Breaking Defense
The military services are collaborating more closely to make the Defense Department’s Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) a reality—with a bit of pushing from above in the DOD food chain, according to Joint Chiefs Vice Chair Adm. Christopher Grady. “I think increasingly the services are working together, although they have a different approach to it. But they are working together to bring capability that can be integrated,” he said.
Air Force Times
Leaders from the Air Force Reserve and Navy Reserve told lawmakers in written testimonies May 2 that their forces are expected to fall short of this year’s fiscal year recruitment goals. In statements submitted to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, the chiefs of the two components—whose members perform essential missions both at home and around the world—said a competitive environment to bring in new talent continues to remain a hurdle, although retaining troops who previously joined has been less of an obstacle.
Defense News
The Defense Innovation Unit transitioned 10 projects from commercial prototypes to military capabilities in fiscal 2023—down from 17 the prior year and led by drones and autonomous technology projects, according to its annual report. The Pentagon technology hub said in the May 2 report that a smaller transition number doesn’t necessarily equal a lessened impact.
SpaceNews
The U.S. Space Force, despite being the youngest and smallest branch of the military, is emerging as a critical enabler for the Pentagon’s warfighting capabilities, a senior official said May 2. What was once a complementary space architecture is today the central nervous system of joint operations, said Brig. Gen. Robert Hutt, director of plans and programs for the U.S. Space Force.
DefenseScoop
With digital dashboards and analytics tools that integrate real-time military data and depict operational assets and potential threats, U.S. Transportation Command now has unprecedented visibility into the Pentagon’s vast arsenal of weapons and personnel it moves around the world for deployments, crisis response and high-priority missions, two senior officials told DefenseScoop.
The War Zone
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are knocking down a substantial number of their own drones in the course of operations, a U.S. Marine Corps officer has disclosed. This underscores serious challenges that air defense forces in the U.S. military also face in telling friendly and hostile drones apart as uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), as well as loitering munitions, become ever more ubiquitous even in operations involving very small units.
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Aviation Week
The U.S. Marine Corps is in the study phase of its collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) effort, looking to figure out how the uncrewed system could fit into its fleet—operational or training—while the U.S. Air Force has charged ahead with contracts.
The Hill
The Pentagon acknowledged May 2 that it mistakenly killed a civilian in a 2023 airstrike in northwest Syria after U.S. service members misidentified the man as a senior al Qaeda leader. An internal investigation found American forces “misidentified the intended Al Qaeda target and that a civilian, Mr. Lufti Hasan Masto (Masto), was struck and killed instead,” according to a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) statement on the findings.
One More Thing
Military.com
If you’re looking for the best military and war movies and shows on Netflix, we’re here to help you stop the scrolling, move past the algorithm, and find what you’re looking for. Netflix has a massive catalog of movies and shows, and sometimes it’s hard to find exactly what you want to watch. This list can help you cut through the war movie noise and get to the good stuff.
