Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Aug. 18 the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border. It was the first time Zelenskyy clearly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on Aug. 6. Previously, he had said the operation aimed to protect communities in the bordering Sumy region from constant shelling.
A long-running dispute over uninhabited reefs has brought China and the Philippines into growing conflict that could draw in the United States. Competing claims in the strategically vital South China Sea have brought a series of maritime clashes between China and the Philippines, a U.S. ally with which Washington has a mutual defense treaty, meaning an attack on the Philippines would trigger the decades-old pact for the U.S. to defend the nation.
In episode 197 of the Aerospace Advantage, Mission Command: Leveraging the American Cognitive Advantage, Heather “Lucky” Penney chats with Lt. Col. Fritz “Plugger” Glojek, recent fellow at the Mitchell Institute, and Lt. Col. Nicholas “Badger” Underwood of Air University’s LeMay Center about how we can best empower Airmen to fly and fight.
U.S. Air Force security guards exchanged gunfire with someone who opened fire at an entrance to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland early Aug. 17, according to a spokesperson for the base. Base officials said a suspect in a dark sedan was passing by the main entry gate of the facility when they began shooting toward the gate at around 4:30 a.m. local time, according to CBS News affiliate KENS5. The suspect attempted to shoot again, prompting a service member on guard at the gate to pull out their gun and return fire. The sedan then left the scene.
The Air Force's plan to test its new organizational structure in a large-scale, multicombatant command exercise in the Indo-Pacific next summer now has a name: REFORPAC. The term, a take on “return of forces to the Pacific,” is meant to embrace the new way the service wants to deploy airmen by having “big wings that pick up and move forward” into austere environments, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said.
U.S. Space Command’s top general voiced support for the U.S. Army’s efforts to expand its space expertise, pushing back against criticism that such initiatives encroach on Space Force territory.
The Defense Innovation Unit is moving fast to expand the military’s arsenal of commercial drones and access to connected digital capabilities, via a new prize opportunity that’s heavily inspired by real-world combat observations from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is “underinvested” in special operations forces, “and I think SOF is underinvested in PACOM,” the command’s leader said Aug. 15. “But the time is now to get the SOF enterprise focused on the Indo-Pacific to the extent that we can.”
The Pentagon submitted a new proposed rule detailing how it plans to enforce its cybersecurity standards related to Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) under the long-awaited Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0 (CMMC 2.0).
The necks of Airmen at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., will continue to scorch under the blistering summer sun after a request to let them don the military's iconic boonie hat was denied by higher headquarters.
An Airman deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations died Aug. 15 in a non-combat incident, Air Force officials confirmed. Staff Sgt. Tristen Wright, 28, was found “deceased in his residence” on Aug. 15, according to a service release. He was “immediately transported to a local hospital where [he] was pronounced dead by medical officials,” the release added.
“Congress should also provide the funding necessary to conduct increasingly large and complex exercises that span multiple combatant commands and are scripted specifically to improve the capability and capacity of the USAF to implement ACE doctrine in a contested environment in support of joint operations,” write Bradley Bowman and Lydia LaFavor from the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
More than three months after a U.S. Air Force Airman was gunned down by a Florida sheriff’s deputy, his family and their lawyer are demanding that prosecutors decide whether to bring charges against the former lawman. At an Aug. 15 news conference, civil rights attorney Ben Crump questioned why the investigation has taken so long, noting that the shooting of Senior Airman Roger Fortson was captured on the deputy’s body camera video.
A Cessna Model 208B Grand Caravan converted into a cargo drone was among the participants in a recently concluded U.S. Air Force-led large force air combat exercise focused on preparing for a potential future conflict with China.
Immersed in shade from a surrounding canopy of trees not far from Naval Support Activity Lakehurst’s main gate stands a striking, nearly century-old stone building known as Cathedral of the Air. It is a building steeped in history and meaning—providing a place of worship for service members and the surrounding community beginning during World War II to the present.
