vodafone Ukraine’s data centers were hit. Russia’s Defense Ministry  justified this by saying that “Data centers were being used for the benefit of the Ukrainian military.”

Two weeks later, Ukraine returned the favor. It launched highly targeted long-range drone strikes hitting major data hubs across Russia, inflicting significant disruption on the country’s digital economy.

Between October 8 and October 14, 2026, Ukrainian forces carried out a series of “symmetrical responses” to counter earlier Russian attacks on Ukrainian internet and telecommunications assets. The strikes specifically crippled infrastructure belonging to Yandex (often called “Russia’s Google”) and Sberbank, Russia’s largest banking and technology conglomerate.

Similarly, in February-March 2026, during US-Israeli strikes on Iran, the latter hit back not only at oil but at data centers — Google, Microsoft, and Oracle cloud infrastructure in the Gulf, particularly those located in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Apparently, when Amazon Web Services’ Bahrain facility suffered “physical damage to cooling infrastructure from debris”, it became the first known case of an AWS data center damaged in an interstate war.

Iranian missiles near Al Udeid Air Base damaged an Oracle Cloud data center in Doha. Microsoft also confirmed “connectivity issues” in the Qatar Central region.

The same happened to the Google data center in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, which hosts Aramco cloud.

G42 [UAE AI company backed by Microsoft] data center in Abu Dhabi was also affected, forcing it into blackout mode.

In other words, from Kyiv to Bahrain, a pattern is clearly apparent  — belligerents no longer distinguish between cloud and command. Data centers that host banks and brigades are treated as brigades. They have officially transitioned from commercial tech infrastructures to critical national security assets.

As Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, said the other day,  “Unfortunately, they’re more important than bridges. They’re more important than roads. They’re more important than tunnels because our whole lives are on these devices that we’re using”.

Incidentally, the UAE is revising plans for a 5-gigawatt AI data center project following the Iranian strikes. The original plan envisioned a 10-square-mile campus in Abu Dhabi, to be built in partnership with American tech companies like Oracle, Nvidia, and Cisco. Now the data centers will likely be spread out across the UAE. Sultan Al Olama said, “ The UAE will change its data centre rules and stop promoting where they are”.

According to Kirk Cameron, founding director of the Institute for Advanced Computing at Virginia Tech, “Data centers are now on the critical path for modern digital infrastructure. The loss of key data centers could collapse economies, disrupt public and private transportation with loss of GPS, and affect government essential services for health, emergency dispatch, and power grids.”

Many agree with him when he argues that  “Data centers are competitive advantages in warfare. Knocking out capabilities means potentially crippling combat operations for an adversary. It’s also a form of economic warfare and could lead to longer-term competitive challenges for the target.”

All this brings the question of whether bombing a data center constitutes an act of war.  Does the definition of war need to change?

The main challenge to this question lies in what is called the “Gray Zone” of conflict, particularly in non-kinetic attacks. Unlike a missile launch, which leaves clear radar signatures and identifiable points of origin, cyber operations offer plausible deniability.

Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, attacking a dual-use target is governed by the principles of distinction and proportionality.  Here, attacking a dual-use target is legal only if the military advantage gained outweighs the civilian collateral damage.

If an attack on a data center shuts down military communications but also disables the life-support monitoring systems of dozens of regional hospitals, the strike violates proportionality. Such an operation can be classified as a war crime, reinforcing the argument that major cyber infrastructure operations carry the same legal weight and consequences as traditional warfare.

But any clear distinction in such cases is neither easy nor free from contention. For instance, when Russia attacked data centers in Ukraine, it claimed that these were being used by Ukrainian intelligence and military. However, Ukraine denied the charge.

As  Kasia Klonowska, an authority on international law, says, “Due to a lack of a definition of the treaty- terms weapons, means or methods of warfare, it is unclear whether non-weaponized AI decision-support systems should be subjected to a legal review prescribed by Article 36 of the Additional Protocol I. It remains a challenge to determine exactly what should be subjected to review beyond weapons.

“You have very limited situations in which they would actually qualify as lawful targets when they’re used by the military, and even then, it’s very difficult for the attacker to know whether that’s happening or not. If they are purely processing military data, they could be legitimate targets. But many, if not most, are dual-use.”

To address the legal ambiguity surrounding digital warfare, Prof. Ben Hines has proposed what he calls a “Substantive Necessity” framework, reinterpreting international law under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

Under this framework, a non-kinetic cyber attack amounts to an armed attack when the victim state, based on clear and convincing evidence, apprehends a hostile act that has fundamentally compromised, or is imminently poised to compromise, the functioning or security of infrastructure crucial to the state’s ability to function.

The framework argues that traditional international legal thresholds for “force” and “gravity” do not inherently require physical destruction or kinetic weaponry. Under this test, taking down a country’s primary data center cluster that hosts banking, health, emergency dispatch, GPS — even without an explosion — is an armed attack. Because effects equal or exceed kinetic.

Viewed thus, it is not surprising that Western nations like the US, the Netherlands, and France are clearly asserting that a disruptive attack on data centers that causes significant loss of function will be treated as a use of force and may trigger the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

In sum, as the line between the physical and digital worlds disappears, international law is adapting to treat high-consequence infrastructure attacks as equivalent to an armed attack.

Data centers are now firmly on the front lines of global conflict, where a single breach can serve as the definitive catalyst for war. The lines between civilian infrastructure and military assets are dangerously blurring.

• 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.
• CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com

The post Iran Hit Amazon. Russia Struck Kyiv’s Data Centers. Ukraine Hit Yandex. Can Such Attacks Trigger Article 51? appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

OPED by Imran Khurshid, PhD

China’s Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, has once again published a propaganda editorial against India titled “India’s ‘Victory Narrative’ Will Only Hit a Wall on China-India Border.” The article was published on October 14, 2026.

One notable characteristic of Chinese commentaries and diplomats is that they use polite language in their statements but then, within the same text, suddenly shift to intimidating language and issue warnings.

They act like a “big brother,” offering suggestions, dictating terms, and adopting a dominant attitude toward other countries, which stems from their “Middle Kingdom syndrome”—a mindset rooted in a historical Sinocentric worldview that exhibits king-subject thinking and demands homage and subservience.

This pattern is also reflected in what is commonly described as “wolf warrior diplomacy,” in which Chinese diplomats adopt a more confrontational tone when their country’s interests or positions are challenged.

Similarly, Chinese diplomats may appear cool and calm at first, then abruptly use fierce language to assert dominance and make strong statements.

Beijing’s Revisionist Map Games

This article targets India because New Delhi has recently stepped up its “counter-cartography” policy, formally assigning standardized names to key locations along the India-China border.

This includes the Home Ministry’s October 2026 announcement standardizing 28 strategic features in Ladakh—specifically covering crucial Line of Actual Control (LAC) friction points like Gogra and Hot Springs, alongside peaks, passes, and glaciers.

It also follows India’s August 2026 mapping of 27 critical sites in Arunachal Pradesh, including historic flashpoints like Longju and Thag La. The Global Times article claims that by assigning these names, India “creates the self-delusion that its border claims have been settled.”

The text further asserts that “first comes an administrative announcement, followed by the names being entered on official maps, and then repeated amplification through the media.” It thus criticizes India’s approach; however, China does exactly the same through its own lawfare.

Beijing has repeatedly used map manipulation as a geopolitical tool to assert its claims—such as by releasing multiple rounds of standardized Mandarin names for locations in Arunachal Pradesh (which it calls Zangnan).

This is a typical Chinese way of doing things; China historically used these exact cartographic and administrative assertions before annexing Tibet in 1950, and it continues to use maps as an aggressive tool to project its territorial claims today.

It says that “India is playing games,” but this is exactly what China does in its dealings with India by failing to honor its agreements, including those reached in 1993 (Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility), 1996 (Confidence-Building Measures), and 2003/2005 (Political Parameters and Modalities).

If peace and tranquility have prevailed along the India-China border or LAC for an extended period, it is because India has unilaterally honored and abided by these agreements.

For instance, before 1962, China signed the Panchsheel Agreement (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence), under which Beijing promoted the narrative of mutual interests, mutual benefits, and peaceful relations through the slogan “Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai,” but then suddenly attacked India.

Similarly, in 2020, sensing India’s vulnerability when the country was battling one of its worst COVID-19 crises, China tried to grab more Indian land and attacked Indian soldiers in Galwan through deception, killing 20 Indian soldiers.

Cartographic Fraud

Then it says that, in 2019, “India unilaterally amended its domestic laws, revoked relevant constitutional provisions, and announced the creation of the so-called ‘Union Territory of Ladakh,’ deliberately incorporating Chinese territory in the western sector of the China-India border into its own administrative jurisdiction.”

However, when India revoked Article 370 of its Constitution and reorganized Jammu and Kashmir, it was an internal decision of India’s sovereignty, over which no foreign country has any say. India has historical claims to this region, and it has been an integral part of India for centuries.

China cannot dictate to India when it changes names, reorganizes its territories, or makes administrative changes. China has actually occupied Aksai Chin since the 1950s, consolidating its control during the 1962 war. It has also occupied the Shaksgam Valley, which it continues to hold illegally.

It then says the China-India border has historically belonged to China and that “China possesses sovereignty over the relevant areas, including the Aksai Chin region in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and has ample historical and legal grounds for its claims.” How can China claim historical ownership when it has no historical claim to these territories? This is a complete distortion of history.

In reality, China’s administrative footprint never historically extended south of the Kunlun Mountains, and its own official records contradict its claims.

For instance, the Postal Atlas of China—officially published by the Chinese government between 1917 and 1933—as well as the 1925 Peking University Atlas, explicitly marked the international boundary along the Kunlun range, placing the entire Aksai Chin plateau completely outside of China and within India.

Furthermore, India’s legitimate administrative and historical rights were formally established under the 1842 Treaty of Chushul, signed between the Dogra Kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir and Tibet/the Qing Empire, which solidified Ladakh’s traditional frontiers.

The 1865 Johnson Line precisely mapped this boundary, and the Maharaja of Kashmir even built a military fort at Shahidulla (Xaidulla) to safeguard trade routes.

China established a presence in Aksai Chin only in the 1950s by covertly building the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway (G219) across Indian territory while New Delhi focused on peaceful diplomacy, and it eventually occupied it by force during the 1962 war.

Using Multilateral Forums as Geopolitical Tools

It then says that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Xi Jinping, they discussed improving ties. It then gives a warning to India, a typical Chinese way of behaving: first bullying and then giving advice.

It says that “India should exercise greater restraint on border issues of this kind rather than provoke tensions.” It further says that “some Indian politicians are now keen to stage political shows over the border issue to divert attention from domestic problems and pander to nationalist sentiment.”

It thus links India’s renaming of places with an attempt to divert attention from domestic issues. However, this description fits China’s all-weather ally, Pakistan, which always seeks to externalize its internal threats toward its neighbors, particularly India and Afghanistan.

In stark contrast, India has robust political stability under a strong parliamentary mandate, a functioning electoral democracy, and the title of the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with resilient GDP growth of around 6.5% to 7% despite global slowdowns. It faces no major internal crisis that would force it to externalize its problems.

It then says that “China and India are important neighbors, major developing countries,” and that their relationship extends beyond bilateral ties to global forums, where they must cooperate through platforms such as BRICS and the United Nations to address global challenges and uphold international fairness and justice.

It says this as if India is the irritant preventing China from cooperating with it. However, China uses these forums to its advantage and sometimes directly against India. In these global forums, Beijing consistently blocks India’s rightful interests and actively seeks to constrain India’s rise.

For instance, at the UNSC, China repeatedly uses its veto to block India’s permanent seat and places technical holds to shield Pakistan-based terrorists from global sanctions. Furthermore, Beijing single-handedly blocks India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) while using BRICS to push its own geoeconomic agendas that violate Indian sovereignty.

Then, in typical Chinese style, it concludes with another warning: “We urge India to act in the broader interests of bilateral relations, exercise prudence in both words and actions on the boundary issue, and follow the important understandings reached by the two countries’ leaders.”

Ultimately, this Global Times article stands as a textbook example of Chinese doublespeak and strategic hypocrisy. It attempts to lecture India on restraint and respect for agreements while China itself has a long, documented history of violating bilateral treaties, executing covert land-grabs, and aggressively weaponizing cartography against its neighbors.

By trying to portray India’s sovereign, internal administrative decisions as “political shows” or “provocations,” Beijing is merely projecting its own anxieties onto New Delhi. India’s robust economy, stable democracy, and firm counter-cartography policy prove that it will no longer remain passive in the face of China’s “salami-slicing” tactics and lawfare.

If China truly wants “peace and tranquility” on the border, it must shed its outdated Middle Kingdom syndrome, look at India as an equal, and stop using global forums and state media to launch malicious propaganda against Indian sovereignty,

• THIS IS AN OPINION ARTICLE. VIEWS PERSONAL OF THE AUTHOR
• Imran Khurshid is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Center for Peace Studies (ICPS), New Delhi. He specializes in India-US relations, Indo-Pacific studies, and South Asian security issues.
• Connect with the author at: khurshidimran (at) gmail.com

The post China Accuses India of Map Games and a “Victory Narrative.” But Beijing’s Old Maps Betray the Claim: Opinion appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

In a bizarre incident, Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued a warning about what could have been the world’s worst earthquake ever. The agency retracted the warning a few minutes later, but it still alarmed large parts of the country and unsettled people who had witnessed horrifying disasters.

