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Trump: ‘Iran made a big mistake’
The United States is likely to take military action against Iran in the coming days for Tehran’s downing a U.S. drone in international airspace on Wednesday near the Strait of Hormuz.
The Central Command said an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone aircraft was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace around 7:35 p.m. on Wednesday. Continue reading
The US Navy’s Pacific Fleet has drawn up a classified proposal to carry out a global show of force as a warning to China and to demonstrate the US is prepared to deter and counter their military actions, according to several anonymous US defense officials cited by CNN.
The presumed draft proposal from the Navy recommends the US Pacific Fleet to conduct a series of operations during a single week in November. Continue reading
President Donald Trump’s promises to rebuild the American nuclear arsenal are starting to bear fruit, and according to a US Air Force general update from May 1, the US has already conducted more than two dozen tests of its new B61-12 guided nuclear gravity bomb.
As Military.com reports, plans to spend over $1 trillion to modernize the US “nuclear triad” – nuclear bombers and missiles launched from land-based silos and submarines – have been fast-tracked thanks to the new Nuclear Posture Review, as well as increased military spending authorized during the Trump administration. Continue reading
The U.S. Air Force has rolled out plans to phase out the B-1B and B-2 bomber fleets as it makes way for the new B-21 Raider, which is currently under development by Northrop Grumman.
Air Force officials on Monday made public their bomber fleet plans during a Pentagon press briefing for the service’s 2019 fiscal year budget request. Continue reading
A 2014 photo of a B-52H Stratofortress based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La. (U.S. AIR FORCE / SENIOR AIRMAN CHRISTINE GRIFFITHS)
If the order comes, the B-52s will return to a ready-to-fly posture not seen since the Cold War.
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. — The U.S. Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour ready alert, a status not seen since the Cold War ended in 1991.
That means the long-dormant concrete pads at the ends of this base’s 11,000-foot runway — dubbed the “Christmas tree” for their angular markings — could once again find several B-52s parked on them, laden with nuclear weapons and set to take off at a moment’s notice.
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A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer prepares to take off for a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, into Japanese airspace and over the Korean Peninsula, July 30, 2017. (Tech. Sgt. Richard P. Ebensberger/Air Force)
WASHINGTON – Less than half of the bombers President Donald Trump would rely upon to be “locked and loaded” against North Korea could launch today if needed, according to the latest Air Force figures available.
That’s not a surprise to the bomb squadrons who have seen firsthand the combined effects of aircraft age, the demand of 15 years of air war operations and reduced budgets. But the numbers can be stark. Of the nation’s 75 conventional and nuclear B-52s, only about 33 are ready to fly at any given time, according to Air Force statistics. Of the 62 conventional B-1s, only about 25 are ready. With the 20 nuclear B-2 stealth bombers, the number drops further. Seven or eight bombers are available, according to the Air Force.
“On a nominal basis you don’t have more than single digits of B-2s available to do anything,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, currently the dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace.
“If anything good comes out of the North Korea crisis,” it should be a wake-up call, he said.
“It’s not just the nation’s bomber force,” that is so stretched, Deptula said. “It’s the military writ large. The U.S. Air Force is the smallest and least ready it’s ever been in history – that should get people’s attention.”
In an unexpectedly brazen rattling of sabers, just days after China deployed troops to its first foreign base in Djibouti, a move which the Global Times clarified is “about protecting its own security, not about seeking to control the world, Beijing made a less than subtle reversal, when it told Japan on Friday to “get used to it” after it flew six warplanes over the Miyako Strait between two southern Japanese islands in a military exercise.
It all started late on Thursday night, when Japan’s defense ministry issued a token statement describing the flyover by the formation of Xian H-6 bombers, also known as China’s B-52, earlier that day as “unusual”, while noting that there had been no violation of Japanese airspace. Continue reading
A day after a Russian fighter allegedly flew within 5 feet of a US reconnaissance plane traveling over the Baltic Sea, Reuters reports that a NATO F-16 fighter jet returned the favor when it tried to improperly approach a plane carrying the Russian defense minister. The plane was traveling to the city of Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave along the Baltic coast, where Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu was scheduled to discuss security issues with defense officials on Wednesday. The NATO aircraft was warded off by a Russian Su-27 jet, according to RT.
