President Barack Obama’s new military strategy seeks a more subtle use of US power to influence world affairs, setting a high bar for use of large-scale military force unless the US is directly attacked, he said Wednesday. The President’s clear message was that there won’t be any grand new military buildup or mobilization to answer Russian aggression in Ukraine or mounting Chinese military strength and territorial claims in the Pacific. However, there will be a step up in advising and equipping allies and proxies in world trouble spots in order to combat terrorism without resorting to major US intervention, and to avoid “creating new enemies” by overplaying America’s military strengths, he said. Addressing newly minted graduates at West Point, Obama declared the US faces low odds of “a direct threat against us by any nation” and that the world situation doesn’t “come close to the dangers we faced during the Cold War.” With the Iraq war now behind and the Afghanistan war “winding down,” Obama said it’s time for the US to re-appraise how it flexes its military muscles. (Continue to full report.)
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.