NATO activated a specialized defense element to protect against a potential mass-casualty chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon attack by Russia in Ukraine. The move came as alliance defense ministers met in Brussels on March 24, promising new types of assistance to Ukraine. “Any use of chemical weapons will totally change the nature of the conflict,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. “There's also a risk that it will have a direct effect on people living in NATO countries, because we can see contamination, we can see the spread of chemical agents or biological weapons into our countries.”

President Joe Biden warned that the United States will respond if Russia uses chemical weapons against Ukraine. Biden also promised to take in 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, provide $1 billion in humanitarian support to Ukraine, and impose a new round of sanctions against Russian politicians, entities, and defense companies. “Putin was banking on NATO being split,” said Biden, in Europe accompanied by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. "NATO has never, never been more united than it is today."

China’s space infrastructure has made it more of a military match for the U.S. than Russia, in terms of space, but Russia presents more of an “unknown,” especially as it’s “boxed into a corner” in its invasion of Ukraine, said a top Space Force intelligence officer. Russia also doesn’t have as high a stake in the orbital environment as the U.S. and China.

Gen. Charles G. Boyd, the only former Vietnam-era prisoner of war to attain four-star rank, died March 23 at age 83. Boyd also headed Air University and was deputy commander-in-chief of U.S. European Command. In later years, he served with a number of think tanks and strategic thinking organizations and as a national security adviser to the Speaker of the House.

The cyberattack that cut communications for thousands of European users of Viasat’s satellite broadband service was carried out by hackers compromising and exploiting the system that manages customer terminals, two Viasat officials told Air Force Magazine. Viasat shared information about the hack with its DOD and commercial partners in the Commercial Integration Cell, or CIC. Located at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., the CIC is based in the Combined Space Operations Center, part of U.S. Space Command, and exists to share “real‐time and near real‐time information … during daily routine operations and to enable rapid, informed response to critical unplanned space events.”

North Korea test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, officials from Japan and South Korea said March 24, marking North Korea's first ICBM-range test in years and once again ramping up tensions in the region. According to a release from the Japanese Ministry of Defense, the launch occurred in the early afternoon local time March 24, with the missile flying 71 minutes, reaching an altitude of more than 6,000 kilometers, and landing roughly 1,100 kilometers away in the waters off Japan’s western coast.

A B-2 bomber flew from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., to Australia and back over the course of more than 50 hours recently, integrating with five different fighter aircraft from the U.S. Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force along the way. The B-2 Spirit from the 509th Bomb Wing became on March 23 the first such bomber to land at Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley.