With all the A-6 Intruders sitting in mothballs, if the Navy really cared about long-range strike against near-peer states, they would refurbish the Intruders and load each one with 4 JASSMs.

You expect absolute facts and first-hand sources on current (and sensitive) U.S.-Russian diplomacy and spycraft issues on a free/public blog?

I was thinking ‘Moonraker’ the whole time while reading this article. But who would play the mega-rich villain Drax, bent on repopulating a new Earth? Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson don’t seem maniacal enough for the role.

Notre Dame thought the Vice President of the United States (and former governor of Indiana) would make a decent commencement speaker, go figure. If that’s a slap in the face to any graduating students, it’s [their right to walk out, but it’s also] their own problem.

If the F-35 Lightning II program remains on its 20+ year path towards tri-service, multinational epic boondoggle (think F-111 but on a scale 10x larger and 10x worse), Super Hornets will be the only proven fighter in USN carrier air wings. The USAF appears committed to making stupid decisions to retire A-10s and now…

It’s good that (apparently) EMALS is finally working, but at $13 billion per pop, one can’t help but think the Death Star approach [that] America is taking is risking an equally spectacular fate.

“War is not an option, even if that war is one North Korea would inevitably lose.”

And that’s why male tennis stars paid bigger prizes than the women... because guys have pockets. (j/k)

America (and the USAF) needs the B-21/LSR-B far more than it does the F-35. Although expensive, B-21's will be able to carry whatever payload across the Pacific to the doorstep of China or North Korea. On the other hand, does anyone really believe the trillion-dollar [program], short-range, single-engine F-35 will be…

If the Navy can make the pilot house large enough for a cot, perhaps they can make some money on the side selling cargo cruises (or in this case, ride-along-as-we-chase-a-foreign-sub cruises).

Umm, isn’t it a bit reckless/risky to park all 12 Raptors on the open tarmac? If you figure each F-22 is worth $200 million, then you’re talking about a quarter of a billion dollars sitting in broad daylight like ducks in a row. The only valid reason I can think of, it was done purposely to make sure Chinese…

Beautiful ship, and quite the ambassador for America whenever an alternative form of diplomacy was required. Alas, we’ll never see the likes of her sail again.

It’s like a larger-than-life, Middle East version of a snow globe. Except that this one runs burning hot instead of freezing cold.

I spy...

I told you not to forget the padlock keys! Where are they? Enemy tanks coming!

The next time the Caesar Kunikov passes through, it would be fun to see residents on both shores welcoming the ship as it passes under a few dozen mini-cam drones swarming overhead.

How do you like your eggs cooked?

Thank you, Lord, that the United States has aging, but still effective, F-15 air superiority fighters.

On one of Tyler’s other articles on the Su-34, there were comments and debate about whether the long tail boom contained an APU.