GROWLER LAUNCH: An EA/18G Growler electronic attack aircraft prepares to launch from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Here’s a post from 2014 discussing how the Navy uses the Growler. This photo from 2017 shows a Growler “fully loaded.”

AN ALTERNATIVE 2030 SCENARIO: US Navy Robots, Carriers and Mines Counterattack China. Read the entire essay.

BONE WITH A DANISH ESCORT: A B-1B Lancer flies with a Danish F-16 during a training mission for Bomber Task Force Europe. Photo taken May 11, 2020. Yes, an American heavy bomber over Europe– if you found this title suggestive, shame on you. The B-1B can handle anti-shipping missions as well as land attack.

BLUE ANGEL HOOKUP: Well, one of the USN’s Blue Angels refueling aloft, courtesy of a USAF tanker. Photo taken May 6.

USS FLORIDA COMES HOME: The guided missile submarine was forward deployed for over 800 days.

GLOBEMASTER LINEUP: More photo love for the C-17. The photo was taken April 29 at Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania. This article discusses how the Army uses the C-17 in a “land, shoot, flyaway” mission.

POWERLINE: Tom Cotton has questions for Joe Biden. When will Slow Joe testify under oath in the Senate about what did he know and when did he know it? Pull quote from a Cotton tweet: “Biden is dishonest, senile, or both.”

COMMUNIST CHINA STEALING AMERICAN CREATIVITY – MEDICAL RESEARCH EDITION:

In mid-April, a senior FBI official warned that cyber spies were attacking U.S. and allied medical research institutions developing coronavirus vaccines. The U.S. Department of Justice later pegged China as the chief witch doctor of medical espionage and suggested a crash American COVID-19/Wuhan virus vaccine project nicknamed Operation Warp Speed is Beijing’s major target.

More information broke on this yesterday. However, the facts were already appearing a month ago. A vaccine is a powerful tool, in so many ways.

…the nation that develops and deploys the first safe and clinically effective vaccine will be able to do many things. Protecting your nation’s population is more than a material medical advantage. A vaccinated population has an economic advantage over adversaries.

Developing an effective vaccine enhances diplomatic power. Obviously, the discoverer’s allies are in line to benefit. But don’t underestimate prestige power of an effective vaccine’s quick discovery and rapid employment. Effectiveness is primary. However, speed demonstrates a society’s ability to rapidly face new, threatening conditions and produce a response that benefits the world.

A Nobel Prize isn’t the only measure of a nation’s creative scientific vitality, but it is a measure even television gab shows understand. Hence this column’s side bet: An effective COVID-19/Wuhan virus vaccine developed by fall 2020 will warrant a Nobel Prize in Medicine.

So Communist China wants to steal the fruits of our scientific genius.

USAF THUNDERBIRDS: Just saw the Air Force Thunderbirds overfly Austin, Texas. Great show. Folks up and down the street either clapped or hurrahed. A photo from the StrategyPage vault of the Thunderbirds practicing over Nevada. Here’s one I like, the Thunderbirds over Loch Ness.

COMMUNIST CHINA CONTINUES TO TARGET AMERICAN CREATIVITY:

In mid-April, a senior FBI official warned that cyber spies were attacking U.S. and allied medical research institutions developing coronavirus vaccines. The U.S. Department of Justice later pegged China as the chief witch doctor of medical espionage and suggested a crash American COVID-19/Wuhan virus vaccine project nicknamed Operation Warp Speed is Beijing’s major target.

More:

…the nation that develops and deploys the first safe and clinically effective vaccine will be able to do many things. Protecting your nation’s population is more than a material medical advantage. A vaccinated population has an economic advantage over adversaries.

Developing an effective vaccine enhances diplomatic power. Obviously, the discoverer’s allies are in line to benefit. But don’t underestimate prestige power of an effective vaccine’s quick discovery and rapid employment.

Beijing craves prestige, but its system discourages creativity. This column ties the theft of American medical research to Communist China’s “unrestricted” war on America. Suggest you read it.

MASKED PARATROOPER: This photo has to have a special place in The Museum of the Covid-19/Wuhan Virus Pandemic Era. So I’ll quote the entire DOD caption: “A paratrooper with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, prepares for an Airborne Operation at Fort Bragg, N.C., on May 7. The airborne operation marks the 82nd Airborne Division’s return to limited training operations while following health and safety guidelines to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Paratroopers were required to wear masks while in close proximity to each other and Jumpmasters wore masks while conducting inspections in the passenger terminal.”

SO LET’S DO IT: If it acts, the Free World has the opportunity to condemn another communist dictatorship to Karl Marx’s dustbin of history and avoid a war with a totalitarian superpower circa 2035.

The Chinese Communist Party knows the COVID-19/Wuhan virus pandemic has exposed its imperial war to conquer the world, so it is frantically engaged in psychological and political damage control.

When former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes says calling the disease “Wuhan virus” is racist, he is blatantly aiding Beijing’s propaganda campaign. Communists of old used to refer to people like Rhodes as “useful idiots.” Is that term still current in Beijing?

SEAL SURF IMMERSION: Navy SEAL candidates participate in surf immersion during Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training at Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Center in Coronado, Calif. Photo taken May 4.

THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY’S LOOMING STRATEGIC DEFEAT: Read the whole thing.