The JMA estimated a magnitude 9.9 earthquake in the Kuril Islands off Hokkaido on October 16, 2026, but quickly rescinded the alert on account of an error.

The early-warning system had incorrectly placed the earthquake’s epicenter in the Kuril Islands (Chishima Islands) off Hokkaido and calculated a magnitude of 9.9. However, JMA officials later said the system wrongly assumed the quake was about 680 kilometers farther from Japan than it actually was, near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

The JMA, which has a near-flawless warning system, warned that Hokkaido and the Tohoku region in northeastern Japan would experience shaking up to 7, the highest intensity on the country’s seismic scale. However, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula produced only intensity 1 shaking in Hakodate, Hokkaido.

The JMA withdrew the alert just eight minutes after issuing it, marking the first full public retraction of an emergency earthquake warning.

Officials said the magnitude was overstated because its computer system misidentified the earthquake’s focus, though they ruled out a cyberattack. Some local reports noted that one contributing factor may be applying magnitude-calculation methods designed for earthquakes within Japan’s dense observation network to a distant event outside coverage.

Ayataka Ebita, director of the agency’s Earthquake and Tsunami Observation Division, apologized to the public at a news conference, saying, “We deeply apologize for causing great inconvenience.” Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters that the government regretted the incident. “We caused a great deal of worry and placed a burden upon those who took shelter or took action to ensure their safety, as well as on others such as transport systems and businesses that were affected,” he said.

Several Japanese citizens had learned about the alert through municipal public address systems, TV and radio broadcasts, or their smartphones.

As expected, the false alarm sparked chaos in several parts of the country, disrupting daily life and domestic transit. In Sapporo, Hokkaido, for example, 14 trams stopped for a few minutes after the warning until their operator decided it was safe to continue service. Additionally, bullet train operations between Shin-Yokohama and Toyohashi stations on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line were briefly halted, although the operator later noted that the suspension was not directly caused by the earthquake warning.

Moreover, people sought shelter unnecessarily in some places, and social media later buzzed with netizens expressing confusion after the alert was retracted.

A false magnitude-9.9 earthquake warning jolted people because it is exceptionally scary, and no instrumentally recorded earthquake has ever reached magnitude 9.9.

According to publicly available information, the largest instrumentally measured earthquake in history—magnitude 9.5—was the 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile that killed more than 1,600 people, injured at least 3,000, and left two million people homeless. The rupture zone stretched 500 to 1,000 kilometers along the country’s coast.

A rupture zone is the area along a fault or rock mass where stress exceeds the material’s strength, causing it to break or fracture during an earthquake.

The false warning could have triggered panic because Japan’s geography puts it in an area of extreme seismic risk.  Japan sits at the convergence of four major tectonic plates—Pacific, Philippine Sea, Eurasian, and North American—along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” making it one of the most earthquake-prone places on Earth.

In fact, about 20% of the world’s magnitude-6.0 or larger earthquakes occur in or around Japan.

Initially, the system located the epicenter near the Kuril Islands off Hokkaido, where a possible magnitude-9-class event is believed possible. Official scenarios for such an event have earlier predicted tsunami heights of up to 30 meters in some places; possible death tolls of close to 100,000; and widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure.

The so-called erroneous warning predicted intensity 7 shaking across northern Japan. If it had come true, nearly all buildings would have suffered severe or total damage, and landslides, ground cracks, and infrastructure collapse may have occurred.

In a country where even moderate earthquakes bring an otherwise bustling country to a standstill by triggering automatic train halts, elevator shutdowns, and immediate public action, a maximum-intensity alert over such a wide area may have shaken the people.

The eight minutes that the alert was live may have brought back the trauma of 2011 when Japanese people stood witness to the worst natural disaster to hit the country.

The Shadow of the 2011 Disaster

In 2011, Japan suffered its worst natural disaster when a magnitude 9.0 to 9.1 megathrust earthquake struck off Tohoku’s Pacific coast, about 130 kilometers east of Sendai.

The earthquake hit on March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. local time. On that fateful day, a massive undersea megathrust earthquake measuring 9.0–9.1 occurred in the Pacific Ocean some 72 kilometers east of the Oshika Peninsula in Japan’s Tohoku region.

According to publicly available information, the quake was relatively shallow, at about 24-32 kilometers deep, and lasted six minutes. However, it was so violent that it shifted the seafloor and generated a series of powerful tsunami waves.

The waves hit the coast about 30 to 40 minutes after the main shock, toppling seawalls and inundating about 561 square kilometers of land along Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast. In places such as Miyako, these waves attained a maximum run-up height of 133 feet.

The tsunami swept entire towns and coastal communities in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures, among others, leaving widespread devastation. 

Following the tsunami, hundreds of people were reported dead, and hundreds more were reported missing.

As rescue efforts began and the scale of the destruction—particularly in coastal areas—became apparent, the numbers in both categories sharply increased. After two weeks of the disaster, about 10,000 people were officially counted as deceased by the Japanese government, and about 1.5 times as many were still listed as missing and believed dead.

Finally, the official Japanese government or Reconstruction Agency figures were reported to be more than 19,729 dead, more than 2,553 missing, and about 6,200 injured.

The vast majority of fatalities resulted from drowning in the tsunami rather than the earthquake shaking itself. Over 120,000 buildings were completely destroyed, with hundreds of thousands more severely or partially damaged. Furthermore, the disaster also severely damaged and disrupted critical infrastructure, including roads, railways, ports, airports, power lines, and water systems.

Adding to this massive toll on the country’s people and economy, the disaster also triggered a major nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Although the earthquake triggered an automatic shutdown of the reactors, floodwaters inundated the facility and disabled both off-site power lines and emergency diesel generators. Without cooling, three reactor cores melted down, triggering hydrogen explosions and releasing radioactive material, which sparked evacuation en masse.

The event was subsequently rated Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale—the highest level, shared only with the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.

The earthquake and tsunami following the disaster had long-term social, economic, and environmental impacts across northeastern Japan. In fact, recovery and reconstruction from the accident took more than a decade, including rebuilding communities, infrastructure, and coastal defenses, and managing the Fukushima site going forward.

Against this background, the recent false warning was uniquely unsettling because it briefly presented the public with a scenario worse than 2011, as it would have released roughly 20 times or more the energy of the Tohoku quake. Moreover, the predicted location lies along the same subduction zone system that produced the 2011 disaster.

The recent false alarm did not trigger an earthquake, but it may have forced the country to briefly confront the scale of another possible disaster.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

The post Tsunami, Then Nuclear Disaster: World’s Biggest Earthquake Alarm Revives 2011 Memories in Japan appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

Founded less than a decade ago in 2017, US defense technology company Anduril has reached a roughly US$90 billion valuation in a recent employee tender offer, placing its private-market value in the same range as, or above, the public-market capitalizations of long-established defense firms such as Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.

According to a Bloomberg report, Anduril Industries Inc. opened a tender offer allowing its employees in 16 countries to sell shares at a valuation of about US$94.80 each, with the total offer capped at about US$ 1.3 billion. The subscription period is open from October 13 to November 9.

Unlisted companies often offer employees and others a chance to cash out shares they hold through tender offers to retain talent.

Notably, in recent years, AI-focused, venture-backed startups increasingly use tender offers rather than public listings to give employees access to cash.

AI startups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Clay, ElevenLabs, and Harvey have used employee tender offers to stay private longer while still offering cash incentives to retain talent.

Anduril’s tender offer will push the AI-focused defense company’s valuation to US$90 billion, up nearly 50 percent from its May valuation of US$60 billion.

Beneath this skyrocketing valuation lies the story of how the global defense market, and the U.S.’s famous defense-industrial complex in particular, has transformed beyond recognition in just a decade.

What Anduril’s US$90 Billion Valuation Tells Us

For generations, slow-moving, mammoth defense-industrial houses lobbied for lucrative Pentagon contracts and delivered hardware-centric defense platforms over decades-long procurement cycles.

This system created the U.S.’s distinct politico-military-industrial complex, dominated by legacy prime contractors, including the Big Five: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

Today, however, venture-backed startups increasingly dominate the U.S. defense market, offering software-defined autonomous weapons systems with AI integration.

Iran Hit Amazon. Russia Struck Kyiv’s Data Centers. Ukraine Hit Yandex. Can Such Attacks Trigger Article 51?

In this market, a defense product’s journey from concept to initial operational clearance (IOC) and front-line deployment takes years, sometimes even months, not decades.

For instance, the Zumwalt-class destroyers program traces back to the 1990s Surface Combatant for the 21st Century (SC-21) and DD-21 programs. Construction of the lead ship began around 2009; it was launched in 2013, commissioned in October 2016, and was finally accepted around 2020. The ships have since undergone multi-year modifications to carry hypersonic missiles.

Similarly, the B-2 Spirit program spanned two decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s; the F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter) program also took nearly two decades, from early concept work in 1996 to Initial Operational Capability in 2015.

However, venture-backed firms such as Anduril, Shield AI, and Palantir focus on software platforms that can be updated iteratively, often paired with smaller or modular hardware, and use faster acquisition pathways.

For instance, Anduril was founded in 2017. It piloted its AI-powered Sentry surveillance towers on the U.S.-Mexico border around 2018, within a year of its founding, and later made them a program of record, deploying hundreds by the early 2020s.

Iran Hit Amazon. Russia Struck Kyiv’s Data Centers. Ukraine Hit Yandex. Can Such Attacks Trigger Article 51?

Similarly, Shield AI was founded in 2015. The company reported deploying its AI autonomy software stack, AI Hivemind, for the first time around 2018, within three years. Hivemind has since operated on dozens of platforms, including drones, F-16s in tests, helicopters, and, more recently, maritime and space systems, in GPS-denied, contested environments.

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programs of these defense AI startups are progressing much faster than the typical two-decade development cycle for traditional fighter aircraft.

For instance, Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury, a jet-powered, uncrewed autonomous combat aircraft with mission-autonomy software such as Hivemind and Anduril’s own Lattice, is already in testing.

The contrast is stark. While traditional defense platforms were hardware-centric, with development cycles spanning decades, these new software-centric Autonomous platforms emphasize rapid prototyping and continuous software updates, compressing development timelines to years, and even months.

Another advantage of these software-centric defense platforms is that their upgrades also take months, not years, enabling continuous updates.

The war in Ukraine has shown that the modern battlefield is changing every few months.

For instance, FPV drones first appeared in the war in Ukraine around May 2022; by September 2022, Kyiv had introduced maritime drones.

In 2024, Russia countered Ukraine’s Starlink-linked drones with its Fiber-optic drones, which were immune to jamming. By the end of 2024, these drones carried air-to-air missiles such as the R-73 and R-60. Ukraine also armed its naval drones with surface-to-air missiles.

By 2025, Ukraine had developed multiple drone interceptors that reversed the cost-benefit advantage drones had over traditional interceptor missiles.

Russia responded with jet-powered drones that can fly at 500-600 km per hour and is developing others that can exceed 800 km per hour.

This continuously evolving battlefield means traditional procurement cycles spanning decades no longer suit modern warfare, where systems become outdated within months.

U.S. and China’s Nuclear Submarines Race For Dominance in the Indo-Pacific as Trump & Xi Talk

A hardware-centric approach can’t meet the demands of this evolving battlefield; therefore, the Pentagon increasingly prefers working directly with Silicon Valley-based AI defense firms.

Anduril’s US$ 90 billion valuation reflects this broader story. Anduril, however, is not the only AI defense firm cashing in on this trend.

Palantir, founded in 2003, is already worth nearly US$480 billion, more than any of the Big Five.

Palantir’s valuation is nearly seven times Northrop Grumman’s, more than five times General Dynamics’, nearly four times Lockheed Martin’s, three times Boeing’s, and nearly double RTX’s.

Similarly, Scale AI is worth US$29 billion, Shield AI around US$13 billion, and SandboxAQ and Applied Intuition around US$15 billion.

“Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril have been tapped for multi-billion-dollar contract awards from the Pentagon for communications, targeting, unpiloted vehicles, anti-drone defenses, and hypersonic weapons. The funds from these awards will flow to the companies over time, which should put them in the top ranks of Pentagon contractors by value of awards within the next several years,” a recent report from the Costs of War project said.

What sets Palantir and Anduril apart is that while most AI defense firms have only one product in their portfolios, such as autonomous aircraft, counter-drone systems, or data fusion software, these two firms are offering a range of products.

Anduril offers AI-powered software, autonomous drones, cruise missiles, drone interceptors, Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), underwater drones, undersea sensor networks, autonomous rotorcraft, surface-to-air interceptor missiles, autonomous sensor towers for land, water, and sea, radars, infrared imaging, and more.

