Daily Report

Kadena AB, Japan, escaped Typhoon Bolaven’s wrath with just a few minor damages, including some power outages and minor flooding, base spokesman Maj. Chris Anderson told the Daily Report. “Kadena weathered the storm fairly well,” said Anderson. He added, “However,...

Airmen at Air Force bases along the Gulf Coast continued making preparations for Tropical Storm Isaac on Aug. 27 as the storm worked its way up the Gulf of Mexico towards New Orleans after having passed between southern Florida and...

The Air Force’s Miniature Air Launched Decoy is now available for real-world use, according to Air Combat Command. MSgt. James Law, an ACC spokesman, tells the Daily Report that ACC boss Gen. Mike Hostage made the call, declaring on July...

Arizona National Guard Adjutant General Army Maj. Gen. Hugo Salazar fired his second in command, Air National Guard chief Brig. Gen. Michael Colangelo, over the disputed results of an inspector general investigation, according to press reports. The IG ruled that...

NORAD launched the third annual Vigilant Eagle counter-hijacking exercise with Russia on Aug. 27, announced NORAD officials. During the three-day, computer-based command post exercise, NORAD and Russian officials will practice intercepting, tracking, and passing escort control of two simulated hijacked...

Air Mobility Command’s enlisted force nominated AMC Commander Gen. Raymond Johns to receive the highest honor it can bestow—the command’s Order of the Sword. “His entire career personifies strong mission focus and genuine compassion,” said CMSgt. Richard Kaiser, AMC’s command...

US, South Korean, and allied armed forces are in the midst of Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2012 on the Korean peninsula, a combined exercise meant to strengthen readiness to defend against North Korean aggression. The exercise is one of the two...

Operating under a budget continuing resolution for Fiscal 2012 come January when sequestration kicks in wouldn’t make the Pentagon’s life any easier, said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The budget cap for discretionary...

Rather than focus on the AirSea Battle construct as a point of interservice contention, policymakers would be well served to look at the concept in the context of the United States’ shifting strategic interests and how US military posture supports...

A number of senior US defense officials have predicted a "cybergeddon," in which a massive cyber attack on the nation disrupts electrical grids, upends financial systems, and destroys or steals highly sensitive information. While these threats are real, cyber assaults do not approach the destructive force of nuclear warheads, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, in a new study, issued on Aug. 24. Krepinevich finds that a major cyber attack is more likely than a nuclear strike. To indicate their increasing likelihood, he cites numerous breaches in security, attacks on banks and power systems, growing cyber capabilities of state and non-state entities, and the cloak of relative anonymity that cyberspace provides. While the nuclear arsenal and modern cyber quiver are different, there is some strategic overlap, said Krepinevich. For instance, he said, "the competition favors the offense," noting decades and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on missile defense systems of questionable utility, and similar difficulties entailed in deflecting cyber attacks. (CSBA release) (CSBA cyber study; caution, large-sized file.)

DARPA has selected Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Va., for its Phoenix program, which aims to develop technologies to harvest still-useful components from retired satellites in geostationary orbit and create new systems with them on orbit. This project offers the...