Alaska Gears Up for Another Red Flag: The soon-to-be-renamed Cooperative Cope Thunder begins next week and, like the US-only Cope Thunder, will be dubbed a Red Flag-Alaska exercise. The upcoming “cooperative” version features allied participants from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mongolia, Slovak Republic, South Korea, and Sweden. International observers include Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, and Sri Lanka. Officials describe the exercise, which is flown out of Eielson and Elmendorf Air Force Bases in Alaska, as the largest multi-lateral air combat exercise in the Pacific.
The Space Force’s work to establish a pool of at-the-ready commercial satellite capacity during a crisis is moving out of the pilot phase as the service prepares to award its next batch of contracts in 2026.
