Though he’d been in the U.S. Air Force for 22 years, Mohammed Abu Hashem felt like he had more to give. But that changed in October, when urgent messages poured in from family in Gaza. An Israeli airstrike had killed Abu Hashem’s aunt and more than 20 neighbors, and left other relatives injured, he was told. Twelve children were among the dead, his family said. His thoughts turned to Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel through policy and vast amounts of weaponry, and soon he concluded that 22 years was in fact enough.
Military dining facilities aren’t following guidelines that aim to offer nutritious meals for service members, and the Pentagon has not done necessary annual reviews of those food programs in roughly a decade, a government watchdog has found.
A series of drone shootdowns by Iranian-backed militias in Lebanon and Yemen have revealed that the groups have more enhanced air-defense capabilities and tactics than previously believed, a development that should drive military commanders in Israel and the United States to review their air operations plans in the region, experts tell Breaking Defense.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Russia’s defense minister—the first such conversation in 15 months. Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced the call in a briefing June 25, saying Austin initiated the discussion. “The secretary emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine,” Ryder said.
The Defense Department’s 15-page plan to guide military and civilian components’ sprawling information technology activities and objectives in fiscal years 2025 through 2029 places a sharp focus on user experience and lays out concrete metrics to track tangible progress.
The Air Force has fired the head of its program to build the next intercontinental ballistic missile—whose projected costs have ballooned to $131 billion. Sentinel Systems Director Col. Charles Clegg was removed because he “did not follow organizational procedures” and the service lost confidence in his ability to lead the program, Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek confirmed in a statement.
The Air Force is bumping up the number of challenging jobs for which Airmen and Guardians can earn bonus pay in the coming year. Enlisted Airmen in 78 job specialties will be eligible for special duty assignment pay in fiscal year 2025, which starts Oct. 1, the Air Force said in a release. That’s an increase from last year, when the Air Force approved bonuses for 70 critical fields, ranging from an extra $75 to $450 a month.
In episode 189 of the Aerospace Advantage, Heather Penney chats with Mitchell Institute experts Mike Dahm and Mark Gunzinger about a key aspect of modern operations in an era of peer competition. U.S. Air Force commanders must be prepared to fight their frontline air bases like any other weapon system to generate the combat airpower critical to the success of future joint force operations. Air Force air bases must have the capabilities and capacity to counter complex integrated air and missile attacks, rapidly reconstitute their operational capabilities when damaged by strikes, and continue to generate combat effects while under fire. This is a tough challenge given too many years of underinvestment in this area. However, failure is not an option.
Members of Congress are pushing to demand that the U.S. Air Force make all of its remaining B-52H bombers nuclear capable again after the likely sunset of a key arms control deal just shy of two years from now. Specific details about what it would take to actually do this come from a perhaps unexpected source: Russia.
The U.S. Space Force is moving forward with plans to deploy smaller, cheaper GPS satellites based on commercial designs to add to its current network of larger military satellites. The Space Systems Command earlier this month issued a solicitation through the Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC) for the Resilient Global Positioning System (R-GPS) program, seeking innovative design concepts.
The McDonnell Douglas C-9 is a retired military variant of the DC-9 commercial airliner. The type was produced in two major variants: the C-9A Nightingale for the United States Air Force (USAF) and the C-9B Skytrain II for the U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Marine Corps (USMC).