The Bunker: Not So Fast, Admirals

JUDGMENT CALL

What a concept!

A somnolent Congress apparently woke up last week and declared the nuclear-powered Trump-class battleship unfit for duty. At least for now.

The House Armed Services Committee was reacting to a too-pliable Navy brass that has been bowing-and-sterning to President Trump’s vessellust. On May 26, the panel ordered that the service not sign a contract for the first battleship’s construction until the Navy can certify that its key weapons are “sufficiently mature” (PDF). The language is included in an early draft of the panel’s 2027 defense-authorization legislation. The Navy plans to spend $17 billion on the first battleship, slated to join the fleet in 2036.

Skeptics will rightly point out that having the Navy say the battleship’s weapons are ready for prime time doesn’t inspire confidence. That’s because the service has been all-in on the hype surrounding what The Bunker has affectionately taken to calling the Nutso Armed Vanity Yacht (NAVY). And the House requirement doesn’t spell out what weapons have to be how ready before a shipbuilding contract can be inked. Absent such rigor, such language tends to mortis.

But Trump has boasted that his new battleships will be armed with hypersonic weapons, electric railguns, and high-powered lasers. The Bunker, based on decades of watching the Navy build ships, humbly says: baloney. (Still MIA, as we reported a month ago: the Navy’s official Golden Fleet webpage, of which the battleship is the supposed flagship.)

The House action is called “congressional oversight,” a key part of the separation of powers that is the fundamental foundation of U.S. democracy. It’s only worth noting because it has become so rare. Heck, at least half the weapons the Pentagon buys wouldn’t be bought if they had to perform as advertised, starting with the F-35 fighter, the costliest weapon program in world history. And don’t miss the irony of Congress scrutinizing shipbuilding plans while looking the other way — for three months now — as Trump carries out his unilaterally launched war against Iran without the constitutionally required declaration of war by that very same body.

Trump-class battleships, like the Navy’s aircraft carriers, are being eclipsed by history. They will become little more than magnets for enemy missiles and drones in the next war. The defenses they and their bodyguard ships will have to carry to protect them from such fleets of aerial mayhem will commensurately reduce their offensive punch.

“Quantity has a quality all its own,” Admiral Samuel Paparo, chief of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has acknowledged. But the move to build battleships is a move in the opposite direction, concentrating ever more firepower on a shrinking number of platforms. It’s mere military muscle memory, reflexively reflecting the industrial way of waging war the U.S. has embraced since World War II.

Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams broke the news May 28 that the Navy used drones last fall to sink one of its decommissioned warships. “The experience is now shaping how the Navy will go into future battles,” she added. If that’s true, the Navy will shelve its boneheaded battleship blueprints before time, technology, and the U.S. Treasury do it first.

CLOSE AIR REPORT

The A-10 continues to shine

Bullets are flying anew on Capitol Hill. Once again, skeptical lawmakers are strafing Air Force brass over the vital role being played by the A-10 Warthog attack plane — this time over Iran. Lawmakers are concerned by the service’s plans to retire the venerable plane, whose prime mission is to come to the aid of allied troops in trouble on the battlefield. The Air Force insists newer, faster aircraft like the F-35 can do the job just as well (the Project On Government Oversight respectfully nonconcurs).

A-10 backers on the Hill and inside the Pentagon have been heartened by its Iranian exploits, including helping in the rescue of downed U.S. aviators, and hunting small Iranian boats sowing mines and other kinds of trouble in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Compared to the F-35, the A-10 is cheaper to fly, is heavily armored to avoid ground fire, can loiter longer and fly slower over the battlefield, and carries more ammo. “We have to have the ability to have [an A-10] sitting around with a GAU-8/A [Gatling gun] with 1,200 rounds, versus a GAU-22 Alpha [cannon] on F-35 with 200 rounds,” retired Navy SEAL Representative Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) told General Kenneth Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff, and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink at a May 20 hearing.

Wilsbach pledged that the A-10’s retirement, recently delayed until at least 2030, won’t leave beleaguered U.S. troops on the ground unprotected. “It’s unacceptable to have a gap,” said Wilsbach, whose Air Force career has been spent mostly in fighter cockpits.

Of course, grunts on the ground aren’t the only U.S. troops who could be endangered once the A-10 flies into history. Major Troy “Trojan” Gilbert came to the aid of U.S. troops being attacked by militants in Iraq in 2006. Desperate to save their lives, he made two strafing runs against enemy fighters before he flew his F-16 into the ground. He saved the lives of U.S. troops by sacrificing his own. The Bunker covered his heroic mission and heartbreaking homecoming. Had Gilbert been aboard an A-10 that day — tailored for this very mission — he surely would have survived to fly and fight another day.

PIECEMEAL KEEPING

Peacekeeper ranks shrink to 25-year low

The number of military personnel around the globe serving as peacekeepers has fallen to its lowest level in at least a quarter-century, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported May 25. The 78,633 personnel doing such work in 2025 was 17% fewer than in 2024, and 49% lower than in 2016, the Sweden-based research organization said.

“The USA under President Donald J. Trump is no longer willing to sustain the multilateral system,” SIPRI’s analysis said (PDF). “In 2025 the USA took significant action to withdraw from, defund or challenge the efficacy of various UN bodies” (check out the list).

The future could be grim. “If things continue in this way, we could see a dramatic weakening of multilateral conflict management and the near-complete sidelining of institutions like the United Nations, due to a perfect storm of funding, political and geopolitical factors,” SIPRI’s Jaïr van der Lijn said. “The result is likely to be more conflicts, and these conflicts are likely to have even graver impacts on civilians as states abandon long-established norms.”

The Bunker knows that peacekeeping forces, from the UN as well as other regional bodies, can be just as ineffective as military forces. Then again, peacekeepers don’t kill as many people, or cost as much money to deploy. They have their boosters and detractors, just like fighting troops. But the UN’s “blue helmets” never attract the kind of attention showered on their kinetic kin. They’re often deployed to strife-torn regions where progress is tough to measure. They’re more shield than sword, rendering them ho-hum in today’s media-saturated world. But their quiet, steadfast work is important.

Speaking of peace, last week the Financial Times reported that Trump’s self-created Board of Peace — which he heads for as long as he wants — hasn’t received a penny of the $17 billion pledged by the U.S. and other nations to promote peace. And just west of the White House, Trump has changed the name of the “U.S. Institute of Peace” to the “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace” after chopping the institute into pieces.

In related news, a federal judge last week ordered Trump to change the name of the recently renamed “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” back to the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

So there’s always hope for peace in our time. Eventually.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently

→ Why the U.S. can’t win its wars

Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder wrote May 26 in Politico that Washington’s military overreach and a lack of national will keep the U.S. from victory.

→ “No Presspassing”

The Defense Department, which under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dramatically restricted reporters’ access to the Pentagon, has turned the U.S. military’s main press office into a classified space to which reporters will be admitted by appointment only, the Washington Post’s Scott Nover reported June 1.

→ Hunting for a cheap drone killer

The Marines are testing new guns shooting bullets, instead of $1 million missiles, to destroy enemy drones, the Wall Street Journal’s Mike Cherney reported May 30.

Speaking of bargains, thanks for reading The Bunker this week. Consider lobbing this on to colleagues so they can subscribe here.