Earlier this month, Anduril won a contract worth up to US$2.9 billion with the U.S. Navy to boost submarine production. The company is also investing US$3.7 billion to scale a new shipyard in Maryland. The new facility will build components for the Virginia-class submarines.

Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey was also selected to lead “Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” a new 120-day initiative tasked with identifying the technologies and capabilities needed for future military dominance.

Anduril has also been selected to build the next generation of Army goggles, the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), which are “intended to give soldiers everything from night-vision capability to warnings of incoming airborne threats.”

However, Anduril’s most lucrative contract could be in border security technologies. The Big Beautiful bill commits over US$6 billion for various border security technologies. However, as Eurasian Times reported earlier, the bill’s conditions mean Anduril is the only firm that qualifies for these border surveillance tenders.

Anduril has also been called the Nvidia of the US defense market.

The sky-high valuation of Palantir and Anduril will also have a knock-on effect on other Silicon Valley-based AI-defense firms.

If these new tech defense firms maintain their growth momentum for another decade or so, then we might have to redefine the ‘Big Five’ of the US defense market.

• 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

The post The U.S. Defense Startup That Beat Northrop & General Dynamics: How Anduril Reached $90B Valuation in Less Than 10 Years appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

A US Air Force (USAF) pilot flying an F-22 Fighter Jet controlled an Anduril YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) from the Raptor’s cockpit earlier this month, the service announced on Thursday.

The F-22 pilot served as an airborne “quarterback,” issuing high-level tactical directives to a single YFQ-44A.

The YFQ-44A’s onboard autonomy software interpreted and executed those directives in real time, conducting dynamic flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks.

“This achievement demonstrates what is possible when we are aligned with industry on a shared imperative: delivering capability to the warfighter at unprecedented speed,” said Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink.

“We are driving urgency into every part of acquisition from rapid integration and flight learning to disciplined assessment, so we can turn promising technology into combat capability at the pace the threat demands.”

The event brought together personnel from the 412th Test Wing, 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, 309th Software Engineering Group, Experimental Operations Unit, F-22 System Program Office and the CCA Software Autonomy and Teaming Branch.

The Department will use data from this test milestone to inform continued software integration, developmental testing, and the Air Force’s future CCA concepts.

“This flight shows the power of crewed-uncrewed teaming and the advantage it provides our warfighters,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach. “We must test often, learn fast and give commanders what they need, when they need it.”

Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s vice president of autonomous airpower, said: “The US Air Force’s CCA program is the fastest-moving, most mature CCA program anywhere in the world, and will be the first to field operational aircraft,” Shushnar said. “Getting there demands that Anduril and the U.S. Air Force work together to prove out the capability, define the operational procedures, and build trust between operators and their semi-autonomous wingmen.”

USAF Takes Delivery of Fury and Vengeance Drones

Earlier, as EurAsian Times reported, the USAF took delivery of its first two CCAs, Anduril’s FQ-44 Fury and General Atomics’ FQ-42 Vengeance, and sent them to the Experimental Operations Unit at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.

The aircraft, developed under prototype designations YFQ-44A and YFQ-42A, will now test how uncrewed, semi-autonomous jets can fly with crewed fighters and add cheaper mass in contested airspace.

“Anduril delivered the first CCA, the YFQ-44A, to the Experimental Operations Unit [EOU] last month, and General Atomics delivered the YFQ-42A last week,” the USAF announced on September 24. The aircraft were delivered at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, and will now support Air Combat Command-led operational experimentation to refine how CCA will be employed alongside crewed aircraft in contested environments, the USAF added.

Earlier, Meink highlighted the significance of putting the systems in Airmen’s hands: “Putting CCA in the hands of Airmen is how we build the operational future of this program. Anduril’s Fury and General Atomics’ Vengeance deliveries show we can move at incredible speed, compete, and deliver cost-effective combat power to the force.”

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The sentiment was echoed by the Chief of Staff, Gen. Ken Wilsbach, who said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Fury and Vengeance to the experimental operational unit. Our Airmen are excited to see what Collaborative Combat Aircraft can do.”

The program secured deliveries in just over two years after the service down-selected the two contractors in April 2024, and within a year of the two aircraft’s maiden flights.

In July, an Anduril YFQ-44A fired an AIM-120 AMRAAM at a simulated target over the Mojave Desert after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base. The Air Force called it the first CCA live-fire event; some accounts said the missile was inert.

A human operator retained weapons-release authority throughout the demonstration. That month, the Air Force also conducted an Agile Combat Employment exercise with both Collaborative Combat Aircraft designs at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, shifting the platforms from controlled test conditions into more realistic operational use, as the EurAsian Times reported.

More recently, Meink said the service aims to have at least 500 CCAs in service by 2032, speaking at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. “Today, the first FQ-42 and FQ-44 increments are already rolling off the assembly line,” he said. “They’ll be performing many of the same missions that we do with manned fighters today,” he added.

CCA Gathers Pace

The CCA program is a flagship USAF initiative to develop a new generation of uncrewed “fighter drones” to fly alongside manned jets. The CCAs, or “loyal wingmen,” are designed to boost air superiority in contested environments like the Indo-Pacific or even the Middle East.

They are intended to boost the USAF’s combat capabilities by carrying extra air-to-air munitions, extending sensor coverage, and executing missions that would otherwise put human pilots at risk.

Reports have indicated that these CCAs will primarily serve as airborne “missile trucks” in their initial deployment, flying in formation with crewed jets to provide additional firepower. However, their roles could be expanded to include electronic warfare, intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance, and, in the future, fully autonomous missions.

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The Pentagon plans to mass-produce these CCAs at a significantly lower cost than conventional fighter jets. The USAF-developed CCA drones are estimated to cost between US$25 million and US$35 million each, about one-third the cost of an F-35.

USAF officials report that the service plans to order about 150 drones in Increment 1. However, the service is seeking about 1,000 of these aircraft over several iterative development cycles. This large number may also drive design modifications and evolution over time.

Earlier, Frank Kendall, the former United States Secretary of the Air Force and who launched the CCA program, said the USAF is working to acquire what could ultimately be a fleet of multiple CCA drone types through iterative development cycles.

“I don’t regard CCAs as expendable. They’re not munitions. … we don’t send them all to die,” Kendall said. “So there needs to be enough survivability in them – the combination of how you equip them, design them, plus tactics so that you can have reasonable attrition in most areas – but they are things that you are willing to let a few of die to gain an advantage”.

Earlier, Kendall explained in 2022: “These have got to be cheaper platforms, and one of their features is that they’re at least attritable, if not expendable. That opens up a whole range of tactics that we currently would not contemplate because we’d be sacrificing manned aircraft, and we’re not going to do that.” (2022) “We need to imagine a world in which fighter planes aren’t the dominant platform, and that the CCAs are not just there to help the fighter planes; they’re actually there to win the war.

You’ve got to free your mind of the idea that there will always be a fighter pilot.” On building trust through exercises: “I think that’s going to be fascinating when we start using CCAs at Red Flag. When the guys with the CCAs are beating the crap out of the guys without them, and not losing any manned fighters, that’s going to be pretty obvious, right?” He also recounted asking a pilot why there wasn’t more resistance: the answer was, “Sir, these things are going to save our lives.”

Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, Air Force Chief Modernization Officer and Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Design and Requirements, made an interesting remark in May 2026: “I have a lot of experience with that program [CCA]. My prior job was out at Nellis Air Force Base, where [we were] standing up the Experimental Operations Unit. And I’m very enthusiastic about the opportunities of the future for CCA-type aircraft. It’s one of the primary platforms that we will use to explore practical use for AI.

There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll find some disappointments and nasty surprises, but we’re also going to discover some opportunities as we fly the aircraft in an operationally representative environment…

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I would also add that there are adversaries that are working very aggressively to field their own autonomous CCA-like capabilities, and I don’t think we can predict when this will happen, but I think most of us, based on what we’ve seen from artificial intelligence, would assess that there will come a point where a robot fighter is better than a manned fighter. And I say this as a person who identified and grew up professionally in the fighter pilot community.

The question is, when will that happen? And I think it would be a tragic shame if the United States didn’t have a better answer if we were facing robot fighters that were better than our manned fighters. So for all these reasons, I’m very bullish on CCAs, but it’s going to take decades to develop.”

“I can imagine a day in the future, 10 years [from now], maybe more, where a CCA autonomy algorithm does a better job flying a fighter airplane than I did as a captain. That hurts my ego a little bit. But at the same time, I see that this trend is happening, and we’ve got to find a way to do that… As you institutionalize these capabilities, it’s not too surprising that maybe fighter pilots are not too enthusiastic about the idea of fielding a capability that will start to replace some of what they do—how they define themselves.”

Mail us at: editor (at) eurasiantimes.com

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Another oil-rich region is at the center of political tension. This time, the region is not in the Middle East or South America (Venezuela), but in North America. 

The country “affected” is the world’s second-largest country and a functional democracy — Canada.

Ahead of a Monday vote on whether the oil-rich province of Alberta should begin the process toward a binding independence referendum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is aggressively campaigning for national unity.

Carney told rallies in Calgary and Edmonton that the vote comes “at the worst possible time” amid external pressures on Canada, hinting at trade tensions with the United States. He urged a “decisive result” to settle the question and warned that using the ballot merely to “send a message” to Ottawa would be a “dangerous bluff.”

“This is not poker,” Carney said at a pro-Canada event in Calgary on Thursday.

“A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep division and great uncertainty.” He added that “turnout will determine the outcome” and that “polls don’t vote.”

Alberta holds most of Canada’s proven oil reserves, the fourth-largest in the world.

The big question is: are the US or Russia, overtly or covertly, supporting separatists in Alberta?

Role of the US & Russia

Donald Trump has previously called Canada a potential 51st state. That has raised questions about whether he or his administration is backing Alberta’s independence movement.

Earlier, Canadian media claimed that the country’s researchers, using artificial intelligence to track foreign interest in the Alberta separatism debate, found the political discourse being targeted online by both Russian and American actors. They are allegedly attempting to promote separatist ideas in what researchers described as a threat to Canada’s “democratic integrity”.

However, the researchers are clear that Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia are not working in tandem to break Canada. They work in parallel for very different reasons.

This pattern of parallel action by Washington and Moscow is not new.

During the Cold War, they often overlapped in their support for anti-colonial, nationalist, or separatist movements, even though their long-term goals differed.

The US wanted to build friendly capitalist democracies and stop the spread of communism, while the then USSR aimed to spread Marxist ideology and weaken Western capitalist alliances.

Both propped up separate local leaders with funds and weapons. Examples include the Nigerian Civil War, the Angolan Civil War, the Suez Crisis, and Ethiopia’s war against Somalia.

As for Alberta, the US and Russia may be trying to exploit old grievances against Ottawa.

Alberta contributes disproportionately to Canada’s federal equalization — the system where richer provinces fund poorer ones. It has oil, gas, beef, and a frontier self-image. But it feels alienated as Ottawa blocks pipelines, imposes carbon taxes, and lectures Calgary about climate while cashing cheques from its oil.

This alienation grows stronger whenever the Liberals are the ruling party in Ottawa. After all, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program in the 1970s.

Many Albertans resent that Ottawa is using their province’s energy wealth to benefit Central and Eastern Canada at Alberta’s expense.  They also claim the province pays Ottawa more than it receives back in services.

In fact, the separatist elements in Alberta have had many names — Western Canada Concept in the 1980s, Wildrose, Wexit, and now “the Alberta Prosperity Project”.

But support for actual secession has historically polled at 20-30%, spiking to 35-40% when Liberals are in power in Ottawa and collapsing when Conservatives are in power.  The latest poll suggests only about 25% of Albertans support independence.

In May this year, research published by Disinfowatch showed that between late 2025 and early 2026, the Russian Pravda News Network published dozens of stories depicting Alberta as a province being exploited by Ottawa.

An influence campaign known as Storm 1516 reportedly went further, creating websites such as albertaseparatist.com to circulate fabricated claims—including the assertion that the federal government fleeces $20,000 a year from every Alberta family.

Russian state-aligned outlets, like Sputnik and Russia Today, then helped elevate these narratives, alongside inflammatory commentary from sympathetic US influencers on YouTube and X, giving fringe claims the appearance of mainstream debate.

Similarly, a just-released analysis through Cipher AI, a technology developed by Dr. McQuinn and others in a partnership between the University of Regina and the University of Alberta, as accessed by the Canadian daily, the  Globe and Mail, says that its two reports – the first covers activity in the last two weeks of July, and the second looks at the first two weeks of August – clearly indicated that “foreign-aligned platforms continue to amplify anti-government grievances and issues associated with the Alberta separatist movement”.

Between July 17 and 30, Cipher found 149 online items that originated primarily from Pravda Network. Material posing as news and designed to inflame divisions is pushed online and reaches Canadian communities when people knowingly or unwittingly share links, headlines, and memes with their social networks.

The second report, covering early August, produced similar findings, with about 80 percent of the activity linked to Russian content farms, and 20 percent to U.S. sources.

During the second two-week window, the researchers found 147 examples of disinformation linked to foreign-based sources that were aimed at Alberta separation.

