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.