The US effort in Afghanistan to reconstruct the country and train its military has been undercut by the motivation to lie to supervisors and limited by the amount of time American personnel have to directly work with Afghan forces, a top watchdog told lawmakers Jan. 15. “We have created an incentive to almost require people to lie,” Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "There’s an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue.”

Federal investigators searched the office of military housing landlord Balfour Beatty Communities at Tinker AFB, Okla., on Jan. 14, as part of an inquiry into alleged Clean Air Act violations. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division carried out the search warrant, according to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Reuters reported Jan. 14 that law enforcement seized computers and other materials in an asbestos contamination probe.

The US government needs to take a closer look at what could deter a war with China as the Pentagon shifts its focus to security in the Indo-Pacific region and competition between world powers, defense experts told House lawmakers Jan. 15. Modern deterrence theory is largely modeled on ideas honed in the Cold War, and are based on the threat a nuclear stockpile poses. But with China growing dependent on cyber and space capabilities like the US, and with a different set of motivations than Russia in play, some say America can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to discouraging aggression.

NATO allies need to join the US in developing artificial intelligence capabilities to gain an upper hand over China and Russia, which are working together on AI in ways that threaten shared Western values, the military’s top AI expert said Jan. 15. Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, the director of the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said that while the US is moving forward on AI as a military initiative, some NATO allies are progressing slower because ethical debates have “immobilized” some countries.

Air Force basic military trainers are experimenting with a new, high-tech way to teach students: tablets filled with everything they need to learn, and that tell trainees when to study a particular topic. In December, the 321st Training Squadron at JB San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, provided tablets to about 100 trainees in two groups. The Microsoft Surface tablets are provided for free by Cerego, a company that offers adaptive learning software, under a cooperative research and development agreement to see if the tablets are helpful. If so, the service could move forward with a full program to give the equipment to all basic trainees.