POLITICO
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has lined up a vote to confirm the Marine Corps’ second ranking officer after the service’s leader was hospitalized over the weekend, leaving a leadership vacuum at the top of the Corps. Schumer also teed up votes on President Joe Biden’s picks to serve as the top officers in the Air Force and Navy.
The War Zone
A pair of U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers touched down in Turkey on Oct. 31 for what may well have been the first-ever visit by the type to Incirlik Air Base. The visit comes at a time of significant tensions between Turkey and Israel, with Turkish President Recep Erdogan ramping up his rhetoric directed against the Israeli government, while at the same time claiming that its adversary, Hamas, is not a terrorist organization.
Air Force Times
The Air Force is investigating whether children who live at New Mexico’s Cannon Air Force Base are more likely to develop brain cancer than those at other installations. Since 2010, three children have been diagnosed with rare, fast-growing tumors, known as diffuse midline gliomas, while living at Cannon or after being stationed there, the base’s 27th Special Operations Wing said in an Oct. 23 release.
Defense News
President Joe Biden’s $106 billion defense spending supplemental request to Congress aims in part to bolster munitions production capacity to continue rushing arms to Ukraine and Israel. The Senate Appropriations Committee questioned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at an Oct. 31 hearing on the status of U.S. stockpiles and the workforce, supply chain and infrastructure constraints of weapons manufacturers racing to replenish them.
Defense One
Without additional aid from the United States, Russia could succeed in its war on Ukraine—and then unleash its military upon NATO members, the defense secretary warned Oct. 31. “If Putin is successful, he will not stop at Ukraine. And if you're a Baltic state, you're thinking, ‘I'm next.’ And, you know, there's no question in my mind that sooner or later…he will challenge NATO and we'll find ourselves in a shooting match,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told senators during a hearing on the White House’s request to give the Pentagon an extra $106 billion for military aid, arms replenishment, humanitarian assistance, and more.
Breaking Defense
The Space Force’s newest technology accelerator, aimed at speeding improvements in space domain awareness, is kicking off with a focus on developing software to help protect satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit from anti-satellite missiles, the service announced Oct. 31. Run by Space Systems Command (SSC), the Space Domain Awareness Technology, Applications, and Process (TAP) Lab is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo., and is being supported by Virginia Tech’s Applied Research Corporation and MITRE Corporation.
SpaceNews
The Space Systems Command on Oct. 31 announced 21 launch missions have been assigned to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX as part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 contract the companies won in 2020. These missions assigned for fiscal year 2024 mark the fifth and final year of the Phase 2 contract. Of the 21 missions, ULA received 11 and SpaceX 10. These missions are projected to launch over the next two to three years.
Military.com
A cadet at the Air Force Academy pleaded guilty Oct. 27 to one specification of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice for using psilocybin—a natural psychedelic compound found in certain mushrooms that remains a federally outlawed drug. … But even as the academy meted out the punishment, magic mushrooms and their active ingredient psilocybin were largely decriminalized in Colorado last year, and amended state laws allow for residents to grow, use and share them without any serious penalties.
DefenseScoop
The so-called modern triad—an idea pioneered by the Army that includes a combination of special operations, cyber and space forces—is still mostly conceptual at the joint level, according to a senior Department of Defense official.
One More Thing
KKTV
The Air Force Academy Falcons ranked 25th in the initial College Football Playoff poll, their first time ranking in the poll in program history. The Falcons are 8-0 so far in the season and are currently in first place in the Mountain West. The 8-0 start is also the school’s best since a school-record 10-0 was set back in 1985.
