WORLD: Iran

June 18, 2026
Epic Fury’s Epic Cost: $29B  By Chris Gordon The cost of operations against Iran has risen to $29 billion, a senior Pentagon official told lawmakers May 12, a $4 billion increase from the Department of Defense’s last public estimate two...

WORLD: Space Force

June 18, 2026
Space Force Accelerates On-Orbit Refueling By Courtney Albon As the Space Force makes plans for two on-orbit refueling and maneuver demonstrations in 2027—and closely watches similar government and commercial endeavors—the service official overseeing the effort says he want to take...

WORLD: Budget

June 18, 2026
Inside the $1.5T Budget Request By Greg Hadley, Matthew Cox, Steve Losey The Trump administration’s record-breaking $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal 2027 would represent a $441 billion increase over the fiscal 2026 budget, a 44 percent jump that...
“Chappie” was born in Pensacola, Fla., in 1920, the youngest of 17 children. At the age of 17 during World War II he and a number of other Black men went off to college at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. There the young men also trained ...

WORLD: Air

June 18, 2026
USAF Tests New Air-to-Air Missile  By Stephen Losey The military’s secretive new air-to-air missile appears to have been publicly photographed for the first time during testing. A missile matching previously released information and renders of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical...
DOD Personnel by the numbers: Total Force; end strength and manpower trends; breakdowns by sex, rank, region, command, Air Force Specialty Codes, and more.

Letters

June 18, 2026
We love letters! Write to us at letters@afa.org. To be published, letters should be timely, relevant and concise. Include your name and location. Letters may be edited for space and the editors have final say on which are published. Foresight for...
China’s rise, Iranian terror, and Russian belligerence point to the enduring need for deterrent airpower. Scale matters. The U.S. Air Force may not need to match China plane for plane, but it cannot continue to shrink to a shadow of its former size. Airpower is ...