Subscription Required
Reuters
A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would likely fail and a direct military invasion of the self-ruled island would be extremely difficult for Beijing to carry out successfully, senior Pentagon officials told Congress on Tuesday. China's military in recent years has stepped up activity around Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its Sept. 19. U.S. CIA Director William Burns has said Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed his country's armed forces to be ready to invade by 2027.
Air Force Times
Air Force Special Operations Command is going back to the future. As the U.S. enters its third year since 2001 without major combat operations, AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind sees an opportunity to reset how the Air Force trains its most elite corps—and he’s looking to the 1990s for inspiration.
DefenseScoop
Eleven House Republicans have formally requested a classified briefing with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and FBI Director Christopher Wray by Oct. 6, regarding how the organizations they lead are working to counter alleged pursuits by China’s government to spy on sensitive U.S. military and national security sites.
Defense One
Lockheed Martin is gearing up to build F-16 fighter jets at full speed as U.S. defense officials say production capacity is one of the holdups to getting the much-anticipated jets to Taiwan. “We're working our way through that initial portion of the ramp this year and then we'll continue to increase that up to four-per-month deliveries by the end of 2025,” said OJ Sanchez, vice president of Lockheed's F-16 and F-22 programs.
Breaking Defense
By design, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has existed as an office always somewhat apart from the Defense Department. But under new leadership, DIU appears to be headed for a new chapter in its eight-year existence, one that is less about trying to change the game and more about playing on the same team. The change represents a “pretty significant shift,” Doug Beck, a former vice president at Apple and captain in the Navy Reserve who took over DIU in April, told Breaking Defense, with the office aiming to become more embedded across the department.
McKinsey & Company
Many government organizations have pursued “agility” with mixed success, confusing whether it’s “nimbleness” or “a culture element.” According to McKinsey & Company, agility is objective, and attained by balancing stability and dynamism. Striking that balance can help unlock major opportunities for the Department of the Air Force.
Breaking Defense
Chatbots can now invent new recipes (with mixed success), plan vacations, or write a budget-conscious grocery list. So what’s stopping them from summarizing secret intelligence or drafting detailed military operations orders? Nothing, in theory, said AI experts from the independent Special Competitive Studies Project. The Defense Department should definitely explore those possibilities, SCSP argues, lest China or some other unscrupulous competitor get there first. In practice, however, the project’s analysts emphasized in interviews with Breaking Defense, it’ll take a lot of careful prep work, as laid out in a recently released SCSP study.
Defense News
Congress is struggling to perform its most foundational duties this year, and experts say it’s starting to take its toll on national security. Lawmakers are at an impasse as a government shutdown looms, there’s plenty of uncertainty about the budget and one senator is blocking the promotions of hundreds of high-profile military officers.
SpaceNews
CACI International’s optical communication terminal passed initial ground tests required to compete for Space Development Agency satellite contracts, the company announced Sept. 18. CACI, a defense contractor based in Reston, Va., said its optical terminal successfully completed an interoperability test, bringing it closer to meeting technical requirements set by the Space Development Agency (SDA) for its constellation of military satellites in low Earth orbit.
Defense One
The Air Force’s electronic warfare wing is working to reduce its personnel vacancies with new hires and an internship program—but it still needs hundreds more to meet growing mission needs. “We have increased our footprint,” Capt. Benjamin Aronson, a spokesperson for the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, told Defense One on the sidelines of the Air, Space & Cyber conference.
Military.com
The commander of an Air Force maintenance squadron at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas was fired this week, just two months into his new role, after officials lost faith in his abilities to lead. Lt. Col. Brian Milner, the commander of the 9th Bomb Squadron, was relieved of command on Monday due to “a loss of confidence in his ability to complete the assigned duties,” a spokesman for the 7th Bomb Wing told Military.com.
One More Thing
We Are The Mighty
When it comes to Area 51, the line between reality and folklore is often blurred, leading to a cloud of mystery that hovers over this secretive military base. By delving into the specifics, we salute the men and women who may or may not be reverse-engineering flying saucers as we speak.
