Sweden on March 7 formally joined NATO as the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality and centuries of broader non-alignment with major powers as security concerns in Europe have spiked following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
An active-duty Army Soldier and intelligence analyst spent over a year selling sensitive military documents related to the U.S. defense of Taiwan, weapons systems, and missile defense systems to China, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed March 7 and obtained by CBS News. Sgt. Korbein Schultz is accused of using his top secret security clearance to download classified U.S. government records at the behest of an unnamed individual who claimed to live in Hong Kong, allegedly amassing $42,000 in the process.
Last year’s debt ceiling agreement caps the FY24 defense top line at $886 billion, though the Pentagon and all other agencies face a 1 percent cut if Congress does not pass a full FY24 budget by April 30. Even so, FY24 defense spending could balloon as high as $953 billion if Congress also approves President Joe Biden’s foreign aid request for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. As the Pentagon seeks to address these new wars along with consistently rising costs like salaries and health care for troops and civilians, the $1 trillion figure may draw new scrutiny to the defense budget, including questions about where to cut and where it’s falling short.
For years, it was an open secret among missileers that the Cold War-era missile alert facilities and launch control centers where they'd spend days sleeping, eating and staying on alert in case of nuclear Armageddon were filled with things that might get them sick—carcinogens such as PCBs, lead paint, asbestos, and tainted water. And every missileer veteran had at least one close friend who was battling a form of cancer.
Soldiers found targets in a tiny fraction of the normal time by streamlining procedures and speeding up data processing during a recent experiment, Army officials said March 5. The Army is seeing a “two orders of magnitude” increase in the speed at which data is passed to weapons crews since the first Project Convergence, said Alex Miller, a senior science and technical advisor to Army Chief of Staff Randy George. In certain cases, processes that previously took minutes took just seconds, Miller said during a media day for this year's Project Convergence, one of the service’s marquee technology-testing events.
The first Block 70 F-16C/Ds have left Lockheed Martin's production facility and are headed on a long delivery flight that will cross a good portion of the globe. Their final destination is Bahrain, which has bought 16 of the advanced Vipers. The delivery mission is a massive milestone for the F-16 line that was moved from its long-time home in Fort Worth, Texas, to Greenville, S.C., some time ago.
If Congress continues to fail to pass a fiscal 2024 defense budget and instead rely on a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the Pentagon’s lights on, it could cost the Space Force as much $3.9 billion, service vice chief Gen. Michael Guetlein said March 7.
During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military to establish a temporary port in Gaza so more humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in need. ... The U.S. military has “unique capabilities” that allow it to construct a port or causeway without having to send forces to Gaza’s shores, said one of the officials. “We’re not planning for this to be an operation that would require U.S. boots on the ground,” said a second one.
The governments of the United States and Japan are finalizing a formal agreement to co-develop a next-generation, ship-launched guided-missile interceptor designed to defeat long-range, hypersonic weapons during the glide phase, according to a senior U.S. military official. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said discussions with counterparts in Japan over potential collaboration on the Glide Phase Interceptor program “are maturing quite well.”
Eileen Vidrine will retire from her role as the Department of the Air Force’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer in the coming weeks, DefenseScoop has learned. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed March 7 that Vidrine will be retiring “at the end of the month.” The spokesperson said they could not immediately provide any additional information about whether officials had identified someone to succeed her as CDAO, nor who would be managing those duties in the interim.
“Today, the U.S. Air Force faces an almost-existential crisis. During the past several years, the service has been battered by the loss of its prestigious space mission to the nascent U.S. Space Force. It has also struggled to balance the continued acquisition of stunningly expensive new manned aircraft with the rapid developments in unmanned technologies, which are making pilots increasingly superfluous,” write Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.), and Dr. Nora Bensahel, professors of practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Hannah Cvancara grew up watching military documentaries with her father, visiting war museums on family vacations, and playing with the little toy soldiers dutifully deployed to her windowsill. She would look at the small green men molded into their fighting positions and knew, even though she was missing her left foot, she wanted to serve some day. Cvancara is the namesake of the "Hannah Cvancara Service Act," a bill introduced by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., in February. If passed, it would allow amputees interested in joining the military to serve in medical personnel fields in the National Guard, reserves and on active duty.