The U.S. military is undertaking an expansive revision of its approach to war fighting, having largely abandoned the counterinsurgency playbook that was a hallmark of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan to focus instead on preparing for an even larger conflict with more sophisticated adversaries such as Russia or China. What’s transpired in Ukraine, where this week the war enters its third year with hundreds of thousands dead or wounded on both sides and still no end in sight, has made clear to the Pentagon that battlefield calculations have fundamentally changed in the years since it last deployed forces in large numbers.
Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions have failed in their most important task—stopping the Kremlin’s war machine. Western officials and experts say the financial, economic, military and energy sanctions imposed on Russia since February 2022 have damaged Russia’s economy and arms-production capacity, and will create serious problems for the Kremlin in the coming years. But they acknowledge the restrictions have hit more slowly than they hoped.
The Space Force hopes to offer new Guardians the option of serving the regular eight-year enlistment—with four years typically spent on active duty and four in the Individual Ready Reserve component—entirely on active duty, in an effort to retain highly skilled new recruits. “The Space Force is carefully considering the impact of voluntary extended enlistment contracts and has proposed a third-party study on the impact of this concept,” Maj. Tanya Downsworth, a spokesperson for the Air Force, said in an email to Military.com. “Extended enlistment contracts are pre-decisional, and would not be mandatory for new enlistees.”
Experts in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are producing a sweeping new AI-governing policy that’s deliberately bespoke for all members of the intelligence community. “The intent is always to make sure that what we do is transparent,” Michaela Mesquite, the acting chief for ODNI’s nascent Augmenting Intelligence using Machines (AIM) group, told DefenseScoop.
As Russian arms makers are fulfilling government orders at a record rate, they are bracing for a shortage in skilled labor and high-tech manufacturing components that belie the image of a defense-industrial juggernaut, according to analysts. The projection comes amid a demographic crisis of an aging population, factors that run counter to the government’s trumpeting of expanded weapons production and construction of new plants while the war against Ukraine enters its third year.
The UK will spend an additional £4.5 billion ($5.7 billion) over the next decade on new military drones, pledging to “rapidly” equip its armed forces with advanced air, land and sea based uncrewed systems in the process. The plans sit at the heart of a new military drone strategy, announced Feb. 22, that draws directly from analysis of the war in Ukraine and promises to turn Britain into a “world leader” in drone manufacturing.
A cyberattack Feb. 21 on one of America’s largest health care technology companies has left U.S. military pharmacies worldwide unable to fill prescriptions, the Defense Health Agency said Feb. 22. “A reported cyberattack on the nation’s largest commercial prescription processor, Change Healthcare, has affected military clinics and hospitals worldwide,” DHA said in a statement.
Hughes Network Systems announced Feb. 21 it will supply modems and other ground-based technology to SES Space & Defense for a military experiment aimed at establishing a multi-vendor mobile communications network. SES is planning a demonstration under the U.S. Air Force’s DEUCSI (Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet) program,
Faced with an ongoing shortage in pilot training output coupled with persistent training aircraft fleet health issues, the U.S. Air Force’s training command is doing market research to see how industry could help build much-needed capacity. Over the past few months, the service, largely through its newly renamed Airman Development Command (ADC), has released a series of requests for information to see how companies could provide training to U.S. and international student pilots.
The U.S., U.K., and Germany have endorsed the candidacy of the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, to become the next secretary general of NATO, at a time when the alliance faces major challenges amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and renewed questions about the future of the U.S. commitment to the transatlantic relationship.
All’s not fair in love and war. Sometimes, there is he who lies in wait, plotting to steal significant others when service members are off fighting. His name, of course, is Jody, and he exists everywhere. In China, there are, in fact, consequences for such inhumanities. One Chinese man was recently sentenced to 10 months in prison for ruining the marriage of a People’s Liberation Army soldier after he dated—and moved in with—the soldier’s wife.
