Israel launched a long-anticipated ground offensive into Gaza City early Sept. 16, Israel’s military said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to end the war against Hamas with military force instead of diplomacy.
Ukraine expects there will be around $3.5 billion by next month in a fund to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its more than three-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sept. 17.
An uncrewed hydrogen-powered autonomous surveillance airship the size of a small bus has been floating over Portuguese waters, collecting imagery of ships and other objects. The goal of these test flights is to see if this airship can provide NATO with situational awareness of the maritime domain.
“If the United States goes to war tomorrow, its Air Force will fly and fight as the world’s best. But the service will operate in a world where the assumptions that shaped it for more than 30 years no longer hold. No longer can the Air Force rely on Bagram-style air bases as sanctuaries, thanks to anti-access and area-denial capabilities developed by China and others,” writes Lt. Gen. David A. Harris, deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures.
Israel has completed a series of key tests on its Iron Beam laser air defense system, a “final milestone” before full deployment later this year, the Ministry of Defense and contractor Rafael announced Sept. 17.
Space has become a war-fighting domain, an assessment that calls for doctrinal changes and the ability to intervene there more quickly, space-force leaders from several NATO countries said at the Space Defense and Security Summit on Sept. 16.
The Space Force’s Joint Commercial Operations cell is in the midst of a reorganization designed to enable routine integration of space domain awareness data and analysis from commercial operators into day-to-day military operations—not just at U.S. Space Command, but across all the Combatant Commands.
Decades-old defense contractors are leaning into the Pentagon’s new focus on startups, entwining themselves with emerging companies that have the technologies or even the contracts they seek.
The Space Force’s acquisition arm recently stood up another unit under its novel “system delta” structure, with the newest focused on development of the service’s complex test and training environment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sept. 16 the U.S. and Qatar are nearing a defense agreement following an Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in the Qatari capital Doha last week.
Air traffic controllers urgently and repeatedly ordered the pilots of Spirit Airlines flight 1300 to turn away from Air Force One Sept. 16 over Long Island, N.Y. The Spirit flight was traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Boston as Air Force One was carrying President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and many others to a state visit to the United Kingdom.