In an accounting of the incident, Reuters notes that one of the Russian fighter jets escorting Shoigu’s plane had inserted itself between the defense minister’s plane and the NATO fighter and “tilted its wings from side to side to show the weapons it was carrying, Russian agencies said.” After that the F-16 promptly left the area. Continue reading
Regardless of whether or not South Korea attains nuclear weapons, it will be eventually integrated into a new Asian bloc against the United States. That’s the direction Asia is moving as allies become increasingly skeptical of the U.S. as a reliable partner.
Should South Korea seek to go nuclear, the country could face such negative consequences as reduced international standing in the campaign to denuclearize North Korea, the possible imposition of economic sanctions and potentially encouraging Japan to develop nuclear weapons capability, the CRS report said.
“For the United States, encouraging South Korea to develop nuclear weapons could mean diminished U.S. influence in Asia, the unraveling of the U.S. alliance system and the possibility of creating a destabilizing nuclear arms race in Asia,” the report said. Continue reading
An island that China is building on the Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea. The Chinese regime is accusing the United States of “hegemony” for challenging its land-grab in the South China Sea. (Cliff Owen/AP)
The U.S. Navy sent a destroyer on a “freedom of navigation” mission through the Paracel island chain in the South China Sea, and the Chinese regime claims it will toughen its response to similar missions in the future.
On Jan. 30, the USS Curtis Wilbur passed within 12 nautical miles of the less than one-square mile Triton Island, which is claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
What’s ironic is that the Chinese regime is calling the incident an act to establish U.S. hegemony, when in fact it was to counter Chinese hegemony already being claimed over the entire region.
China’s response plays perfectly into the ancient Chinese saying: “It’s the thief who yells ‘stop thief.’” Continue reading
A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flies over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Sunday, Jan. 10. (AP Photo)
SEOUL–The United States deployed a B-52 bomber on a low-level flight over its ally South Korea on Jan. 10, in a show of force following North Korea’s nuclear test last week.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un maintained that the test on Jan. 6 was of a hydrogen bomb and said it was a self-defense step against a U.S. threat of nuclear war.
North Korea’s fourth nuclear test angered both China, its main ally, and the United States, although the U.S. government and weapons experts doubt the North’s claim that the device was a hydrogen bomb.
Fighter jet training is planned for Wednesday and Thursday. (Photo: U.S. Air Force photo)
BISMARCK, N.D. — Military airplanes are taking to the skies this week for the first large-scale exercise in a training area over the Northern Plains.
The exercise in the 35,000-square-mile Powder River Training Complex is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. Bombers, fighter jets and refueling tankers will be practicing maneuvers in the airspace over the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming. Continue reading
Almost every aspect of America’s newest bomber is top secret, but experts predict the warplane will be very “stealthy,” packed with sensors — and able to deliver nuclear payloads anywhere.
The Pentagon this week announced Northrop Grumman as the winner of the much-anticipated contest to build the Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRSB, in a decades-long program that will likely end up costing in excess of $100 billion.
The Air Force wants 100 of the warplanes, which will replace America’s increasingly antique B-52s — originally designed in the 1950s — and its B-1 bombers that first saw action in the 1980s. Continue reading
The Minuteman III came into service in 1970. The last nuclear weapon deployed was roughly in the early 90’s and most of America’s deterrent on land still runs on floppy-disc technology. Meanwhile, Russia and China are significantly modernizing their nuclear forces while increasing them in number.
Minuteman III warhead hits 4,200 miles away in Pacific
The U.S. military carried out a flight test of a nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday, the Air Force Strike Command said in a statement.
The missile was launched from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and its inert warhead flew 4,200 miles to an impact zone near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean’s Marshall Islands. Continue reading
Washington: The US Air Force is getting ready to announce the winner of a multibillion-dollar contract to build a new generation of long-distance bombers that will replace aging, Cold War machines.
Dubbed the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) program, the Air Force will in the coming weeks award the mega-contract to either Northrop Grumman or a team made up of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
The program envisions the creation of between 80 and 100 strategic bombers to replace America’s fleet of B-52s and B-1s. Almost everything about it is classified, save for the cost of each plane, which was set at $550 million per unit in 2010 dollars. Continue reading
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