The Partners Meet in Virginia: The Wall Street Journal reports that the US defense officials and those of the eight other countries with a share in the Joint Strike Fighter program are meeting this week in Williamsburg, Va. The agenda includes the critical issue of just how many of the new fighters each country wants to buy. One hot topic, of course, may be the effort by US lawmakers to force the Pentagon to stick with its original plan to have two competing engines for the F-35.
The Pentagon’s cost estimate for the Iran War has risen to $37.5 billion, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional committee July 21—and without emergency supplemental funding, the military will have to “curtail” training to cover those costs, he added.