The Air Force is further delaying the production contract for its newest trainer aircraft, the T-7 Red Hawk, and will expand its testing in a major reorganization of the program’s acquisition strategy. The service originally planned to award Boeing a contract to build the first production T-7s in fiscal 2025 and would have bought seven jets this year. Under the Air Force and Boeing’s revised plan, the service will now award that contract in 2026, Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said in a Wednesday release. “Acquisition programs cannot be stagnant, even when they are fixed-price,” Hunter said. “This is…
Author: MAK Gojar
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will bid farewell Friday to the forces and personnel he has led through a tumultuous term that had three major military crises, a global pandemic and a personal brush with cancer that became a flashpoint for the way it was mishandled. Austin, 71, spent 41 years of his life in a military uniform. He retired as a highly decorated four-star general who earned a Silver Star — an award given for gallantry in action — for leading troops from the front in the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq. He is one of the many Pentagon leaders who have served in…
PARIS — France says a Russian S-400 air-defense system targeted a French maritime patrol flight over the Baltic Sea this week in what the country’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastian Lecornu called an “unacceptable” act of aggression. A French Atlantique 2 aircraft patrolling international airspace over the Baltic as part of a NATO mission was targeted by the fire-control system of the S-400 ground-to-air missile system in the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Lecornu said in a post on X. “This aggressive Russian action is unacceptable,” Lecornu said. “Our armed forces will continue to act to defend freedom of navigation in…
MILAN — Sweden has unveiled a cluster of swarming aerial drones envisioned to equip ground and air units of the Swedish Armed Forces for intelligence and surveillance applications. The project was announced by Swedish Minister for Defense Pal Jonson during a Jan. 15 press conference. In a demonstration video shared with Defense News, a formation of 10 quadcopters is seen taking off and relaying footage of their flight trajectory above snowy forests to ground operators. A Swedish voice-over explains that the drones’ high-resolution imagery and artificial intelligence-driven analyses enable commanders to have immediate and actionable insights for faster decision-making –…
A Polish general was dismissed last week by the nation’s defense minister after reportedly misplacing a batch of anti-tank mines that were later found in an Ikea warehouse, according to Polish news outlet Onet. Maj. Gen. Artur Kępczyński was fired Jan. 9 for reasons that were not specified by Polish military officials, though numerous local reports suggested the missing explosives were — naturally — the catalyst for his dismissal. In June 2024, a train carrying more than 1,000 tons of explosives was improperly unloaded by Polish troops, the report said, who mistakenly left the anti-tank mines to continue their rail-bound…
Among the resumes of President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for key Pentagon posts, aspiring Air Force secretary Troy Meink’s stands out. As a Defense Department insider with deep acquisition and technology-development experience, Meink would bring to the job a government background unlike that of Trump’s other DOD nominees. And his specialization in space could upend the priorities of a service typically dominated by Air Force interests. Todd Harrison, a senior defense policy fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said choosing a space expert like Meink to lead the Air Force is “consequential” and indicates that space will be a high priority…
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A mysterious airstrip being built on a remote island in Yemen is nearing completion, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show, one of several built in a nation mired in a stalemated war threatening to reignite. The airstrip on Abd al-Kuri Island, which rises out of the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden, could provide a key landing zone for military operations patrolling that waterway. That could be useful as commercial shipping through the Gulf and Red Sea — a key route for cargo and energy shipments heading to Europe…
CESSON-SEVIGNE, France (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron called on Europe Monday to “wake up” and spend more on defense in order to reduce its reliance on the United States for its security, in a speech to the French military as Donald Trump returns to power. Macron referred to expected changes in Washington’s foreign policy, especially regarding the war in Ukraine, saying it was an “opportunity for a European strategic wake-up call,” in his New Year’s speech to the military at the Army Digital and Cyber Support Command based in western France. “What will we do in Europe tomorrow if our…
MANILA, Philippines — Japan and British defense ministers met last week to discuss an ongoing joint fighter jet development program with Italy and to unveil the trinational headquarters for the project in Reading, 36 miles west of London. Japan defense minister Gen Nakatani’s U.K. itinerary includes a meeting with Secretary of State for Defense John Healy on the Global Combat Air Programme and a visit to the headquarters of the GCAP International Government Organization (GIGO), the international body tasked with overseeing its development, production, and future exports. “Today, Minister Nakatani and I have highlighted the positive progress being made on…
ROME — India has been granted observer status on the four-nation Eurodrone program which is edging towards completion. India joins Japan as observer on the project launched by Italy, France, Germany and Spain and run by Europe-based contracting agency OCCAR to build a MALE drone that will give Europe greater autonomy in the drone sector. Developed by Airbus, France’s Dassault Aviation and Italy’s Leonardo, the Eurodrone, with a wing span of 26 meters, will specialize in long-endurance Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) missions. During an October visit to Leonardo facilities in Italy, Eurodrone program officials inspected the mission…
