Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant arrived in Washington on June 23 for meetings with U.S. officials, as the threat of a war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continued to escalate. Gallant will meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials in D.C., Gallant’s office said in a statement. Gallant will discuss developments in Gaza and Lebanon and efforts to return the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the statement said.
The U.S. has told Ukraine it can use American-supplied weapons to hit any Russian forces attacking from across the border—not just those in the region near Kharkiv, according to U.S. officials. The subtle shift in messaging—which officials insist is not a change in policy—comes just weeks after the U.S. quietly gave Kyiv the green light to strike inside Russia in response to a cross-border assault on the city of Kharkiv.
As drones transform warfare in Ukraine and Gaza, Taiwan is accelerating efforts to build a fleet of them for its defenses. But the island democracy has a problem: The overwhelming majority of the types of small, inexpensive drones that are having the greatest impact on battlefields are made in China, the very country that poses a threat to it.
Air Force Special Operations Command may shift the number of its CV-22 Osprey pilots and aircrew as it reevaluates how the controversial tilt-rotor aircraft is used—and as officials probe the cause of recent deadly crashes. The review of the size of the Osprey force is part of a larger analysis of the aircraft operations being conducted by Air Force Special Operations Command, or AFSOC, Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse, a command spokesperson, told Military.com. It’s possible that those service members could be trained for other aircraft.
The Air Force is in the very early stages of a restructuring that could have a big impact on how Airmen deploy for combat missions, and an even bigger one on how the service is organized. The overall goal is to get the Air Force more ready to fight against high-end adversaries, but there are still some big questions about how the concept will work.
Comments recently made by top Air Force leaders have suggested the service is having second thoughts on its approach to acquiring a new stealth fighter—a platform known as the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft. Officials have cited advancements in technologies and budget uncertainty as reasons for reexamining the platform, which was expected to be the centerpiece of a networked family of systems. And while analysts who spoke with DefenseScoop agreed that both issues will influence NGAD’s fate, they also noted a number of different variables are likely shaping the Air Force’s considerations.
The U.S. Air Force is asking industry for help for potentially carrying defensive systems aboard mobility aircraft that can fend off small drones. According to a request for information (RFI) released by the service, it’s interested in “concepts and technologies related to an on-aircraft Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft System (C-sUAS) capability.” The RFI was posted by Air Mobility Command, or AMC, which oversees operations of tankers and transport aircraft—slower, larger platforms typically more vulnerable to enemy attack.
One startup has Air Force contracts to rig a KC-135 tanker and C-130 airlifter for autonomous flight; the other created the AI pilot moving on in a DARPA dogfighting program. Now they’re joining forces. Last week, the Boston-based Merlin Labs announced that it would acquire EpiSci, a California-based firm whose AI helped take Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on a high-profile spin in an F-16 last month.
An Air Force fighter pilot and colonel who served as the operations director for the U.S. military’s Alaskan Command was killed in an off-base crash involving a small civilian aircraft June 18, the Air Force said. Air Force Col. Mark “Tyson” Sletten, 46, of Anchorage, was one of two people in a Piper PA-18 two-seat aircraft that crashed in Crescent Lake near Moose Pass on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.
Congress is debating—yet again—the idea of including women in a national military draft more than a decade after the end of rules that kept them from combat roles. The idea of adding women to the draft, should one ever be enacted, has bounced around the halls of Congress many times with support from both political parties but never enough votes to become law. It’s unclear if this year’s attempt will gain enough support to pass.
While progress has been made toward better transatlantic cooperation, top brass from Europe’s four largest military space operators say there is still a ways to go in working out how Europe and the United States will jointly respond to growing threats from Russia and China.
Lockheed Martin said it demonstrated it can integrate digital command and control capabilities into the Pentagon’s Joint Fires Network during Valiant Shield, an exercise in Hawaii this month. The Joint Fires Network is a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command initiative to improve coordination between commanders and network any sensor from any platform to feed targeting guidance to any weapon system.
U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is in the market for a long-endurance reconnaissance drone that can land on water and discreetly wait for recovery, according to a new solicitation.
The Pentagon announced on June 21 that Lockheed Martin Space has been awarded a $977.5 million contract extension for the continued development, testing, and on-orbit support of two geosynchronous missile-warning satellites. This latest award brings the total value of Lockheed Martin’s contract for the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) program to $8.2 billion.
A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter has begun wearing some decidedly non-standard markings, the most flamboyant we’ve seen on an operational Joint Strike Fighter so far. The upper fuselage and top surfaces of the wing of the F-35B in question, operated by Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 242 “Bats,” are emblazoned with a stylized motif showing the night-flying mammal of the unit’s logo.