Military.com
The Defense Department recorded five additional deaths of service members from COVID-19 in the past week, the deadliest for the U.S. military of the pandemic. According to Pentagon data published Aug. 18, 34 service members have now died of coronavirus infections, up from 29 a week ago. During the same timeframe, the DOD recorded 4,156 new infections among U.S. troops, bringing the total for the pandemic to 222,138.
Task and Purpose
With the U.S. trying to airlift 9,000 people a day out of Afghanistan, the military is working overtime to ferry troops, refugees and supplies in and out of the crisis zone. But one platform that’s been getting much more attention than usual lately is the Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, the 30-year-old cargo jet that can do anything from drop paratroopers to carry a 69-ton M1 Abrams Battle Tank.
Defense One
President Donald Trump’s top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trump’s last acting Defense Secretary. Miller said the President’s public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a “play” that masked the Trump administration’s true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterrorism missions.
Defense News
If you’re in the business of selling drones, precision weapons, or stealth technology, Morocco’s Air Force could be your next customer. The African nation is bolstering military-to-military relations and connecting with defense companies to modernize its airpower capabilities. Moroccan officials have singled out the use of drones in combat as “a key dimension of its military modernization efforts,” according to Samuel Ramani, a defense expert at the University of Oxford.
Guidehouse
Guidehouse is approaching the Integrated Support Contract 2.0 from the perspective of a trusted consultant, a third party the government can rely on for expertise and an independent perspective.
The Atlantic
“When people ask me what I did in Afghanistan, I tell them that I hung out in planes and listened to the Taliban. My job was to provide ‘threat warning’ to allied forces, and so I spent most of my time trying to discern the Taliban’s plans. Before I started, I was cautioned that I would hear terrible things, and I most certainly did. But when you listen to people for hundreds of hours—even people who are trying to kill your friends—you hear ordinary things as well,” writes Ian Fritz, who served in the Air Force from 2008 to 2013.
Air Force Times
Military leaders in Canada and the United States plan to work together to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command, jointly investing in new sensing and command and control capabilities to protect the continent from new ballistic missile threats. “To meet our security and defense objectives, both countries must be secure within our shared North American continent. The stronger and safer we are at home, the more we are capable of engaging and acting together in the wider world, in support of a strong, rules-based international order,” said the Minister of National Defence of Canada Harjit Sajjan and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in a joint statement.
Breaking Defense
The new Space Systems Command’s first funded efforts to better integrate commercial companies into its vendor pool will be focused on space domain awareness and “cloud enabled space enterprises,” says Joy White, the SSC’s executive director. “The commercial space sector is driving the market, and Space Systems commanders are eager to facilitate these companies and bring their unique solutions into our programs of record,” she said.
Air Force Magazine
Cloud computing is helping the Air Force reinvent everything from combat systems to working from home. Find out the latest on Air Force IT modernization here.
The Drive
The U.S. State Department has confirmed that seven CH-46E Sea Knight helicopters, also colloquially known as "Phrogs," belonging to its Air Wing have been rendered inoperable and abandoned in Afghanistan as part of the ongoing evacuation effort. This non-combatant evacuation operation, or NEO, could very well be the last major mission ever for any Sea Knight belonging to the U.S. government, with the State Department already in the process of divesting its entire fleet.
One More Thing
Aviation Week
In competition with Russia and China, the U.S. is pushing its own hypersonic strike weapons research forward at a more rapid pace. Take a look at some of the significant milestones throughout the years.