READY IN HONOLULU: Well, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.The USAF photo shows four F-22 Raptors, a KC-135 Stratotanker and a C-17 Globemaster III transport out on the runway. This Air Transportation post shows much love for the C-17. This Logistics post from 2019 discusses the long search for a KC-135 replacement. A Murphy’s Law post from 2012 discusses the troubling “pilot breathing problem” that plagued the F-22. It’s solved now.

WHAT GIVES WITH THE FLYNN CASE?: Powerline continues its excellent series of posts on the rigged case against LTG (ret) Michael Flynn. The link takes you to Part 6. Follow this link to Part 5.

VIRGINIA-CLASS ON THE SURFACE: The U.S. Navy attack submarine USS Delaware conducts sea trials in the Atlantic Ocean. Photo taken August 31, 2019. This How to Make War “Submarines” post from 2014 discusses the USN’s modification program for its Virginia-class nuclear attack subs.

Each new batch of the Virginia SSNs have new features. In April 2014 the U.S. Navy ordered ten Block IV Virginia class at a cost of $1.8 billion each. These are to be delivered at the rate of two a year through 2018. This is the largest submarine order (in terms of dollar value) in U.S. history. There are already eleven Virginia’s in service and seven more Block IIIs under construction or on order. This new order is long-term, which is rare, but it results in lower prices because components can be ordered in larger quantities and farther in advance.

The post provides an excellent summary of the process as well as the technical details.

COMMUNIST CHINESE FOUR PLAY: Deng’s Four Modernizations and Four Cardinal Principles and now Xi’s Four Confidences:

The CCP and the Chinese people must be “confident in our chosen path,” “confident in our political system” and “confident in our guiding theories,” and demonstrate “confidence in our culture.”

What does Xi mean by “our culture”? Ethnic Han Chinese culture, or, more accurately, Han Chinese culture as curated by Beijing’s 21st-century urban communist authoritarian elites.

Yes, it stinks of ethnocentrism, which could be a euphemism for racism. Here’s an example. Human rights activists and crusading reporters have a tough time getting into the Xinjiang province’s Turkic Uighur areas. Though officially designated the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the region has little autonomy.

In fact, Beijing is pursuing a “Sinicization policy,” a euphemism for settling ethnic Han in Xinjiang.

In July 2009, riots pitting ethnic Han against Uighurs erupted in Xinjiang, leaving some 200 dead and a thousand injured.

An estimated 300 million non-Han human beings live in mainland China. Since the CCP’s political interests cleanse troubling statistics, the figure could be higher.

The predominantly Muslim Uighurs reject Xi’s Four Confidences game. Han Chinese living in Hong Kong definitely reject Confidences one through three.

My latest Creators Syndicate column.

COMBINED FORCES: Another April 28 photo of the USAF Thunderbirds and USN Blue Angels flying in formation. Twelve fighters flying tight.

BLUE ANGELS AND THUNDERBIRDS SALUTE HEALTH CARE WORKERS AND FIRST RESPONDERS: The U.S. military’s elite flight demonstration squadrons overfly the New York City area, from Long Island to northern New Jersey. Photo taken April 28, 2020

PANDEMIC REVEALS WEAKNESSES IN IMPERIAL BEIJING’S COMMUNIST FOUR PLAY: Yes, four, as in the number. Read the entire essay.

ROCKETS AWAY: A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter fires a rocket volley during training at Grafenwoehr, Germany. Photo taken March 5, 2020.

RUSSIA IS LOSING ITS SPACE LAUNCH EDGE: As well it should.

Russia is trying to adapt to its reduced presence in space. While Russia still spends about $1.6 billion a year on its space program, even that is a financial strain. Most (62 percent) of that goes towards building and maintaining its military satellites, which comprise the majority of their 160 satellites in orbit. Most of the rest went to maintaining 27 GLONASS satellites, the Russian version of GPS. Another $100 million is for maintaining the military satellite launch center at Plesetsk with the remainder going to other ground-based space facilities.

One aspect of the decline became obvious back in early 2018 when Russia confirmed the obvious and admitted they had lost their huge market share of commercial satellite launches. As recently as 2013 Russia had half that market. Five years later their market share had fallen to about ten percent and Russian showed no signs of regaining their dominance and now expects their share of the commercial market to sink to as low as four percent.

Jim Dunnigan wrote this post. It’s packed with technical observations, but provides excellent background for understanding the current space race. He compares SpaceX’s reusable launchers to fracking, an “unexpected new American technology that drove down the world price of Russians’ main export; oil and natural gas.” He also points out America’s real space competitor is China.

A MARK VI IN THE ARABIAN GULF LAUNCHES A PUMA: A U.S. Navy Mark VI patrol boat operating in the Arabian Gulf launches an RQ-20B PUMA Unmanned Aerial System. The photo illustrates how a small naval combatant can use its own drone “air force” for local surveillance. President Trump has told the Navy to sink Iranian vessels if they harass or threaten American ships. Mark VI patrol boats are fast and agile and are used to monitor Iranian “speedboat swarms.” Here’s a Surface Forces update from 2019 which discusses the Mark VI and the U.S. Navy’s “rediscovery” of coastal patrol boats. The update also discusses the Navy’s Cyclone class patrol ships, like the USS Thunderbolt, which engaged an Iranian vessel in 2017.

STRATEGYTALK: China spreading the virus and spreading lies about the virus. Recorded April 10 but gets into the details of Beijing’s narrative warfare campaign. This column from late March sketches some of the key points made in the podcast.

RELATED: The Military and COVID-19. The podcast really discusses some of the Wuhan virus’ effects on military operations around the world.