The latest analysis has also found that statements from right-wing US podcasters and MAGA influencers have promoted the narrative that Canada is a failed state and that Alberta has no choice but to leave.

Such narratives followed statements from Alberta separatist leaders this year who said they met with Trump administration officials in Washington on three occasions, and comments from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who, when asked about Alberta in January, said he had heard “a rumor that they may have a referendum” and called the province “a natural partner for the U.S.”

Incidentally, US State Department officials met with the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project at one of the three meetings mentioned earlier this year. The group reportedly sought a $500 billion (US) line of credit from the US to support Alberta if it won a referendum.

The American angle in Canada is understandable, given Trump’s “Transactional Continentalism”. Though the Trump Presidency has not officially endorsed Canada’s breakup, the Trump ecosystem seems to have. Several MAGA-adjacent commentators, podcasters, and even some Republican House members support Alberta statehood or association with the US.

After all, Alberta holds the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves. For a Trump administration obsessed with energy dominance and lowering domestic fuel prices, direct access to Alberta oil without Ottawa’s environmental regulations is, it is said, a dream.

Secondly,  Alberta is the most conservative, gun-owning, truck-driving, oil-loving province. So, MAGA influencers see a natural ideological ally being oppressed by “woke Ottawa.”

On the other hand, Russia’s motive is viewed as far more strategic. Two possible  reasons could be the following:

One is “Payback for Ukraine”. Canada, after all, is one of Ukraine’s most hawkish supporters. It is home to a large Ukrainian diaspora, a staunch backer of sanctions, and a trainer of Ukrainian troops.

Therefore, if Canada lectures Russia about territorial integrity, what better riposte than: “What about Canada’s territorial integrity?” It is whataboutism as a weapon.

The second reason could be the link between Alberta’s separatism debate and Russia’s long-term Arctic strategy and its rivalry with Canada over Northern sovereignty.  Canada is actively upgrading its military footprint in the North. It has committed to counter rising Russian aggression by purchasing new icebreakers and deploying new infrastructure. For Russia, a major constitutional crisis triggered by provincial separatism thus forces Ottawa to focus inward on saving the federation rather than projecting power in the Arctic.

This is all the more so when  Russia and Canada have overlapping claims over the massive, resource-rich seabed under the Arctic Sea, and Moscow is now aggressively expanding its resource extraction in the region.

Viewed thus, Trump and Putin are not exactly partners in Alberta. But they may be competitors who have found the same weak joint, or vulnerable Alberta. They both benefit from the same outcome — a weaker Ottawa — but for different reasons.

Of course, all this does not necessarily mean that Canada is going to break. As pointed out above, separatism in Alberta is still a minority voice. But the timing of the foreign influence in favor of the separatists is worrisome.

In the October 19th, 2026 referendum, Albertans will face an official, non-binding question asking whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or begin the constitutional process required to hold a future binding referendum on separation. This is not yet an independence vote.

There are other constitutional hurdles too.

Constitutional pundits point out that the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark Reference re Secession of Quebec case established that a province cannot unilaterally secede.

Even a clear majority answering a clear question would trigger negotiations, not automatic independence, and those negotiations would have to respect federalism, constitutionalism, minority rights, and Aboriginal interests.

But Canada is witnessing a global phenomenon: “Sovereignty” is not just about borders; it is about narrative sovereignty. If you do not control your domestic narrative, someone else will. And that is precisely what Trump and Putin seem to be doing.

• 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.
• Original Article Published on 27th August 2026. The article has been updated with the latest information.
• CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com

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For the first time, the US Navy has deployed an uncrewed surface vessel (USV), or a sea drone, alongside a carrier strike group (CSG), accelerating the integration of cost-effective autonomous systems into high-end naval operations.

Speaking at an Army conference in Washington, DC, on October 14, 2026, the Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao announced that the Navy has deployed a Leidos USV with the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (CSG) headed to the Middle East.

“Right now, the Roosevelt carrier strike group just deployed on Oct. 8 with a medium-sized unmanned surface vessel,” Cao noted.

“This is the first carrier strike group to ever deploy with a large-sized unmanned surface vessel, and this is a force multiplier. Imagine having more guns out there,” he added. Notably, Cao did not name the sea drone, but media reports citing informed officials identified it as the Leidos Seahawk, a 145-ton, 42-meter-long medium USV reportedly built to sail long distances uninterrupted for months

Leidos describes the Seahawk as a medium-displacement unmanned surface vessel (MD-USV) with a composite trimaran hull. It is roughly 135–137 feet long, with a full-load displacement of about 145 tons, and a fuel capacity of around 14,000 gallons.

It is designed for extended autonomous operations with limited human intervention and uses Leidos’ Autonomous Vessel Architecture (LAVA) for navigation, perception, collision avoidance (COLREGs-compliant), and other functions.

“Seahawk is substantially larger than other US Navy USVs and has significantly increased capabilities compared to smaller USVs in terms of range, seakeeping, and payload capacity. Seahawk is designed to operate with minimal human involvement, providing a forward-deployed, rapid-response asset in the global maritime surveillance network,” Leidos stated.

The company reportedly delivered the Seahawk USV to the United States Navy in 2021.

The Seahawk will likely conduct electronic warfare missions and information, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations rather than serve as an armed combatant. Notably, the carrier’s deployment to the Middle East comes as US President Donald Trump weighs fresh strikes on Iran.

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Earlier this month, he told Time magazine that the US military could ramp up bombing of Iran after the November 3 midterm elections.

The arrival of the USS Roosevelt would bring the number of American aircraft carriers available in the region to three by late October, joining the USS George H.W. Bush, USS George Washington, and the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group.

As for the Leidos USV, the Navy had already practiced at-sea refueling with the Seahawk vessel and integrated it during this year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise. However, moving this unmanned system from trials into real-world operations could mark a crucial step in shaping the US Navy’s future strategy.

Integrating USVs Into Combat 

The presence of the large autonomous vessel in a carrier strike group marks an important step in the US Navy’s future operations. Interestingly, it comes amid a growing presence of uncrewed systems in the ongoing Middle East conflict.

In June 2026, for instance, a Saronic Corsair drone boat operated by the US Navy’s Task Force 59 was used to locate and rescue two crew members after an AH-64E helicopter went down near the Strait of Hormuz.

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This first-of-its-kind rescue mission involving sea drones took about two hours, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time.

Separately, the US Navy used one-way attack sea drones in combat for the first time in July 2026 to strike coastal Iranian military targets.

The US Navy has admitted that unmanned vessels have been extensively deployed in the clearance of mines from the Strait of Hormuz, which has remained under a de facto closure imposed by Iran for over seven months.

These incidents signal a broader appetite within the US Navy to delegate crucial combat tasks to unmanned vessels.

For example, although CSGs are the centerpiece of American naval power projection, adversaries also view them as high-value targets. Therefore, introducing a USV could let the Navy deploy a medium-sized autonomous vessel closer to threats at sea, keeping sailors out of the danger zone.

Moreover, adding a USV to the carrier strike group would enhance the US Navy’s sensor coverage and maritime awareness, reducing dependence on crewed vessels.

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Cao’s remarks about having more firepower likely reflect the US Navy’s broader strategy to integrate uncrewed vessels with heavy ships.

In February this year, the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Daryl Caudle, presented his “Fighting Instructions” framework, outlining plans to employ a “hedge force strategy” that aims to leverage unmanned technology and develop a range of tailored options that fall outside the scope of the conventional carrier strike group model. 

Since the specifics of this strategy and its structure are currently still being worked out, the deliberate pairing of medium USVs with carrier strike groups may be an early expression of the approach Caudle underscored. The USV’s performance with the Theodore Roosevelt group could potentially inform how subsequent strike groups are configured, accelerating the path toward more medium USVs in the fleet.

The US Navy’s increasing integration of sea drones into established combat practices may have been influenced by Ukraine’s use of these systems to decimate the Russian Navy.

Ukraine has emerged as a pioneer in sea drone technology, showing how relatively simple, affordable technology can neutralize expensive naval assets. In fact, Iran itself has extensively deployed these vessels to launch frequent operations against the US as well as the tankers trying to transit the Hormuz Strait in violation of the Iranian blockade.

The US, for its part, wants to leverage the asymmetric advantage of autonomous systems in combat when facing adversaries that can threaten its state-of-the-art warships.

If the Seahawk demonstrates reliable integration, endurance, and utility, it may accelerate the Navy’s ability to field hybrid strike groups that combine the decisive power of a carrier air wing with the distributed, lower-risk presence of autonomous vessels.

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This assessment may, in turn, inform strategies for combat in other, more contested theatres, such as the Indo-Pacific, where the US faces a Chinese threat.

With a smaller but more advanced fleet, the US can use large numbers of attritable unmanned platforms for sustained surveillance, chokepoint control, and harassment without tying down manned ships.

Against that backdrop, lessons from this first operational pairing may shape concepts of operations (CONOPS), help tailor force packages, and inform the broader shift toward distributed maritime operations, all of which are meant to complicate targeting in a contested environment by near-peer adversaries.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

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With the GlobalEye, Swedish defense manufacturer Saab has transformed the sleek, long-range luxury business jet into a cutting-edge airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) platform, creating one of the most remarkable transformations in military aviation.

Amid the global surge in GlobalEye’s popularity, Saab unveiled the first AEW&C aircraft for the Swedish Air Force (SwAF) on October 15.

The AEW&C aircraft will give the Air Force long-range surveillance capability, strengthen its operational picture across the air, land, and maritime domains, and bolster its overall combat capability.

“The presentation of Sweden’s first GlobalEye marks an important milestone for both Saab and the Swedish Armed Forces. As the program progresses towards delivery, GlobalEye will provide Sweden with a powerful capability for airborne surveillance and situational awareness,” Micael Johansson, President and CEO of Saab, said in the official statement.

The Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) ordered two GlobalEye AEW&C aircraft for about SEK 7.3 billion ($738.2M) in June 2022, making it the second customer after the UAE. Later, in 2024, it exercised an option for a third aircraft after it donated its older Saab 340-based ASC 890 aircraft to Ukraine. 

The manufacturer says the newly unveiled aircraft will now enter testing and verification before its first flight and delivery to the customer. Deliveries of these jets are expected to begin in 2027 and could conclude by or before 2029.

To speed the aircraft’s introduction into the Swedish Air Force, Saab is expected to deliver the first two GlobalEyes in an interim configuration and later upgrade them to full capability, while the third will arrive in the final configuration. However, neither Saab nor the Swedish Air Force has yet publicly detailed the differences between the two standards.

Notably, the unveiling of GlobalEye comes amid a rapid surge in orders.

For example, 11 NATO states announced in July 2026 that they would jointly procure Saab GlobalEye aircraft as NATO’s new Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). Meanwhile, France ordered the aircraft in December 2025, and Canada and the Netherlands are also moving quickly toward a purchase.

Saab also announced in late July 2026 that an undisclosed Middle Eastern state had ordered the GlobalEye, as the EurAsian Times reported. Although Saab has not officially disclosed the latest customer, it offered the aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Qatar last year.

GlobalEye’s success is striking: it is one of modern military aviation’s most ambitious conversion projects, transforming Bombardier’s ultra-long-range Global business jets into a multi-domain surveillance aircraft.

The Enviable Transformation

By the mid-2010s, Saab had decades of experience with its Erieye radar family, which had flown successfully on platforms such as the Saab 340 and Embraer R-99. 

However, there was a catch: typically, these traditional AEW&C aircraft were large platforms with rotating rotodomes. This meant that although they were powerful, they were also expensive to operate. Furthermore, they required long runways and were becoming increasingly vulnerable in modern threat environments.

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To simplify things, Saab scrambled to find a platform that offered superior capability at a lower cost. In the process, it concluded that a “high-performance business jet” offered higher altitude, endurance, and speed; lower operating costs; and the ability to operate from shorter runways. The company needed a platform that could carry a large, advanced radar while providing excellent crew conditions for long missions.

Interestingly, Saab’s previous surveillance platforms, such as the Saab 340, Saab 2000, and the  Embraer R-99, had one thing in common: they were regional commercial or military-derived airframes, not high-end luxury business jets. However, with the GlobalEye contours now planned, Saab turned to the Global 6000 family of luxury business jets.

“Saab’s engineers and technical experts searched comprehensively for the best platform on which to build GlobalEye. Saab’s decades of engineering know-how led them to the Bombardier Global 6000 and 6500 business jet aircraft platforms. These jets are optimally sized with class-leading flight range and endurance,” the manufacturer says on its website.

At the Dubai Air Show in November 2015,  the UAE announced a $1.27 billion contract with Saab for two aircraft under what was then called the Swing Role Surveillance System (SRSS), the program that became GlobalEye.

With this, the UAE became the launch customer for this now-coveted surveillance jet, and Saab officially launched the GlobalEye program in February 2016. The deal with the UAE reportedly covered two Bombardier Global 6000 business jets, which Saab would extensively modify with the new Erieye ER radar and other sensors. At the time, Emirati officials noted that they chose the Global 6000 after “a huge evaluation of different platforms.” The platform decision was part of the contract announcement itself.

