Breaking Defense
With roughly 430,000 Soldiers and Airmen, the U.S. National Guard represents a sizeable chunk of America’s overall military strength. Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, the 29th chief of the National Guard Bureau, is the man in charge of organizing and making it all work. And as the National Guard Association of the United States gathered over the weekend in Reno, Nev., for its annual convention, Hokanson was a man in the spotlight.
Defense One
Russia’s fighter jets are making dangerous head-on passes of U.S. jets over Syria, a U.S. spokesperson said, even as Russian media outlets are accusing the United States of doing the same. Russian fighters have approached U.S. and coalition forces’ aircraft multiple times over Syria in August, “including several high-speed, opposite-direction, close-aboard passes intended to force a reaction from our aircraft,” said Col. Mike Andrews of the U.S. Air Force Central Command.
Air & Space Forces Magazine
Driven by advancements in technology and research, the Air Force and Space Force are adapting how they train their warfighters to complete the missions at hand. Keep up with all the latest news on changes and improvements to the services’ training enterprises.
Forbes
“As the war grinds on in Ukraine, with every kilometer reclaimed from invading Russian forces costing more lives, firepower, and time, the United States and its allied partners must do everything possible to empower President Zelensky and his forces to achieve success,” writes retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula.
The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
In Episode 142 of the Aerospace Advantage podcast, host John “Slick” Baum, retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, and retired Gen. Kevin Chilton chat with Air Marshal Harvey Smyth, the Royal Air Force’s Air and Space Commander. Working together with other service branches and international operational commanders, Air Marshal Smyth oversees the generation and employment of airpower for the United Kingdom. This conversation explores how Air Marshal Smyth sees the global security environment and where the RAF stands from a capabilities perspective. They also discuss future operating concepts and RAF spacepower objectives.
Stars and Stripes
The Air Force is investigating a hard landing by an F-16 Fighting Falcon in northeast Japan, according to a Misawa Air Base spokesman. Photographs posted Aug. 21 by the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook group appear to show the damaged fighter accompanied by emergency vehicles Thursday on Misawa’s runway. The plane was tilted to its left, its wing almost touching the ground.
Military.com
The company that will soon be responsible for all U.S. military troops' worldly possessions during moves begins its phased takeover of the Defense Department's household goods shipment operation in September. HomeSafe Alliance will finally begin managing the pickup, shipping, and delivery of personal belongings during moves to new duty stations after it received the DOD’s estimated $6.2 billion Global Household Goods Contract in November 2021. The joint venture between KBR, a science, technology, and engineering company, and Tier One Relocation describes itself as a “move management service provider.”
DefenseScoop
The Defense Department has agreed to team up with Japan’s Ministry of Defense to jointly produce a new weapon that can counter advanced, emerging hypersonic threats in the Indo-Pacific region. However, details regarding how the two militaries will co-finance and co-develop these next-generation missile-fighting capabilities remain sparse because they are still being hashed out by government leadership, a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop on Aug. 21.
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The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. and China are accelerating research on how to integrate artificial intelligence into their militaries as part of a global race to take advantage of the fast-developing technology.
The War Zone
An Australian defense contractor that provides commercial satellite tracking services says it has monitored hundreds of Chinese space-based surveillance assets making thousands of passes over the country and surrounding areas in recent months. The company's data indicates that the Chinese satellites have been gathering intelligence about major multi-national military exercises hosted by Australia.
One More Thing
Military Times
Working at the Pentagon, home to the U.S. Department of Defense, is not exactly an easy job. This five-sided building is designed to be one the world’s largest, most utilitarian office buildings, and to say that it has all the charm of a prison cell is ... generous. The menacing beige building was deemed “ugly as sin” by the Commission for Fine Arts, and frankly, waking up at 7 a.m. every day to sit in one of its thousands of dark cubicles is enough to make a grown man cry.