The Pentagon on Tuesday released a list of new officials sworn in this week to run the Defense Department — the most comprehensive look yet at its new team of leaders under the Trump administration. The 32 positions include advisers and deputy assistant secretaries, none of which require Senate confirmation, meaning they can immediately take office. President Donald Trump’s top nominees to run the department are still awaiting approval from Capitol Hill, and these officials will help steer the department in the interim. Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and Army officer, will likely be confirmed as defense secretary…
HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam has traditionally been a loyal client of Soviet and Russian military equipment, but Western companies are looking at the Southeast Asian nation as a market with significant potential. Their interest was evident at the Vietnam International Defense Expo – VIDEX 2024 for short – held here in late December. American prime contractors such as Boeing, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin and Textron were in Hanoi for the second edition of this biennial exposition, as well as European conglomerates like Airbus, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Rheinmetall and Thales. Also remarkable at VIDEX 2024 was the presence of kit belonging to…
PARIS — Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence will provide its combat units with 2.5 billion hryvnia (US$60 million) of direct funding per month to procure their own drones, in a move to allow commanders in the field to buy the equipment they need rather than rely on centralized purchasing. The ministry already provided 2.1 billion hryvia directly to combat units in December for buying drones, and decided to scale up the initiative based on that experience, officials said in a Jan. 22 statement. Allowing troops to buy unmanned aerial vehicles directly allowed for rapid fulfillment of service members’ needs while increasing…
The first two F-15E Strike Eagles rigged with the latest war-fighting software touched down in the United Kingdom last week, according to the Air Force. The duo of F-15Es arrived at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, on Jan. 16, equipped with the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System, or EPAWSS. The system allows F-15 fighters to detect and jam threats through geolocation and radar warning, helping them survive in dangerous environments. The jets will be absorbed into the 494th and 492nd Fighter Squadrons. “Having EPAWSS operational at RAF Lakenheath significantly enhances our ability to detect and counter threats, ensuring the…
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China’s navy has commissioned a new-generation frigate as competition rises with the U.S. and other regional powers, saying the ship will “play a vital role in enhancing the overall combat effectiveness” of its forces. China already has the world’s largest navy in terms of number of hulls, although its technology is sometimes seen as lagging. Its largest competitor, the U.S., has warned its navy could be outnumbered and has called for a building program as well as reforms to put damaged ships into action sooner. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy operates mainly in waters off the Chinese…
The U.S. Army is taking a hybrid next-generation tactical vehicle prototype for a spin in snowy Bavarian terrain, according to a report from the U.S. Army Europe and Africa posted to its website. The GM Defense-developed Next Generation Tactical Vehicle-Hybrid, or NGTV-H, is a diesel-powered, electric light reconnaissance vehicle that the company unveiled at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in October. The Army introduced the prototype to the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, which is conducting testing on the vehicle during Combined Resolve, a recurring U.S. Army exercise held at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels,…
WARSAW, Poland — As two German Patriot air-defense batteries are set to begin full operations in Rzeszów, south-eastern Poland, the two countries’ defense ministers met today near the town that has become a logistics hub for Ukraine aid. Germany has deployed two Patriot batteries to Rzeszów along with around 200 German troops to protect the city’s military logistics infrastructure. Once the systems reach full operational capacity on Jan. 27, they are to ensure anti-missile protection over the area for at least six months, according to Germany’s Ministry of Defense. Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022,…
COLOGNE, Germany — The German defense ministry has kicked off a lengthy process of remodeling its digital operations and business processes with the aim of making the armed forces, or Bundeswehr, more combat-ready while streamlining back-office operations. Under the banner of Enterprise Architecture Management, or EAM, and armed with a freshly awarded contract to the ministry’s own information technology company BWI — one that will ultimately grow into €180 million ($187 million) over 10 years — officials are fanning out across the agency to catalogue how data travels through the vast bureaucracy. The idea is to look under the hood…
Navy researchers are testing a fully autonomous satellite designed to detect and characterize objects in space. The system, called Autosat, is designed to task, calibrate its signals and send and receive information on its own without the need for a human operator. Steven Meier, director of space technology at the Naval Research Laboratory, said Thursday his team has demonstrated the capability in the lab. “We’ve done a demo of this and proven out the principles and are looking for the next step,” he said during a panel at the Potomac Officers Club’s Research and Development Summit in McLean, Virginia. “We…
MILAN — A senior military official of the European Union has urged the bloc to refine its mutual-defense clause and start considering the division of labor in the event of a conflict. Austrian army Gen. Robert Brieger, chairman of the European Union Military Committee, made the recommendation at the European Defense Agency’s (EDA) annual conference in Brussels on Jan 22. Speaking about the need to operationalize Article 42.7 of the Treaty of the European Union, the bloc’s collective-defense stipulation, he argued that there is “a necessity to clarify it; otherwise, it is nice to have, but we do not have…