Air Force clinched the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy outright with a 13-7 win in the 2022 Commander's Classic against Army in Arlington, Texas. The victory gives the Falcons a series-best 21 victories in the 51 years of the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy competition, but it's the program's first outright win since 2016.
Officials from the non-partisan Veterans Campaign are predicting that the number of veterans serving in Congress will increase following the results of the congressional midterm elections, based on the number of candidates running in winnable races. “This is the first significant increase in congressional military service in half a century,” said Seth Lynn, a University of San Francisco adjunct professor and founder of the Veterans Campaign, which studies the participation and impact of veterans in public office.
The United States is helping to pay for refurbished tanks for Ukraine in addition to more anti-aircraft systems and power backup supplies, Pentagon and White House officials said. The move comes as Russia continues to target Ukrainian infrastructure while also pulling back from key areas. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh announced a new aid package for Ukraine totalling $400 million in security assistance. One of the key features of this new package is 45 refurbished T-72B tanks with advanced optics, communications, and armor.
Drone maker Kratos says it has successfully shown in a recent test flight that its stealthy XQ-58A Valkyrie drone can fly longer, at higher altitudes, and with a heavier overall weight than has been demonstrated before. This news comes as the company says it is expecting to receive contract awards from two new customers for multiple Valkyries, and that it is also in talks with another client about a potential sale of these drones.
Bulgarian lawmakers have voted to approve the purchase of eight F-16C/D Block 70 fighter jets for the country’s Air Force. The forthcoming acquisition is to be worth close to $1.3 billion. The National Assembly, the country’s unicameral parliament, approved the planned purchase by a majority of 162 votes, with 49 members voting against, and 11 abstentions.
A senior NATO official has cast a withering judgment on Russia’s air power capabilities, claiming that Moscow has vastly inferior ISR-led strike capabilities compared to the alliance, and inadequate targeting processes to exploit intelligence data. Air Marshal Johnny Stringer of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, who serves as deputy commander of NATO’s Allied Air Command, offered the assessment during a Nov. 3 speech on the war in Ukraine, hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, a U.K. defense and security think tank.
National Guard officials overseeing cybersecurity for the midterm elections warn that the service component must invest more in units dedicated to detecting and combating threats that could cripple online infrastructure. “We're in the early days of cyber. We're in the biplane era, the early years. Funding, policy, all the infrastructure we need is missing,” Maj. Gen Richard Neely, adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, told reporters. “Some of our states do an extremely great job, but we’re all on a journey. Much like we need helicopters in every state, we need cyber capabilities in each state. And we need a robust structure to build around.”
It’s been more than three years since the Islamic State appeared to be defeated after the terror group lost all the territory it had once controlled, and yet ISIS continues to wage an insurgency in both Iraq and Syria, according to the most recent quarterly report from the Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve. “Overall, compared with the same period in 2021, the frequency and severity of ISIS-claimed attacks decreased dramatically in Iraq, while attacks in Syria increased significantly, marking a rebound from historically low levels the previous year,” the report says.
The Office of Space Commerce is working to build out an infrastructure able to handle the demands of tracking tens of thousands of active satellites and debris objects in orbit. Speaking at the CyberSatGov conference, OSC Director Richard DalBello said the standup of a civilian space traffic management office is moving along, but he cautioned that the process will move more slowly and incrementally than many expect.
On Sept. 18, 2022, the United States Air Force proudly celebrated its 75th birthday. Fast-forward to Oct. 14, 2022, and the 75th anniversary of another military aviation milestone took place: that of then-Capt. (eventually Brig. Gen.) Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket plane.