The Global 6000 and Global 6500 were already ultra-long-range, twin-engine business jets designed for intercontinental VIP travel. These aircraft offered about 6,000 to 6,600 nautical miles of range, high cruise altitudes, and modern avionics.

Saab recognized that, with the right modifications, they could become ideal special-mission platforms.

Bombardier, a Canadian business jet manufacturer, delivered the Global 6000 or 6500 airframes to Saab in Linköping, Sweden, where they were transformed into one of the world’s most advanced surveillance aircraft.

Saab now describes the GlobalEye as a sophisticated, multi-domain AEW&C system that uses a variety of active and passive sensors to detect and identify objects long-range on land, at sea, and in the air.

Israel Reverses U.S. Apache Drawdown in Post-October 7 Policy Shift, Signs Deal For 12 AH-64E Helos

It improves situational awareness and enables early threat detection by providing Air Force, Army, and Navy units with access to real-time information. According to Saab, the GlobalEye “combines excellent flight performance with low maintenance costs” and can remain airborne for over 11 hours.

Saab’s Erieye ER radar, which delivers a significant performance leap over earlier Erieye versions using gallium nitride, is at the heart of this early warning aircraft. It reportedly increases the detection range by 70% against challenging targets.

Furthermore, even though Saab classifies this aircraft as an AEW&C, the Leonardo Seaspray 7500E radar and the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) Systems Safire electro-optical system, installed in pods beneath the fuselage, enable it to conduct both land and sea surveillance.

The system can identify small targets, like drones, and offer ground-moving target indication (GMTI), which is essential in contemporary warfare, particularly in the Middle East, where the usage of inexpensive, one-way attack drones has been observed to increase exponentially.

Moreover, GlobalEye excels at identifying low-observable, stealthy threats such as drones and ballistic and hypersonic missiles, even in contested environments with heavy electronic jamming.

GlobalEye can collect, analyze, and distribute data to all authorities and resources, including airborne forces. It also facilitates efficient information exchange between platforms. It can also manage and guide other assets, such as fighters, and direct them on when and where to act—a critical requirement in modern, networked combat.

GlobalEye succeeds by combining proven commercial airframe efficiency with Saab’s expertise in radar, systems integration, and multi-domain operations.

Compared with many larger dedicated advanced early warning platforms, it offers lower lifetime costs, greater operational flexibility, and the ability to produce a comprehensive real-time image for national authorities and combined forces, whether in high-intensity war, crisis response, or peacetime monitoring.

Top USAF General Reveals NATO Plan to Fight Russia — But it is Designed for Containment, Not Decisive Defeat

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that developing the GlobalEye has allowed Saab to re-enter the global AEW market, building on the success of its previous early warning aircraft.

More importantly, what began as a luxury business jet for executives has become one of the most capable and sought-after airborne surveillance systems of its generation, thanks to Saab’s vision and engineering.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

The post How Saab Turned Luxury Business Jet into Cutting-Edge AEW&C Aircraft as Sweden Unveils First GlobalEye appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

In a major policy reversal of its pre-October 7 Apache drawdown plans, Israel has signed a deal with the United States to procure 12 Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced the deal on October 14, with deliveries expected in the early 2030s. Israel has not officially disclosed the deal’s value, but Israeli media reported it is expected to cost around US$ 1 billion.

Interestingly, the deal was announced nearly nine months after the US government approved the sale of up to 30 Apache helicopters to the Israeli Air Force (IAF) for an estimated USD 3.8 billion.

Israel has not disclosed if and when it will place the follow-on order for 18 more Apache attack helicopters, approved under the US government’s foreign military sale (FMS) program in February this year.

“The helicopters, scheduled for delivery at the beginning of the next decade, are of the Echo variant, the newest and most advanced model of the helicopter,” the Defense Ministry said.

According to the FMS agreement announced in February, the AH-64E will be delivered with mast-mounted Northrop Grumman AN/APG-78 Longbow fire-control radars and manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) receivers.

This latest version adds a dedicated maritime strike capability and nearly doubles Apache’s stand-off range by increasing the range of the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-78 mast-mounted fire-control radar from 8 to 16 km.

The Apache AH-64E can fire the Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire II air-to-surface missile, the Rafael Spike Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) missile, which will extend its stand-off firing range beyond 25 km, Stinger air-to-air missiles, Hydra rockets, and can rake targets two km away with 1200 rounds of 30mm milk-bottle-sized cannon ammunition.

The AH-64E models, equipped with advanced radar, sensors, and fire-control systems, can detect, identify, and engage targets at long range, including in adverse weather and poor visibility.

According to manufacturer Boeing, they also provide aircrews with significantly improved situational awareness compared with older models.

“The procurement of the Apache helicopters is a critical step in the IDF’s force buildup, one that will strengthen its operational capabilities against a wide range of threats and contribute to the security of the State of Israel in the years to come,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

Notably, the agreement was announced within a week after Israel missed the deadline to sign, and the US reportedly threatened Jerusalem that it would prioritize other foreign customers if Israel did not sign immediately.

Despite changing battlefield requirements, Apache attack helicopters remain in high demand, and nearly half a dozen countries have signed deals for over 150 new-build Apache AH-64Es in the last five years, including Poland, Saudi Arabia, India, and Morocco, with Boeing in advanced talks with countries like Kuwait, Egypt, and South Korea for the sale of these helicopters.

However, many experts question the rationale behind investing billions of dollars in expensive attack helicopters in the era of drone warfare, where they’re vulnerable to cheap, mass-produced FPV drones, shoulder-fired MANPADS, or even SHORAD (Short-Range Air Defense) missiles.

Interestingly, in the years leading up to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, the Israeli Air Force was itself planning to reduce its attack helicopter force, primarily AH-64 Apaches, including potentially closing one or more squadrons over rising maintenance costs.

Before the 2023 Hamas attacks, the IAF operated two Apache squadrons, the 13th “Hornet” and 190th “Magic Touch”. The 13th Hornet Squadron flies the AH-64D, and the 190th Magic Touch Squadron flies the AH-64A; both are based at Ramon Air Base in the Negev Desert.

A General Staff decision in the early 2020s called for shutting down one of the two Apache squadrons, which would have cut the attack-helicopter fleet by more than half.

The force cited aging platforms, with some IAF Apaches flying for over 35 years, high maintenance costs, and a broader doctrinal shift toward unmanned aerial platforms and drones.

However, following the Hamas attacks, the IAF not only reversed its decision to shut down one of the two Apache Squadrons, but also decided to expand its attack-helicopter fleet.

So, why did Israel reverse its policy on attack helicopters following the 2023 Hamas attacks?

October 2023 Hamas Attacks & Apaches

The October 2023 Hamas terror attacks were one of the biggest security failures in Israeli history.

These security lapses and the failure to respond promptly prompted deep introspection and major defense policy reviews in Israel.

One of the major lessons for Israel was that Apache attack helicopters remain highly relevant and are often the most viable platform for responding to certain security contingencies.

In January 2024, Israeli media JNS reported that in light of the current and future threats to Israel and the lessons learned from the current war in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force is expected to grow dramatically and devise a new plan to procure four squadrons of advanced fighter jets, two squadrons of combat helicopters, and a refueling aircraft.

It also plans to procure two squadrons of advanced Apache helicopter gunships, it said.

“The delay in responding to Hamas’s attack in the initial hours of the war and the frequent use of close ground support during the fighting made it clear that a larger fleet of combat helicopters was needed. Therefore, it was decided to immediately initiate proceedings for the purchase of one Apache squadron, and subsequently also a second squadron,” it said.

Notably, since then, Israel has already ordered six Boeing KC-46A Pegasus tankers for US$ 2.4 billion and 25 F-15IAs for US$ 5.2 billion. Now, Israel has ordered 12 Apache AH-64E attack helicopters.

In 2025, Israeli news media platform YnetNews reported that the IAF has issued a new order, called “Thunder,” which details steps to be taken to deal with another large-scale infiltration attempt from Gaza.

“As part of the changes, minimum readiness levels for surprise infiltration scenarios have increased 2.5-fold, including attack helicopters, transport helicopters for moving forces, drones, and fighter jets,” it said.

The report noted the usefulness of attack helicopters in providing close air support to ground forces and in countering surprise, large-scale infiltration attempts.

Israeli business daily Calcalist reported that Apache AH-64E combat helicopters are intended to increase firepower and improve the Air Force’s response time to surprise attacks.

“October 7 sharpened our understanding that in many combat scenarios, attack helicopters still hold a distinct advantage over Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs),” a former senior Air Force official told Calcalist.

“There is a huge advantage in having a battalion commander on the ground able to speak directly with a pilot hovering over the combat zone to coordinate precise, high-intensity strikes, capabilities an RPA simply cannot match.”

Apache attack helicopters also proved their worth in the war in Gaza following the Hamas attack.

Israeli defense officials commended Apache’s performance in the October 7 Hamas attack and the war in Gaza, saying the line-of-sight advantage offered by the helicopters was essential for identifying attackers, striking swiftly, assisting ground forces, and thwarting early-morning abduction attempts.

Eitan Ben Eliyahu, a retired Maj. Gen. and former Commander of the Israeli Air Force said: “This is a lesson from the war in Gaza. After it appeared that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were pushing attack helicopters out, making them seem obsolete on the battlefield, the lesson learned during [the war] was different.” The last two years of war have shown that the Apaches “remain a vital necessity on the battlefield, particularly in urban warfare and commando operations.”

A report in The Jerusalem Post noted that senior Israeli defense officials said limited helicopter numbers, combined with the need to cycle aircraft through refueling and rearming, strained operations during prolonged, high-tempo fighting.

They said the experience reinforced the need for longer range, heavier payload, improved survivability, and better networking with forces on the ground.

Notably, newer AH-64E models support heavier fuel and weapons loads, improved durability, and a reduced acoustic signature, which can make the aircraft harder to detect by sound.

Additionally, the ability to control multiple drones from the helicopter offers pilots more options for reconnaissance and targeting while staying in the fight.

Commenting on the continued relevance of Apache combat helicopters in the era of drone warfare, Indian Air Force veteran Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd) in a previous EurAsian Times article explained, “The main reason attack helicopters will not disappear is that they fill a niche that very few platforms can fill. They are the only 350 KMPH missile carriers that can hide behind trees, pop up, and literally shoot and scoot.”

“Apache helicopters are still the most survivable, efficient, and formidable flying anti-tank platforms available to militaries. They also have significant roles as anti-UAV and anti-attack helicopters,” Air Marshal Chopra added.

The October 2023 Hamas attacks, ironically, gave a new lease of life to Apache attack helicopters in the Israeli Air Force.

• 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

The post Israel Reverses U.S. Apache Drawdown in Post-October 7 Policy Shift, Signs Deal For 12 AH-64E Helos appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

As EurAsian Times reported yesterday, the Houthis claimed to have attacked a Saudi Arabian Eurofighter Typhoon using a surface-to-air missile. They claimed the fighter jet was at “risk of crashing.”

The Saudis, as expected, have not commented on the alleged strikes, but this is not the first time.

To begin with, if the Houthis claims are to be believed, this would be the second Eurofighter loss for the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF).

The only previously confirmed RSAF Typhoon loss occurred on 13 September 2017, when the Eurofighter crashed into a mountain in Abyan province’s Al Wade’a district during a combat mission over Yemen.

The pilot, Lt. Col. Muhanna bin Saad Al-Baiz, was killed, and official reports attributed the incident to a technical failure.

This was the RSAF’s first official operational loss of a Eurofighter Typhoon.

Earlier, EurAsian Times was among the first to report on the loss of a Saudi F-15SA fighter jet.

The Houthis downed a Saudi Arabian F-15 on September 16, near Marib, using a locally-made surface-to-air missile.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah’s aid and grace, succeeded in shooting down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet while it was carrying out hostile operations in support of its military mobilizations in the airspace of Marib province,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced in a post on social media.

The Houthis released images of their fighters posing with the aircraft wreckage. The downed jet was identified as the F-15SA Tail N.5539, operated by the 55th Squadron of the Royal Saudi Air Force.

There was no official response from the Saudi government — no acknowledgment, no denial.

Saudi Arabia has a long record of declining to confirm or deny Houthi claims.

In May 2015, Houthis claimed they shot down a Saudi fighter near Sanaa and shared images of wreckage. A Saudi official told CNN the government “would not comment on the claim.”

In January 2018, the Houthis claimed to have downed a Saudi Tornado over Saada and later released images of the wreckage. Saudi media reported that a Tornado on a combat mission had crashed for “technical reasons” and that both crew members were rescued.

The Saudi government did not accept the claims of a missile hit.

In March 2018, the Houthis released infrared footage they said showed a surface-to-air missile striking an F-15 over Saada. Spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki confirmed that a missile had been launched at an F-15 but said the aircraft “deal[t] with the source of fire and return[ed] safe to base.”

In February 2020, the Houthis claimed they shot down a Tornado jet over al-Jawf and released video of the engagement. RSAF had to confirm the loss as both pilots ejected and were captured by Houthi forces.

