Boeing’s E-7A Wedgetail will replace NATO E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, after alliance members approved procurement of six of the newer platforms, the first of which is set to “be ready for operational duty by 2031.” Though NATO announced the decision Nov. 15, it said that a “consortium of allies” had moved to approve E-7A selection earlier this month. A statement on the acquisition, which falls under the alliance’s initial Allied Future Surveillance and Control (iAFSC) program, calls the deal “one of NATO’s biggest-ever capability purchases,” although no contract value was disclosed.
With Congress poised to punt fiscal 2024 appropriations bills into the next calendar year, U.S. national security programs are bracing for the possibility they may net $82 billion less in the next two fiscal years than the amounts set by June’s bipartisan debt limit law. That statute requires that funding for all departments and agencies—defense and nondefense—must be set 1 percent below fiscal 2023 levels in each of the next two fiscal years in the event that any of the 12 fiscal 2024 appropriations bills is not enacted by Jan. 1.
Boeing officials are gushing over the U.S. Air Force’s interest in a combat version of its T-7A training jet, an endeavor that could help the company’s lowball-bid strategy pay off. Last week, an Air Force official said at the International Fighter Conference in Madrid that a proposed light attack variant of the T-7 might replace aging F-16s—and that wasn’t the first time service officials had talked about it, said Boeing’s Donn Yates.
Of all the possible threats to the United States’ homeland security across domains, there is one that the dual-hatted chief of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command is acutely concerned about: attacks on critical infrastructure from cyberspace.
For the sixth year in a row, the Pentagon failed its annual audit. The result is not a surprise. The Department of Defense’s assets are vast and decentralized, amounting to $3.8 trillion alongside $4 trillion in liabilities. These are located in all 50 states and more than 4,500 sites around the world.
Qatar's F-15QA Advanced Eagle has made its formal public debut in style this week. Unburdened by any stores, without its conformal fuel tanks, and with the help of its advanced fly-by-wire technology and its pair of powerful F110-GE-129 engines, the big jet has been wowing the crowds at the Dubai Airshow in the United Arab Emirates.
Whistleblowers have told Congress that callers to the Veterans Crisis Line who present difficult cases are being transferred to an understaffed “complex needs” unit that does not collect callback information in case contact is lost. The allegations indicate some veterans in crisis may still be falling through the cracks—even as they reach out for help—and have prompted an investigation by Republicans on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
The Defense Innovation Unit announced Nov. 13 that two new companies were awarded contracts to help with different aspects of the Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities (HyCAT) initiative. HyCAT, originally announced in April, was implemented to develop inexpensive, high-cadence hypersonic testing capabilities, according to a DIU press release issued Nov. 13. DIU has now announced that Hermeus Corp. and Innoveering have secured contracts since the project has grown to include further experimental cruise flight teams.
The Israel-Hamas conflict has shed new light on the need to defend against threats that range from small rockets to ballistic missiles. Israel has invested in the Iron Beam system, which produces a high-energy laser, to complement the Iron Dome batteries used to launch interceptors to take out incoming rockets.
Following a highly-publicized meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden announced three key points of agreement. While much of the focus is going to be on the two sides restarting mil-to-mil communications and counternarcotics cooperation (specifically against fentanyl), the third initiative stood out as new item on the US-China agenda: artificial intelligence.
U.S. Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard Clark will join the College Football Playoff as executive director following his retirement from military service in 2024, the organization said in a recent release. The announcement signals the impending departure of the senior official at one of America’s five military academies as the Pentagon works to train the next generation of officers for a new era of war.
