More than two dozen times since Russia’s 2022 invasion, President Joe Biden’s Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, has gone around the table with his international counterparts to secure weapons needed for Ukraine’s defense. On Jan. 9, Austin chaired his final meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an assemblage of more than 30 nations providing military aid to Kyiv, closing out what has been a central aspect of the Biden administration’s investment in the three-year-old war.
The U.S. needs to keep troops deployed in Syria to prevent the Islamic State group from reconstituting as a major threat following the ouster of Bashar Assad’s government, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press.
The Biden administration has given its final injection of military support to Ukraine, unveiling a $500m weapons package just days before Donald Trump’s return to the White House threatens to upend western backing for Kyiv. The aid bundle—including air defense missiles and F-16 fighter jet equipment—was announced on Jan. 9 by outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The Defense Department is sending additional assets to California to assist with the massive wildfire spreading across Los Angeles and the southern part of the state. Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Jan. 8 the U.S. was sending 10 Navy helicopters with water buckets. Singh said the Pentagon is working closely with the California National Guard, which is adding two Modular Airborne Firefighting Systems.
On the night Stephanie Cosme died, her sister and brother said they received a curt explanation from a U.S. Air Force official who met them at the hospital: The civilian contractor was failing to follow protocol when she was hit by an aircraft’s rotating propeller and killed. The family would wait eight agonizing months to find out more about how the accident unfolded during relatively low-risk ground testing on a MQ-9A Reaper drone at Gray Butte Airfield in California on Sept. 7, 2023. They felt sure there was more to the story than Cosme, a 32-year-old testing engineer who worked for Air Force contractor Sumaria Systems, LLC, simply not following instructions.
Even as satellites have proliferated, their buses—the main body and structural components—have generally remained bespoke affairs. Now a California startup aims to manufacture a line of buses that takes just a few weeks to customize and deliver.
Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth heads back to Capitol Hill next week for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a moment that will serve as a critical decision point on whether he gets the job leading more than 2 million troops and 800,000 civilian defense workers.
In Washington, Democrats and Republicans alike have supported the Pentagon’s recent work around Asia, but the return of Donald Trump, a president less personally committed to U.S. allies, will test its endurance.
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks is poised to complete her tenure at the Pentagon under the Biden administration—and she’s been in direct contact with officials on President-elect Donald Trump’s Agency Review Team preparing for the upcoming transition, according to her top public affairs advisor Eric Pahon.
“The United States is a Pacific power, yet we are mostly resident in the Eastern Pacific and lack significant presence in the Western Pacific. This geographic conundrum carries heavy implications for everything from supply chains to trade, but from a national security perspective our competitors and adversaries—that axis of China, Russia, and North Korea— all are advantaged by their physical proximity to the areas we seek to safeguard,” writes Randall Schriver, chairman of the board of the Project 2049 Institute and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.
U.S. military satellites manufactured by York Space Systems and SpaceX successfully demonstrated cross-vendor laser communications link in low Earth orbit, marking a milestone for the Pentagon’s next-generation satellite network. The satellites are part of the U.S. Space Force’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a network designed to enhance military communications and missile tracking capabilities.
Defense contractor Anduril is acquiring Numerica Corp.'s radar and command and control businesses, according to a company press release published Jan. 9. Terms of the deal were not disclosed to Inside Defense in emails with an Anduril spokesperson.
An old-fashioned turf battle is erupting over the transfer of a fighter squadron from the District of Columbia to Maryland with critics worried this leaves the nation’s capital dangerously exposed to attack. The D.C. National Guard’s commander and 17 of its retired leaders are decrying the planned transfer of an F-16 squadron to the Maryland Air National Guard.
At Luke Air Force Base in Arizona in 1943, Disney personally delivered an insignia of a boxing bulldog that would come to represent the 62nd Fighter Squadron assigned to the 56th Fighter Group. Decades later, that image continued to evoke a spirit of pride and inspire Airmen.
