The Biden administration’s authorization for Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with U.S.-supplied missiles will inhibit Moscow’s supply of troops and equipment to the front lines—but critics say the decision is too late for a big impact on the battlefield.
After years of building bespoke networks to connect with individual allied and partner militaries, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is preparing to bring nearly two dozen countries into a single network in 2025. This INDOPACOM Mission Network, or IMN, is meant to replace the current unwieldy situation with a single seamless and secure platform that provides a common operating picture, file transfer, voice and chat tools.
Whether it’s perfecting supply chain logistics, sorting out the intricacies of a complex wargame, or planning key operational moves in a campaign, data holds the key to better decisions for the U.S. Air Force. Learn more about how industry and the military are better using data to improve outcomes.
The Pentagon on Nov. 18 announced a new hypersonic testing partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, an agreement focused on improving facilities and information sharing across the three countries. The partnership—dubbed the Hypersonic Flight Test and Experimentation project, or HyFliTE—will include up to six trilateral flight test campaigns set to occur by 2028.
Flight testing of the U.S. Air Force’s Stand-In Attack Weapon (SiAW) missile is now set to begin following the delivery of an initial test article. Derived from the AGM-88G missile designed primarily to punch holes in enemy air defenses, SiAW is under development to offer a broader high-speed strike capability against time-sensitive ground targets, including ballistic and cruise missile launchers, air and missile defense nodes, electronic warfare systems, and even anti-satellite weapons.
The Pentagon is putting $13 billion behind its talk of embracing commercial space, committing serious money to low-Earth orbit satellite services. ... Companies across the industry are eager to see this model expand to other military space programs. But entrenched procurement habits die hard, and while integration of commercial space capabilities is progressing, practical challenges remain.
Defense chiefs from the U.S. and the Philippines on Nov. 18 entered into a new official agreement to enhance sensitive information-sharing and defense technology cooperation between their governments, and broke ground on a new Combined Coordination Center at Camp Aguinaldo in Manila, where their two nations’ military personnel will work side-by-side on regional security operations.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has reignited a debate that many thought had been long settled: Should women be allowed to serve their country by fighting on the front lines?
Competition in the field of highly maneuverable missiles just got hotter. Dawn Hypersonics, part of Dawn Aerospace, revealed on Nov. 18 that its prototype rocket craft broke the sound barrier and a longstanding time-to-altitude record in a Nov. 7 test flight off the coast of New Zealand. The Mk-II Aurora flew to 66,000 feet in 118.6 seconds, shaving more than four seconds off a decades-old record.
Alaska black bears raided a supply room and a motor pool at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, leaving trails of MRE trash and climbing inside at least one Humvee in different incidents over the past month.