Overall, the silence limits the propaganda value of the Houthis and also protects the morale of the country and its security forces.

In the latest incident, it appears the RSAF Eurofighter may have landed, or even crashed, in Saudi territory, but there is no clear information. If there were any ejections, they would also have happened in Saudi territory. So, the Houthis can claim a hit, but they may never be able to prove anything.

Even in the case of the F-15 shootdown, Houthis were seen with the wreckage of the aircraft, but there was very little information on the two crew members on the aircraft: the pilot and the systems officer, who sits in the back seat.

EurAsian Times did a detailed analysis of the fate of the pilot, and it appears that, most likely, they were recovered by Saudi forces, giving no propaganda material to the Houthis.

Eurofighter Typhoons in the Royal Saudi Air Force Inventory

The Eurofighter Typhoon forms a major element of the RSAF combat fleet. Saudi Arabia operates 72 of the twin-engine, multirole fighters, making it one of the largest Typhoon operators outside Europe.

The RSAF received all aircraft under the Project Salam program, and it bases them at King Fahd Air Base near Taif.

The RSAF assigns all Typhoons to the 2nd Aviation Wing at King Fahd Air Base (Taif), in the Hejaz mountains roughly 150 km southeast of Jeddah. The wing operates three squadrons: No. 3 Squadron, No. 10 Squadron, and No. 80 Squadron. Aircraft are generally configured as Typhoon F.2 (single-seat) and T.3 (twin-seat) or equivalent Tranche 2/3 standards.

The base’s location has made it a logical hub for operations near the Yemeni border.

The Typhoons complement the RSAF’s much larger F-15 family and the older Tornado fleet and have flown combat missions over Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began in 2015, conducting close air support, interdiction, and strikes against Houthi targets. They have also participated in limited operations against ISIS targets in Syria.

Houthi Attacks on Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is Not Silent

Riyadh has been silent on Houthi shootdown claims, but it is quite vociferous on attacks on its critical infrastructure.

The Houthis have launched a sustained campaign of ballistic missile, cruise missile, and drone attacks against Saudi civilian airports and energy infrastructure.

The primary target of Houthi attacks was King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

According to spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, the airport was subjected to around 20 attacks between early October and mid-month, involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and other projectiles. These resulted in 17 deaths and more than 330 injuries at the airport alone.

Additional attacks hit Abha International Airport (near the Yemen border), King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, and facilities near Najran and Jazan.

Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree repeatedly claimed responsibility, warning airlines and travelers to avoid Saudi airports and airspace (except over Mecca and Medina) and declaring such sites legitimate targets in retaliation for Saudi operations in Yemen.

Houthis have also targeted Saudi energy assets. On or around 13–14 October, an attack struck an administrative building at Saudi Aramco’s headquarters complex in Dhahran. The Energy Ministry described it as causing a “limited fire” with no casualties.

Sources cited by Reuters and others reported extensive damage, with the fire spreading across multiple floors of an office tower and temporarily disrupting operations.

Earlier, Houthi attacks hit fuel tanks and related facilities at or near Riyadh airport, and reports cited smoke from an Aramco site south of the capital. The East-West pipeline (used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz) had previously been disrupted by drone attacks.

Saudi officials have openly acknowledged the attacks.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation provided casualty figures and the nationalities of those affected. Spokesman al-Malki detailed the scale of the damage against the Saudi civilian infrastructure.

Riyadh strongly condemned the targeting of civilians, airports, economic facilities, and even the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, reaffirming the right to self-defense and calling for international action.

The Cabinet, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, warned that the Houthis would face consequences for attacks on airports, infrastructure, and visitors, while praising the armed forces.

Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, speaking at the WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh, described the events as “serious” and said the Kingdom’s response “must be equally serious.”

Saudi state media, including the official news agency SPA and Saudi television, reported the attacks in detail. They released official statements, updated casualty figures, and showed footage of the strike on Riyadh airport and the damage that followed. Civil defense authorities also issued public alerts and announced when incoming missiles or drones had been intercepted.

This level of official transparency is noteworthy as it contrasts with periods when Saudi responses to cross-border strikes were more restrained in public communications.

The idea appears to be obvious: while Saudi Arabia is keen to deprive the Houthis of any PR or propaganda material, the Kingdom wants to highlight attacks on the country to justify its counteroffensive, even if disproportionate.

Even though the Houthis have denied targeting Mecca and Medina, Riyadh could rally support, especially from the Islamic world and Mecca pact allies, Pakistan and Turkey, to crush the Houthis.

• This is an Opinion Article
• Mail the author at: editor (at) eurasiantimes.com

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The US Navy F-35C Lightning II aircraft made its first-ever arrested landing and takeoff aboard its newest Ford-class aircraft carrier. This milestone marks a major step for the US jet that initially struggled with hook-related flaws that complicated landings during ground tests.

On 13 October, an F-35C from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 (“Salty Dogs,” NAS Patuxent River) made the first arrested landing aboard the Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) John F. Kennedy (CVN-79).

The aircraft reportedly used the unique EMALS and AAG electromagnetic launch-and-recovery systems to perform arrested launches and recoveries from CVN-79 as part of Aircraft Compatibility Testing (ACT).

ACT lets engineers examine how the ship’s equipment interacts with specific aircraft types while gathering data to confirm those systems function as intended.

The US Navy released photos of the event showing two F-35C aircraft with tail numbers 401 and 403—one landing on the carrier deck, and the other flying with an inert Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb carried externally. Later, another set of images and a video were posted on social media, showing the F-35C launching from the deck of the John F. Kennedy on the second day of ACT.

The US Navy took the preliminary acceptance of the carrier on 29 September 2026, after sea trials the previous month. Preliminary acceptance allows at-sea testing, training, and proficiency building before the carrier is commissioned and put into service.

This arrested landing and subsequent catapult launch marked the first time any F-35C had operated from a Ford-class ship, the largest and most advanced fleet of aircraft carriers in the American armory.

The lead ship, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has never embarked the F-35C for sustained operations because the carrier was reportedly delivered without the full set of modifications needed to sustain stealth-fighter operations due to cost-saving measures.

Earlier in June 2019, former Navy spokesman Capt. Daniel Hernandez said that although Ford-class carriers were built to launch and recover the F-35C fighter jet, they still needed upgrades such as stronger jet blast deflectors to protect the deck from hot exhaust during launches, as well as designated areas for aircraft operations.

Instead of the F-35C, the USS Gerald R. Ford hosts air wings mainly equipped with F/A-18E/F and Growler variants for its current combat posture.

The US Navy has flown the F-35C only from its Nimitz-class carriers so far. The aircraft completed its initial at-sea testing aboard the USS Nimitz in November 2014. USS Carl Vinson was the first to deploy the jet operationally, and USS Abraham Lincoln was the first to use it in combat.

However, the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee later ordered in FY2020 that the Navy must not accept the CVN-79 USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier until it can embark the F-35C. This makes the latest arrested landing and takeoff special.

This test is a key step in validating F-35C integration with the Ford class, especially because these carriers use electromagnetic catapults and advanced arresting equipment, replacing the Nimitz class’s steam-powered launch and conventional arresting systems.

Interestingly, however, this key milestone comes as US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to redesign a new aircraft carrier to replace electromagnetic catapults—designed for finer control, reduced airframe stress, higher sortie rates, and better support for a wider range of aircraft—with steam catapults.

In fact, the President signed a national security memorandum in August, giving the Pentagon leaders two months to come up with “a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of” the USS Doris Miller, also a Ford-class aircraft carrier.

Nonetheless, putting F-35C jets on USS John F. Kennedy is a major breakthrough for the US Navy’s upcoming combat posture as regional security threats multiply across theatres. The F-35C Lightning II brings stealth, advanced sensors, sensor fusion, and long-range strike capability that older fighters, such as the Super Hornet, lack.

The F-35C’s Leap is Admirable

More than a decade ago, the F-35C struggled with its arresting hook system (AHS), which had a well-documented design issue, as reports in 2012 noted, citing a leaked JSF Concurrency Quick Look Review dated 29 November, 2011.

The report noted that the stealth fighter couldn’t board a carrier because of these tailhook design issues.

It stated that the F-35C failed to engage the MK-7 arresting gear during particular tests at NAWC-AD (Naval Air Warfare Center – Aircraft Division) Lakehurst, with a poor score of 0 successes in 8 attempts.

This was despite testing at a regular airport, not a real carrier, where an aircraft may face inclement weather, a pitching deck, adjacent obstructions, low fuel, and no alternate airfields, among other challenges.

At the time, reports noted that the core issue was the short longitudinal distance—about 7 feet—between the main landing gear tires and the lowered tailhook point. Low-observability, or stealth, requirements drove this geometry, forcing the Arresting Hook System into a recessed bay with doors to preserve the aircraft’s outer mold line and minimize radar cross-section, according to the reports.

For comparison, the F/A-18 placed the main landing gear-to-tailhook distance at about 18.2 feet. Additionally, the tailhook point design had limited ability to scoop low-positioned cables.

A Lockheed Martin official later said the company traced the F-35C’s trouble catching a carrier’s arresting gear wires to the tailhook design. “The good news is that it’s fairly straightforward and isolated to the hook itself,” said Tom Burbage, the F-35 program manager at the time. “It doesn’t have secondary effects going into the rest of the airplane.”

Burbage said that the rest of the tailhook system design, including the bay and doors that hide the device and other auxiliary hardware, was sound. “What we are trying to do is make sure that we got the actual design of the hook is optimized so that it in fact repeatedly picks up the wire as long as the airplane puts itself in position to do that.”

He explained that the fundamental limitations of creating a stealth fighter also caused the hook issue, adding that the company faced the rare challenge of designing the first-ever naval stealth fighter jet with a tail-hook that had to be concealed when not in use.

He also noted that the tail hook had to be installed farther forward on the jet’s ventral surface than on other naval aircraft because it had to fit within the F-35’s outer mold line. As a result, the hook behaved differently than it did on previous fighters like the F/A-18.

The way the wires react as the jet passes over them is a dynamic factor in the F-35, and the wire responded in a sine wave pattern.

“The time differential between when the main gear rolls over the cable and the time the hook picks up the cable on a more conventional airplane is more time for that wave to damp out,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying. “In the case of the F-35, one of our design constraints is that the hook just has to be closer to the main landing gear than on a conventional aircraft because of the requirement to hide it inside the airplane,” he added at the time.

Later, engineering investigations identified three primary factors: the aircraft’s constrained geometry, a suboptimal hook-point shape, and inadequate hold-down performance. Additionally, it found that a faulty or inadequately validated wire-dynamics simulation model contributed to the original design assumptions.

The Joint Strike Fighter program addressed the issue by redesigning the hook point and improving the hold-down damper, along with other refinements such as improved upstroke damping and strength. The revised system underwent successful shore-based testing, including dozens of roll-in arrestments, enabling the first at-sea arrested landings on USS Nimitz in late 2014, followed by a rigorous testing regime.

Notably, Ford-class ships use the newer Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) rather than the legacy MK-7 hydraulic system. However, the successful trap and launch close the loop on more than a decade of work that began with the original hook’s total failure.

As the EurAsian Times previously explained, the F-35C offers significantly greater range over other F-35 variants, larger internal weapons bays, and superior endurance, making it ideal for long-range operations from the vast ocean.

These stealthy warplanes are nearly invisible to enemy radars and can penetrate even the most advanced air-defense systems. They have advanced sensor fusion to create a shared battlespace picture for the entire air wing and can conduct precision strikes or intercept threats, as demonstrated by the Iranian drone shootdown earlier this year.

The F-35C can carry over 5,000 pounds of internal weapons or over 18,000 pounds of combined internal and external weapons. This lets the US Navy use external armaments to increase lethality when needed or operate in stealth when required.

Not just that, the aircraft can also operate as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) asset, sharing information with all networked ground, sea, and air assets in the battlespace

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

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Barely weeks after rejecting Saudi Arabia’s request to join the air campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, US President Donald Trump is rethinking his decision and has suggested that he may join the war against the Iran-backed Houthis.

The latest Houthi strikes on Saudi targets have revived a long-running American dilemma in Yemen — one that stretches back to the October 2000 bombing of the US Navy warship, which killed 17 U.S. sailors.

At least 25 people have been killed in Houthi drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s airports in recent weeks.

Separately, Houthis have occupied key port cities on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, threatening to choke the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, another key oil shipping route in the Middle East.

The rising Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, a key US ally in the Middle East, the threat of choking another global oil-supply route ahead of the US midterm elections, and the death of an American citizen have created a dilemma for President Trump on whether to open a new front in the Middle East.

Following the strike on Riyadh airport, Trump suggested that the US might join the Saudi war against the Houthis. “We may. We’re gonna look at it … We’ll make a decision. We move very quickly,” Trump replied on October 12 when asked whether Washington is considering joining the Saudi War against the Houthis.

Notably, last month Trump rejected the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s request to join the Kingdom’s war against the Houthis.

