Military.com
The U.S. senators from Virginia are pressing the military to finish overdue reforms meant to improve conditions in privatized housing on military bases following a watchdog report that the changes have been slow to help military families facing health and safety issues. In letters to the Pentagon, Air Force, Army, and Navy, Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats of Virginia, pushed for answers on how officials plan to respond to shortcomings identified in an April report from the Government Accountability Office on the military's oversight of its privatized housing.
Air & Space Forces Magazine
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has defined seven Operational Imperatives for the Department of the Air Force to work on, warning that “if we don't get them right, we will have unacceptable operational risk.” From a resilient space order of battle to the development of next-generation tactical air dominance and global strike platforms, these imperatives will define the Air Force for decades to come—Dive deeper into each one with our new “Operational Imperatives” pages highlighting all the latest news and developments on these critical efforts.
Dayton Daily News
When it comes to Air Force digital transformation efforts, the future needs to happen as soon as possible. The Digital Transformation Office was created two years ago at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base by Air Force Material Command (AFMC) to bring weapons and innovations to life faster across the Air and Space forces. “We’re building a pathway to the future,” Robert Fookes, director of engineering and technical management at AFMC, told members of the Dayton Defense trade group July 10.
Defense News
The White House on July 10 told lawmakers it opposes a provision in the House’s annual defense policy bill that would create a special inspector general for Ukraine aid, modelled after the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The Ukraine inspector general was one of several provisions in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that the White House, in an Office of Management and Budget statement on the bill, told Congress it wants removed.
Reuters
North Korea accused the United States on July 10 of violating its airspace by conducting surveillance flights and warned that, while Pyongyang was exercising restraint, such flights may be shot down. Provocative military actions by the United States were bringing the Korean peninsula closer to a nuclear conflict, an unnamed spokesperson of North Korea's Ministry of National Defence said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
The War Zone
The Royal Australian Air Force is set to deploy one of its E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft to Germany later this year. This appears to be the first operational deployment of an Australian Wedgetail to Europe and the country's authorities say that aircraft will be used to help keep watch over military and humanitarian supplies entering Ukraine.
The Associated Press
Sweden’s membership of NATO took a big step forward on July 10 after Turkey agreed to remove one of the last major roadblocks in return for help in reviving Turkey’s own chances of joining the European Union. At talks in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts are meeting for a two-day summit starting July 11, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan committed to put the Nordic country’s accession protocol before Parliament “as soon as possible,” the head of NATO said.
SpaceNews
In an era of great power competition and increasing global reliance on space-based assets, the U.S. military is trying to harmonize seemingly competing demands for security and sustainability. As a branch of the U.S. military, the Space Force is tasked with preparing for potential conflicts. But its leaders frequently remind audiences that a shooting war in space must be avoided in order to ensure the sustainability of the domain.
DefenseScoop
The Department of the Air Force needs to take a more agile and intermittent approach to acquiring and integrating capabilities for the department’s command, control, communications and battle management (C3BM) enterprise, according to Brig. Gen. Luke Cropsey, the integrating program executive officer in charge of the effort. “I think what we’re trying to do is find ways of actually promoting more competition—not less competition—as we’re moving forward,” Cropsey said July 10 during an event hosted by the Air and Space Forces Association.
One More Thing
The Sun Herald
As one of the most important training grounds for the United States Air Force, Keesler Air Force Base possesses quite a history. Yet, few are familiar with the man behind its namesake, 2Lt. Samuel Reeves Keesler Jr. Keesler was born on April 11, 1896, in Greenwood, Miss., to an affluent family. His father was a cotton broker and owned a mansion nearby nicknamed "Cottonlandia."
