NATO nations will provide Ukraine urgently needed air-defense systems, President Biden said July 9, vowing aid to shield against deadly Russian attacks even as the alliance stops short of offering Kyiv concrete advances toward membership.
The top American general in Japan blasted Chinese, Russian and North Korean aggression during a change of command July 9 at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. The 374th Airlift Wing at Yokota “plays a vital role in the defense of Japan and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific in the face of aggressive regional actors,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, said while presiding over the command change.
As it works to promote transatlantic security and deter aggression, NATO must strategically grow its collective defense industrial capacity and rapidly adopt interoperable drones and other emerging military capabilities like those the U.S. is presently hustling to field and scale, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said.
U.S. Air Force special operations aviators are now training on a pair of Air Tractor AT-802U aircraft ahead of the expected arrival of the first operational OA-1K Sky Warden light attack planes later this year. This also comes amid growing questions about the exact plans for the OA-1K, which is based on AT-802U, as the entire U.S. military shifts away from the counter-insurgency and other low-intensity operations the Sky Warden was designed for toward preparing for potential high-end conflicts.
The pier built by the U.S. military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled June 10 to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently, several U.S. officials said. It would deal the final blow to a project long plagued by bad weather, security uncertainties, and difficulties getting food into the hands of starving Palestinians.
When NATO leaders meet July 9-11, space is firmly on the agenda as allies work to build up a stronger collective infrastructure for coordination, and key European space players hasten to develop new capabilities. In the run up to the summit, NATO on June 12-13 held its second NATO Space Operations Commanders’ Conference at Allied Air Command headquarters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Officials from 23 NATO nations attended, as well as close U.S. allies Australia and Japan.
Taking the Army’s lead on bring-your-own-device initiatives, the Space Force and Air Force are preparing to enroll service members in the same technology this summer. Airmen and Guardians will soon be able to take advantage of the Hypori Halo Workspace Anywhere program that grants access to government apps, email, NIPRNet, sensitive data, and CAC-enabled websites via personal devices, including a phone or tablet, whether they’re in the office or not.
The FBI dismantled two websites and nearly 1,000 accounts on the X social media platform that were used by Kremlin spin doctors to run an AI-powered campaign that sought to spread disinformation within the U.S. and abroad. The disinformation operation was carried out by a bot farm, a network of automated accounts, or “bots,” controlled to perform tasks across digital platforms, including spreading propaganda, amplifying messages or engaging in coordinated campaigns to influence public opinion.
A one-star general who was the commander of the New Hampshire Air National Guard was killed in a hit-and-run vehicle crash near his home July 8, according to the state service component. Brig. Gen. John “Pogo” Pogorek, 57, of Rochester, N.H., was pulled over on the side of the road not far from his home around 5 p.m. local time and was securing a load on a trailer connected to his Toyota Tundra when he was struck by a red Toyota Rav4—which continued driving after hitting the Air National Guard commander, local police said in a Facebook post.
Ukraine plans to ramp up pressure on the Biden administration during the NATO Summit this week to lift all restrictions on using American-supplied weapons in Russian territory. In particular, Ukrainian officials want the Biden administration to allow Kyiv to use longer-range Army Tactical Missile Systems to hit inside Russia, Andriy Yermak, top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO in an interview.
While many Americans think of summer as the perfect season to hit the pool for a float, U.S. service members in the Pacific are thinking about what they’re going to sink. In live fire exercises dubbed “SINKEXs,” troops in the region have already sunk two ships from the air and the land, with one big aquatic finale expected before Labor Day.