However, the decision to open a new front against the Houthis will not be an easy one, as Trump realizes that the war in Yemen could become another quagmire for the US when it is already tied down in the Iran War since February this year.

Operation Decisive Storm to Operation Rough Rider

Trump launched Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis in March 2025, barely two months after taking the oath in January last year. The U.S. launched a major air and naval campaign after the Houthis resumed Red Sea attacks following the breakdown of a Gaza ceasefire.

Over the course of the next three months, the US struck over 1000 targets in Yemen, including radar systems, air defenses, missile and drone launch sites, manufacturing facilities, and some leadership targets.

However, the US abruptly ended the campaign in May, after agreeing to an Oman-brokered ceasefire. Houthis agreed to stop attacking U.S. vessels; the US halted strikes.

Trump later described the deal as Houthis “capitulating” under pressure; however, analysts disagreed as the ceasefire agreement did not cover Israel, the country that participated with Washington in bombing Houthi targets.

A New York Times investigation later revealed that Trump agreed to the ceasefire as the costs of the war exceeded $1 billion in munitions alone.

The US also lost three F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and more than 15 MQ-9 Reaper drones in the campaign; however, it did not substantially weaken the Houthi position in Yemen.

However, the US involvement with Yemen goes much further back.

The USS Cole Bombing in Yemen

The US’s two-decade-long ‘War on Terror’ began after the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks in 2001.

However, that was not the first time that Osama bin Laden-led terrorist group had attacked Americans or U.S. interests.

Just one year earlier, on October 12, 2000, al-Qaeda carried out a suicide boat attack on the USS Cole, a US Navy guided-missile destroyer, while it was refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen.

The blast killed 17 American sailors and wounded nearly 40 others. It also tore a roughly 40-foot-wide hole in the ship’s hull near the waterline.

The crew’s damage-control efforts saved the vessel.

The US destroyer, en route to the Persian Gulf, was making a prearranged fuel stop at the port of Aden, Yemen, when the attack occurred.

Before al-Qaeda used civilian airliners to strike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it used a small inflatable boat as a suicide bomb to strike the US Navy destroyer.

In fact, the USS Cole bombing was al-Qaeda’s second attempt to target a US Navy vessel near a Yemeni port.

The investigation revealed that the USS Cole bombing followed an unsuccessful attempt on January 3, 2000, to bomb another US Navy ship, the USS The Sullivans.

In this earlier incident, the terrorist boat sank before the explosives could be detonated; however, the boat and the explosives were salvaged. The Navy refitted the boat, tested the explosives, and reused them in the USS Cole attack.

The extensive FBI investigation ultimately determined that members of the al Qaeda terrorist network planned and carried out the bombing.

By the end of 2000, Yemeni authorities had arrested several suspects, including Jamal Muhammad Ahmad Al-Badawi and Fahad Muhammad Ahmad Al-Quso, two of the alleged masterminds of the USS The Sullivans and the USS Cole plots.

Al-Badawi and Al-Quso, known al Qaeda operatives who trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s, were later killed in separate U.S. airstrikes.

However, the US failed to anticipate that such suicide attacks could be replicated on a much grander scale by using aircraft to attack US buildings.

It also failed to infiltrate al-Qaeda ranks to uncover plans for further attacks on the US.

Less than a year after the USS Cole bombing, al-Qaeda struck again, this time on US soil, executing the deadliest terror attack inside the US in history.

The Cole attack was part of al-Qaeda’s escalating campaign against the US after the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings.

It demonstrated al-Qaeda’s ability to strike a major U.S. military target overseas and served as a powerful propaganda victory.

The 9/11 Commission Report noted that the USS Cole attack “galvanized al-Qaeda’s recruitment efforts.”

Bin Laden ordered a propaganda video featuring a reenactment of the blast, training-camp footage, and calls to jihad.

The 9/11 Commission Report also noted that the planning for both the USS Cole attack and the 9/11 attacks took place during al-Qaeda’s summit in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the USS Cole bombing was al-Qaeda’s warning to the US that more such attacks are coming; however, Washington failed to read the warning.

Yemen, in fact, was a major base for al-Qaeda before the rise of the Ansar Allah movement (precursor to the Houthis) in the early 2000s.

Osama bin Laden’s family also came from Yemen’s Hadhramaut region, and he saw the country as strategically important because of its weak central authority, remote tribal areas, and geography.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen was also responsible for the 1992 Aden hotel bombings targeting hotels used by US Marines en route to Somalia.

Aden hotel bombings were one of the first al-Qaeda terrorist attacks against the US.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was al-Qaeda in Yemen, and now it’s the Houthis; Yemen has been serving as a base for anti-US activities in the Middle East for over three decades now.

• 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

The post As Trump Weighs Joining War on Houthis, A Throwback To Yemen Bombing That Shook U.S. Navy!  appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

As hostilities continue to escalate between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis (Ansar Allah), the Yemen-based group has claimed to have hit a Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF). 

On the night of October 14, the Houthis- claimed that they had managed to hit an RSAF fighter jet over the northern Yemeni province of Saada, which shares a border with Saudi Arabia.

“By the grace of God, our armed forces were recently able to target a Saudi warplane of the “Typhoon” type that took off from Taif Air Base. It was targeted in the airspace of Saada Governorate with a surface-to-air missile, struck directly, and is now at risk of crashing,” the military spokesperson of the group, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, wrote on X.

In addition, low-quality, night-time footage of a distant aerial engagement also surfaced on social media and was posted by some popular media outlets. However, the video does not conclusively prove the purported engagement involved a fighter jet, as it was shot in near-total darkness.

The claims come amid a sharp escalation in conflict between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition since last month, when the Houthis seized territory along the Red Sea coast, including Mokha and areas overlooking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which had been crucial for Saudi energy exports after the closure of the Hormuz Strait.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government launched a counteroffensive to reclaim Red Sea coast territory and declared full-scale war efforts, which have led to intensified missile and drone attack responses by the Houthis on Saudi cities and civilian targets, including in the capital, Riyadh. 

Before claiming to have hit the Eurofighter, the Houthis stated that they had struck King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh with a ballistic missile.

The group also announced that it targeted an administrative building belonging to Saudi Arabia’s Aramco in the eastern city of Dhahran, in retaliation for Saudi strikes on an oil facility in the al-Sabah area of the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Houthis.

Saudi Arabia, on its part, launches regular airstrikes on Houthi positions, backing Yemeni government-aligned forces as they try to reoccupy territory.

Eurofighter Downed After F-15?

Saudi aircraft, including F-15SA and Eurofighter Typhoons, have been operating from bases such as Taif and Khamis Mushait to launch regular airstrikes across Houthi-controlled areas.

The latest claim of hitting a Eurofighter Typhoon comes nearly a month after the Houthis managed to down an F-15SA, scoring their first kill of a Saudi fighter since the fresh hostilities broke out between the two sides. The aircraft was reportedly downed on September 16, near Marib, using a locally-made surface-to-air missile (SAM), when it was allegedly conducting air strikes in support of the Yemeni troops.

The group published images of the wreckage of the Saudi fighter and the Ansar Allah personnel posing with it, although the fate of the pilots who probably ejected after being hit remains unknown to this day, as the EurAsian Times had also discussed in the past.

Unlike the F-15SA incident, there is currently no evidence the RSAF Eurofighter Typhoon was hit or crashed after taking the alleged hit.

Notably, advanced 4.5th-generation fighters like the Eurofighter are designed to absorb certain damage. Thus, a hit may not automatically mean a confirmed kill.

If we hypothetically assume the Eurofighter was hit, whether the Typhoon could make it back to the base depends on where it was allegedly struck, how far it was from a friendly base, and how severe the hit was.

The Eurofighter has two EJ200 engines—if one is damaged or fails after a hit, the other could provide enough thrust to keep the aircraft flying with some adjustments, allowing the pilot to land at a nearby safe base. Moreover, the jet features multiple flight-control computers, hydraulic systems, and electrical backups that could keep it controllable even after it loses parts of the airframe, control surfaces, or one of the two engines.

But most importantly, the damage may depend on whether the missile warhead detonated properly or was a near-miss that caused fragmentation.

For now, these crucial details about the alleged hit and damage remain unclear.

While independent verification of the alleged hit is pending and the RSAF has not officially acknowledged any such hit, previous reports suggest that the Houthis had earlier claimed downing a Saudi Eurofighter in October 2017 with a surface-to-air missile over Nihm. 

“Yemen’s air defense unit told the country’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the aircraft had been targeted with a surface-to-air missile as it was flying in the skies over Nihm district east of the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on Friday evening,” Yemen Press had reported. However, no independent source verified the hit at the time.

Earlier this year, Italian Eurofighters sustained some damage during an Iranian strike on a Saudi base, as the EurAsian Times had earlier reported.

However, no combat shoot-down of a Eurofighter Typhoon—built by a consortium of the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain—has occurred anywhere in the world. 

This means that if Ansar Allah’s claims are verified and the Eurofighter has indeed been hit and crashed, it would be the first incident involving the type.

It would boost the credibility of the Houthis’ surface-to-air missiles, which they market as “locally manufactured.”  For the Houthis, successfully downing a modern, high-performance jet like the Typhoon, with advanced electronic warfare, missile-warning systems, and high-speed or high-altitude performance, would be akin to an endorsement that their air defenses can threaten one of the most capable Western fighters in the Saudi inventory, not just older aircraft.

Saudi Arabia currently operates about 71 Eurofighter Typhoons, so a single loss would not dramatically alter its combat capability or affect operations. However, with tensions running high between the two sides, it would be a major propaganda win for the Houthis and could lead to further escalation if Saudi Arabia launches a stern response.

For now, the EurAsian Times awaits further details about the initial claims.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

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In another boost for Turkey’s aerospace industry, Spain has reportedly decided to acquire additional Turkish Hurjet aircraft, bringing the total purchase to about 45 units. Meanwhile, India’s LCA Tejas and AMCA are trying to catch up with Turkish aircraft.

Mehmet Demiroglu, CEO of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), which produces the Hurjet, said Spain plans to buy 15 additional Hurjet trainer aircraft, in addition to the 30 supersonic jets already ordered in December 2025, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

“Before we even started deliveries to our Air Force, Spain said, ‘I like it, I want to buy 30,’ and bought them. We signed the agreement,” he was quoted as saying during an event in Türkiye’s northern province of Kastamonu. “We are working toward deliveries in 2028. It is planning to buy another 15,” the CEO added.

Earlier, Spain approved the purchase of 45 Hürjet jet trainers in September 2025 in a €3.68 billion deal led by Airbus Defense and Space España. Under the agreement, the first units are scheduled for delivery by 2028.

The Hürjet is a single-engine, tandem-seat advanced jet trainer and light combat aircraft intended to provide modern combat pilot training, bridging basic trainers and front-line fighters.

It is designed primarily to replace the Turkish Air Force’s aging Northrop T-38M Talon advanced trainers and the Northrop F-5s flown by the Turkish Stars aerobatic team, although the aircraft also supports fighter transition training, aggressor roles, and light combat or close air support missions.

Spain, for its part, is acquiring it primarily as a trainer within a complete integrated training ecosystem, rather than as a pure combat aircraft.

In recent years, the Turkish defense industry has made major strides toward indigenization and expanded its export potential, including the Hürjet, the Hürkuş, and the KAAN.

TAI previously said Spain was considering acquiring the KAAN stealth fighter after the collapse of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program the country was pursuing with France and Germany, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time.

Silent on Fighter Jet Losses, Open on Airport and Oil Strikes: Saudi Arabia’s Selective Response to Houthi Attacks

Separately, Indonesia has already signed a deal to acquire 48 KAAN fighters, along with provisions for extensive collaboration in manufacturing, technology transfer, and engineering, among other things.

Demiroglu added that Hurkus deliveries have begun and will continue in the coming years, citing Azerbaijan as an export market and expressing hopes of additional international sales. Azerbaijan signed a contract at the ADEX 2026 defense exhibition in Baku for 14 HÜRKUŞ-II trainer aircraft, although countries like Niger, Chad, and Libya have already ordered the aircraft, according to publicly available information.

Nonetheless, Hürjet’s export success is strategically more significant than it might first appears. This is mainly because Hürkuş is a relatively simple turboprop basic trainer whose exports matter but are less technologically advanced, whereas the KAAN is far more advanced and prestigious, but its full operational capability and export readiness are years away.

Therefore, the Hürjet sits in the middle: an indigenous trainer or light combat aircraft, and selling it to a sophisticated NATO country proves Turkey can design, certify, produce, and support a high-performance jet aircraft that meets Western standards.

Turkey Takes A Lead Over India 

Hürjet benefited from a relatively clean-sheet design optimized for the trainer or light-attack role, a strong political and industrial focus, and a partnership model that made entry into Europe easier.

Turkey began developing the Hurjet in 2017 as an advanced jet trainer with a light combat role. It first flew in 2023, and Ankara is now ramping up serial production, while increasing its local structural content.

By contrast, India’s Tejas program began in the 1980s. The aircraft took its first flight in 2001, but the program remained mired in delays, and induction came much later, in 2016.

