Built For Combat: The Military Aircraft Defining Today’s Most Intense Conflicts

What military aircraft are defining today’s most intense conflicts? 2026 has its fair share of ongoing conflicts, with multiple overlapping conflicts in the Middle East, the ongoing large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mali, Myanmar (Burma), Sudan, the US Operation Southern Spear to arrest Venezuela’s Maduro, tensions over Taiwan, and more. While Chinese J-20, J-15, J-10, and J-16 jets are important and numerous, they are not yet “defining today’s most intense” kinetic conflicts.