On the edge of the East China Sea, CNN was on board a B-52 bomber as it turned northeast—toward Alaska, the U.S. and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana—when the oil pressure gauge for one of its engines began flickering erratically. Nineteen hours into one of the longest military missions the U.S. carries out, the crew had already contended with communications issues and had to make pinpoint fuel calculations as they navigated their 13,000-mile journey from Louisiana to Japan and back again. But this was something different.
A thawing of military-to-military talks between U.S. and Chinese military officials has extended into space, the head of U.S. Space Command said, but more communication is needed. Within the last six months or so, “we've heard proactively from the Chinese twice on two things they wanted to talk to us about with space safety-related issues. We think that is very positive, and we would like to continue to build on that,” said Gen. Stephen Whiting, who leads U.S. Space Command.
The U.S., Japan, and Australia will create a joint air defense network, President Biden announced alongside the Japanese prime minister April 10, unveiling several new initiatives aimed at deepening defense and intelligence cooperation between their two countries. “Together, our countries are taking significant steps to strengthen defense security cooperation,” Mr. Biden said during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the White House Rose Garden.
Although Russia has banned the use of Starlink, the satellite-internet service developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, middlemen have proliferated in recent months to buy the user terminals and ship them to Russian forces. That has eroded a battlefield advantage once enjoyed by Ukrainian forces, which also rely on the cutting-edge devices.
Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, is calling on commercial industry to develop affordable, radiation-hardened electronics. “Commercial innovation in this area can help to ensure the security and resilience of our satellite systems in orbit,” Shyu said April 9 at the 39th Space Symposium here.
For years, Pentagon leaders have warned that commercial 5G wireless systems could prevent the Defense Department from accessing a key band of spectrum used for everything from testing counterdrone technologies to tracking ballistic missiles to helping jets avoid birds. Balancing the needs for commercial 5G providers, and the economic benefits they could provide, with military priorities has proven a significant challenge. But now, Pentagon leaders say they have an idea.
The Air Force has expanded its reach in the Pacific by refueling an airborne strategic bomber and a special operations aircraft from a commercial tanker for the first time. The B-52 Stratofortress and MC-130J Commando II were gassed up over the Pacific on March 10 by a KDC-10 tanker from Omega Aerial Refueling Services, the Air Force said in an April 5 news release.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded a contract for an airfield on Tinian, a Pacific island military leaders consider crucial to their plans in the region. Fluor, an engineering and construction company based in Irving, Texas, will receive about $409 million to finish the project within five years, the company announced April 10.
The Pentagon is aiming to complete an implementation plan for its first-ever defense industrial base strategy this summer, a senior Defense Department official said April 10. “The implementation plan will be a living document. We are working on it literally as we speak, and I suspect that it will be completed at some point later this summer,” Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, said during a speech at the Sea Air Space conference.
U.S. cyber specialists toiled in more than a dozen countries last year as part of a push to fortify networks and expose tools used by hackers, according to the leader of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. The so-called hunt-forward missions, conducted by CYBERCOM’s elite Cyber National Mission Force, or CNMF, totaled 22 deployments, with some happening simultaneously across the world, Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh said in testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 10.
The Military.com investigation into military day care centers revealed that service branch rules generally prioritize protecting the institution, keep parents in the dark while officials formulate a public relations response, and have minimal safeguards to guarantee accountability. Base commanders and military police units often don't know who is responsible for reporting and investigating allegations of abuse, allowing cases to slow to a crawl while offices shirk responsibility.
Retired Army Col. Steve Leonard has announced that he is ending his “Doctrine Man” cartoon, which has captured the eccentricities of military life for 16 years. The cartoon’s last edition will be posted on June 6, the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II, Leonard posted on “X.”