Although the Indian Air Force (IAF) has finally received all Tejas Mk1 aircraft after a grueling wait, delivery of the more capable Mk1A, with AESA radar and other upgrades, has yet to begin because of delays in delivering GE-404 engines.

Russian & Indian Warships Hog Online Limelight as U.S. Navy Turns 251. Social Media Gaffe Continues

Despite marketing efforts and interest from several countries over the years, Tejas has not secured a major export order. India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has said it prioritizes fulfilling IAF commitments before aggressively pursuing foreign sales.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s defense industry has enjoyed continual high-level prioritization, faster decisions on aircraft variants, and a strategy of securing an early Western reference customer.

The gap is also visible at the fifth-generation level.

Both Turkey’s KAAN and India’s AMCA are twin-engine multirole fighters currently under development. However, Turkey appears to be ahed in the race despite India starting early.

KAAN made its first flight in February 2024, and multiple prototypes have since been flying. The Turkish Air Force has ordered the first 20 Block 10 aircraft, with deliveries to start in 2028. Furthermore, Ankara is steadily advancing development of an indigenous engine for later KAAN jets.

Meanwhile, India’s AMCA is in its industry selection and prototype development phase, with the first flight targeted for September 2028 and service induction planned for 2034–2035. Most IAF experts talking to EurAsian Times have privately doubted this ambitious timeline.

Turkey moved relatively quickly from design to a flying demonstrator and is already iterating with multiple airframes, whereas India has spent longer in the detailed design and industrial-partner selection phase. Moreover, Turkey has maintained a visible, sustained, high-level focus, combined with lessons from parallel programs such as Hürjet and a host of other UAV development programs that helped compress timelines.

Turkey’s success over India in aircraft development programs comes from its experience. In the late 1980s and 1990s, TAI produced 232 Block 30/40/50 F-16s under license for the Turkish Air Force, plus 46 Block 40s for Egypt and later 30 Block 50s. It license-produced the CN-235 transport and maritime-patrol aircraft, Cougar utility helicopters, and SF.260 trainers.

TAI also performed extensive F-16 electronic-warfare and structural upgrades for Turkey, Jordan, and Pakistan; converted Boeing 737s into AEW&C platforms; participated in the A400M program; and developed the Anka UAV family.

Additionally, the country has also fielded the T129 ATAK attack helicopter and, in 2023, flew the heavier twin-engine T929 ATAK 2, while producing light and medium utility helicopters.

These programs, along with a political drive to become a major arms supplier and the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation’s institutional role in the defense industry, have accelerated progress.

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“Their desire to lead the Islamic world as its most powerful nation and become a major arms supplier has taken Turkey forward in defense production. Also, the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation holds a large shareholding in military industries, and it has its own dynamics,” Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd) argued in a previous EurAsian Times article, referring to Turkey’s achievements.

“India has to learn from Turkey’s successes in unmanned platforms. They are also ahead in helicopters and transport aircraft. Turkey is clearly way ahead in the fifth-generation fighter program,” Chopra further noted.

As for Turkey, Hürjet’s NATO export breakthrough and faster KAAN development demonstrate that Turkey has established a measurable lead over India in the pace and export conversion of combat-aircraft development in recent years.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

The post India’s LCA Tejas & AMCA Try “Catching Up” as Turkish Jets Take a Clear Lead. Spain Eyes More Hürjets appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

As the US turned 251, a familiar ritual repeated this year as American politicians lined up to toast the Navy with patriotic messages and, interestingly, images of Indian and Russian warships.

The US Navy celebrates its birthday every year on October 13, marking the day the Second Continental Congress authorized the outfitting of two armed vessels to intercept British supply ships during the American Revolution—the decision that created the Continental Navy, a force that eventually grew into the United States Navy.

As US Navy birthday wishes poured in on October 13, several US lawmakers joined the rush to pay their homage, resulting in a series of social media misfires.

For instance, Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp posted a message with an image of three sleek gray warships steaming in formation.

At first glance, the post seems routine, but a closer look reveals the warships are Indian Navy vessels, as Dave Brown, the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief at The Wall Street Journal, and military observers pointed out.

The ships have since been identified as INS Godavari, INS Brahmaputra, and INS Beas, although a community note on Kemp’s post flags them as Kolkata-class guided-missile destroyers.

Despite criticism, Kemp has not taken down the post.

Another lawmaker, Ohio State Representative Mike Dovilla, paid his respects on X, saying: “Happy Birthday, U.S. Navy. I am proud of my service in naval intelligence and grateful to all who serve our nation with honor, courage, and commitment. To our sailors, veterans, and their families, thank you.”

Interestingly, though, Dovilla used an image of a Russian warship instead of a US one, a move that drew scrutiny, given that the lawmaker is a Navy Reserve commander and has previously served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy.

Dovilla deleted the post after observers pointed out the error.

Meanwhile, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria posted images of what has been identified as the Soviet-era cruiser Mikhail Kutuzov, now a museum ship based in Novorossiysk, Russia.

To make matters worse, Gloria wrote: “San Diego is a proud military town. Sailors and their families are a part of the fabric of our community. For 251 years, sailors have answered our nation’s call with courage,” further emphasizing his ignorance.

In another goof-up, the Republican-aligned think tank Freedom Caucus Foundation jumped on the bandwagon of errors by using a picture of the Indian Navy ship INS Trikand. 

A Mistake That Keeps Repeating 

In 2025, the US Navy’s SEAL Museum posted an image of a Russian missile cruiser to mark the US Navy’s 250th birthday. Meanwhile, several elected representatives and public accounts used images of Indian and Russian Navy warships to mark the service’s birthday.

Representative Kyle Donahue, Representative Arvind Venkat, and Representative Andy Harris used images of Indian warships in their posts, while Senator Jim Boyd used an image of a Russian battleship cruiser to pay tribute to the US Navy for its birthday.

These are just a few of the many social media faux pas that were flagged last year.

Similarly, in 2023, Representative Cory Mills and Representative David Trone’s birthday greetings featured images of a Russian warship. On the other hand, the SEAL Legacy Foundation, which supports families of wounded and fallen United States Navy SEALs, used a Russian ship to mark the occasion, whereas the official X page of Homeland Security used the image depicting a Canadian frigate. 

Things weren’t much different in 2021, when Senator Jim Risch published a heartfelt wish for the USN’s birthday, but used a photo of what was later identified as a Pattani-class offshore patrol vessel belonging to the Royal Thai Navy, potentially built by China.

While ship identification may not be a strong suit for many in the United States, it is not much different for combat aircraft.

In a major embarrassment last year, the Pentagon’s Joint Program Office  (JPO) posted an image of the Chinese J-35A stealth fighter instead of the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in a Veterans Day homage post. “Today, and every day, we thank all Veterans and those currently serving for their service and sacrifice,” the Pentagon official’s post stated. However, the office took the post down as criticism mounted over the bizarre mistake.

In 2023, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna—an Air Force (USAF) veteran herself—posted birthday graphics for the US Air Force (USAF) on X and Instagram that used silhouettes of Russian MiG-29 fighters. Air Force historians and defense analysts immediately flagged the image, after which the politician took it down and blamed a junior staffer for the error.

In 2021, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi made a similar error when she congratulated the US Air Force Reserve Command on its birthday with a graphic showing Russian Su-34 Fullback strike aircraft. “Happy 73rd Birthday to the @USAFReserve! Thankful for all the reservists who are constantly on the ready to serve our nation,” Hyde-Smith said on X, along with a graphic showing four Su-34 jets in flight. 

Needless to say, she deleted the post after netizens mocked her for the error.

However, Dr. Rob Lee of King’s College in London, who specializes in war studies, joked at the time that Hyde-Smith’s post was part of the “national pastime of mistaking Russian weapons for our own” among Americans.

In an even more ridiculous mistake in 2021, the official Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) account posted a birthday graphic for the US Air Force that featured silhouettes of Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets.

Meanwhile, one of the accounts connected to “Operation Inherent Resolve” posted a picture of two US Navy Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with best wishes to the air force, creating another embarrassing situation.

Similarly, Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign released a “Support Our Troops”  advertisement accompanied by a photo of Russian MiG-29 fighter jets flying over troops with Kalashnikov-pattern rifles. Unsurprisingly, aviation experts widely mocked it, saying it clearly wasn’t American.

Defense analysts have long noted the mechanics behind these recurring errors. For example, modern warships and fighters share enough visual DNA- gray paint, angular superstructures, and similar radar masts- that non-specialists struggle to tell them apart at a glance.

Staffers working under deadline pressure rarely pause to verify hull numbers or distinctive features, making it a low-stakes but revealing ritual.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

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After putting the F-35 deal under review, Canada has now reportedly paused the acquisition of 16 U.S.-made UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters.

UH-60M Black Hawks are manufactured by Sikorsky, a unit of Lockheed Martin, and were intended to replace aging CH-146 Griffon helicopters that have supported Canada’s special operations units.

Lockheed says Black Hawks are combat-proven workhorses for the U.S. Army and allied militaries worldwide; the UH-60M is rugged, reliable, and ready for the toughest mission challenges.

With powerful twin engines, a reconfigurable cabin, and 9,000 lbs. of cargo capacity, the BLACK HAWK can transport troops, deliver supplies, and fly search and rescue, even in contested environments.

That’s what has made the UH-60M a trusted utility helicopter with over 15 million flight hours and countless critical missions worldwide, according to Lockheed Martin.

The acquisition of UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters was proceeding through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process, had received State Department sign-off, and was heading toward congressional notification when Ottawa ordered the halt, according to sources cited by CBC News and Radio-Canada.

Ottawa reportedly ordered the pause last summer, shortly before Canadian and U.S. trade negotiators met in Washington, which later collapsed.

Sources in government and the defense industry said the decision was linked to both the failed negotiations and a broader review by federal officials of planned military purchases from the United States, as Ottawa seeks to reduce reliance on American equipment and prioritize domestic production.

A government spokesperson said Canada continues to evaluate options to meet the needs of its special operations forces and remains in contact with relevant partners. Lockheed Martin has said it is ready to support international customers seeking the latest UH-60M through the Foreign Military Sales program.

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US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on Canada, the unilateral renaming of Lake Ontario, and mockery of Canadian leadership have strained ties with Ottawa.

Tensions peaked between the two giant neighbors on August 22, after trade talks collapsed, when the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods. In response, Canada hit back with retaliatory tariffs.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, responding to US officials alleging that Canada walked away from the deal for political reasons, said, “I don’t think, with all respect, appointed, unelected cabinet members in the United States are experts on Canadian politics.”

The tensions between the two North American allies began in January 2025, when Trump became President, slapped punitive tariffs on Ottawa, and repeatedly called it the 51st state of the USA.

Canadian PM Carney put the F-35 acquisition under review in March 2025 amid rising tensions with Washington; however, the country will receive the 16 F-35As already paid for while it decides on the future of the remaining 72.

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Meanwhile, in a recent media interaction, the head of the Defense Investment Agency said the Canadian public would not welcome sole-source military contracts awarded to US companies under the current conditions.

“That’s just me reading the room,” Stephen Fuhr, secretary of state for defense procurement, said in an interview. “I think that would be a very difficult thing to do, especially after this last week. I think that people would not be happy about that.”

Although Fuhr still views the US as a vital defense ally, he emphasized that Canada has realized the dangers of “putting all our eggs in one basket” and said Ottawa must build new strategic partnerships or become more independent in military manufacturing.

Fuhr did not name any specific military project that could be affected by the ongoing trade tensions.

Many in Canada oppose the F-35 deal with Lockheed Martin.

For instance, British Columbia Premier David Eby said: “When your friend kicks you in the back, one of the first rules is you don’t then go and buy $12 billion of fighter jets from that person,” he said on August 25. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

NDP interim Leader Don Davies said in February 2026: “At a time when the Trump administration is threatening our sovereignty, attacking Canadian workers, increasing tariffs on our industries and interfering in our domestic and foreign policies, going through with any F-35 orders is simply unacceptable.”

“Under the Joint Strike Fighter program, the U.S. Government will maintain full control of maintenance and software updates, and America will always have the option to effectively ground our fighter jets by denying critical parts or software updates.” “The bottom line is that purchasing F-35s from the United States will deepen our military integration with a superpower, not reduce it.”

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NDP Defense Critic Lori Idlout said: “Canada cannot buy a single F-35.” “This is why Canada cannot move forward with the procurement of F-35s. Not 88, not 16, not one.” “If Mark Carney caves to American pressure and continues with the acquisition of any F-35s, he is giving President Trump the ability to ground our fighter jets by denying software updates or repairs.”

Freelance journalist Riley Donovan said: “Why would Canada buy planes from the country that is waging a trade war against us and which is arguably our greatest long-term military threat? Sweden promises to set up production here and give us 12,000+ jobs if we buy Gripen jets. Cancel the F-35s. Go with the Gripen.”

• By ET Online Desk
• Mail us at: editor (at) eurasiantimes.com

The post After F-35, Canada Pauses Purchase of 16 Black Hawk Helicopters Amid Trade Tensions with U.S.: Media appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.