POLITICO
Kyiv’s forces are taking ground around a strategic city in the eastern Luhansk region, a senior U.S. military official said Jan. 23, ahead of what is expected to be a new Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake territory this spring. While the front lines in the fight remain largely static, as winter weather makes it difficult for tanks and armored vehicles to move quickly, the Pentagon is seeing Ukraine beginning to make progress. The strategic city, Kreminna, is seen as a gateway to Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, two key industrial centers in the Donbas region that Russia seized last summer.
The Associated Press
Nine military officers who had worked decades ago at a nuclear missile base in Montana have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are “indications” the disease may be linked to their service, according to military briefing slides obtained by The Associated Press. One of the officers has died. All of the officers, known as missileers, were assigned as many as 25 years ago to Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to a vast field of 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos. The nine officers were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a January briefing by U.S. Space Force Lt. Col. Daniel Sebeck.
SpaceNews
The Space Development Agency is renaming its planned network of military satellites “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture,” the agency announced Jan. 23. SDA, a former Defense Department agency that is now part of the U.S. Space Force, previously used the name “National Defense Space Architecture” to describe a low Earth orbit constellation of small satellites scheduled to start launching in March. The rebranding “does not reflect any change to the mission,” an SDA spokesperson told SpaceNews.
Military.com
A federal court has overturned an earlier decision that would have allowed veterans to receive up to an additional year of education benefits under the Montgomery and Post-9/11 GI bills, a judgment that will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the plaintiff's attorneys say. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a 2021 ruling by a three-person Federal Circuit panel that would have let Army veteran James Rudisill receive the maximum amount of education benefits stipulated in the GI bills.
Defense One
“Mature technologies must be put in the hands of the user as quickly as possible to debug, iterate, and improve their capabilities. The commercial sector intuitively knows this. Apple would never release an iPhone without extensive tests and user feedback. (And when it doesn’t, it accidentally releases a phone that doesn’t work for left-handed users; “Antennagate,” anyone?) Real-world testing is even more important for military equipment,” writes Schuyler Moore, chief technology officer for U.S. Central Command.
Task & Purpose
The U.S. military recently launched an airstrike in Somalia to help Somali troops fend off more than 100 al-Shabaab militants in a town that had recently been recaptured by government forces, according to U.S. Africa Command. More than 30 al-Shabaab fighters are estimated to have been killed in the airstrike, which took place in Galcad, Somalia, roughly 160 miles northeast of the country’s capital Mogadishu, an AFRICOM news release says
Breaking Defense
Since the US Navy announced a $15 million contract for its own Valkyrie drones, the Defense Department has clarified that it’s actually the Marines who plan to experiment with the large unmanned aerial vehicles—giving the amphibious force options for new strike, intelligence gathering, and electronic warfare capabilities as well as a “mothership” for small drones.
DefenseScoop
“Shortfalls” in the Department of Defense’s cyber posture can be attributed to the rapid loss of talent to private industry, according to the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester. The recently released fiscal 2022 annual report of the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation asserts that “the DOD’s abilities to assess against Red Teams portraying nation state adversaries remain limited due to persistent resource and personnel shortfalls,” adding “[a]nother persistent shortfall in the DOD’s cyber posture is the lack of adequate cyber test capabilities.”
Air Force release
The Department of the Air Force has selected Howard University as the first historically black college or university to lead a university affiliated research center. The center will be focused on tactical autonomy technology for military systems and Howard University will receive $12 million per year for five years to fund research, faculty, and students. The Department of Defense currently has 14 university affiliated research centers. Such centers are responsible for providing dedicated facilities and sharing space with Defense Department officials and industrial participants to conduct basic, applied, and technology demonstration research.
One More Thing
Military.com
Inspired by Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold’s ingenuity and technological zeal, a facility bearing his name has been at the forefront of the research and development of numerous military aircraft, including the F-35 Lightning II and the F-22A Raptor. Because of Arnold’s charitable nature, thousands of undergraduate college students receive assistance today through a grant program named in his honor. Arnold, who died in 1950 at the age of 63, is the Air Force’s only five-star general. Here are five things you may not know about Arnold.
