21 Aug - Task Force Commander and Air Operations Officer for Operation Soprano provide cross mission support to United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa.
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IN THE NEWS
Oct 15
Ethical hackers apparently have found critical vulnerabilities in Department of Defense systems through a “hack the proxy” program which probed the DoD’s virtual private networks. Of the 312 vulnerabilities identified, nine were considered “high severity.” An Army secure file-sharing site was taken offline last year after a similar exercise disclosed a critical weakness.
Oct 15
Defender Europe 2020, a U.S.-led exercise involving at least a dozen NATO allies, is expected to be the largest military exercise in Europe in the last 25 years. Drills involving 37,000 personnel are to be held in 10 counties, mainly in Germany and Poland. U.S. forces and equipment are expected to begin arriving in February to prepare for the April-May exercise.
Oct 15
Approximately 500 U.S. Army troops are being deployed to Lithuania for winter training staring in the Pabradė region of eastern Lithuania. The exercise includes 30 tanks and 95 other vehicles.
Oct 15
Capt. Kevin Domon-Grenier, Snowbird 5 in the RCAF’s CT-114 Tutor demonstration team, ejected safely from his Tutor jet just before an Oct. 13 airshow in Atlanta, Ga. There were no injuries on the ground when the aircraft crashed in a sparsely-populated area. The rest of the show was cancelled.
Oct 15
A merger of Raytheon Co. and United Technologies Corp. has been approved by shareholders in separate meetings. The transaction, resulting in Raytheon Technologies Corp., is expected to close early next year once UTC has divested non-aerospace subsidiaries and the deal has regulatory approval.
Oct 15
If test shots of precision strike missiles being developed by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin later this year are successful, they could set the stage for the U.S. Army to push its potential range parameters to at least 550km. The tests are scheduled for November and December at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Oct 15
A strategic cannon with a potential range of nearly 2,000km is being considered by the U.S. Army. It is collaborating with the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and a U.S. Navy support centre in Virginia on development of a prototype by 2030.
Oct 15
U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy says modernization programs are threatened by budget haggling in Congress. “Our adversaries are investing in tomorrow today, unconstrained by a continuing resolution and singularly focused on shifting the current balance of power," he says, lamenting a congressional measure which could effectively freeze spending.
Oct 15
Nearly 60,000 Kurds trained by the U.S. and allies over the last few years are under sustained assault by Turkish forces in northern Syria. A counterterrorism campaign to knock out Daesh sleeper cells is at risk of collapsing as Turkish aerial bombardments destroyed a camp tasked with taking out insurgents and their financial backers. President Donald Trump, who effectively paved the way for the Turkish invasion, said Oct. 14 that the Kurds may intentionally be releasing Daesh prisoners to draw the U.S. back in to the conflict.
Oct 11
The U.S. Air Force says its newest missile early warning satellite has passed a preliminary design review. The Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared system is being built to replace the Space-Based Infrared System. Contracts for five of the new satellites have been awarded: three to Lockheed Martin for geosynchronous orbit and two to Northrop Grumman for polar surveillance.
Oct 11
A National Iranian Oil Co. oil tanker has been damaged by two missiles and a NIOC spokesman says the weapons were “possibly” from Saudi Arabia because it was only 96km from the Jeddah seaport on the Red Sea. Despite the damage, the vessel apparently is continuing its voyage.
Oct 11
Four more Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers and approximately 350 personnel from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, have been deployed to Royal Air Force Fairford in England. for integration and interoperability training. Six B-52s were flown to Fairford from Barksdale in April, the largest such deployment since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003.
Oct 11
The North Korean foreign ministry is threaten yet again to resume nuclear and long-range missile tests, accusing the U.S. of having instigated a European condemnation within the UN Security Council of the latest weapons tests. The ministry says talks in Sweden last weekend by Pyongyang and Washington had collapsed because the U.S. offered no new proposals.
Oct 11
Sikorsky’s “optionally manned” S-70 helicopter, one of the latest iterations of its Hawk platform, is being used to test autonomous technology which the company says can be easily retrofitted to other models. A fully-autonomous flight is expected next year.
Oct 11
South Korea is preparing for the second phase of its procurement of Lockheed Martin F-35s, which will increase its fleet to 60 from 40. The cost of the additional buy is put at approximately US$3.3 billion.
Oct 11
Shareholders in United Technologies Corp. and Raytheon are scheduled to vote Oct. 11 on a proposed merger which would create one of the largest defense and aerospace companies in the world. The proposed all-stock deal, unveiled in June, would result in a company called Raytheon Technologies, which would be second in the U.S. aerospace and defence sector only to Boeing in terms of revenue.
Oct 10
In the first of a series of election-oriented speeches earlier this year, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said that if he becomes prime minister, he would remain committed to traditional allies, “depoliticize” military procurement, buy new submarines and join the U.S. ballistic missile defence program. There were no fiscal commitments. As of Oct. 10, his party has yet to present its platform for the Oct. 21 election but a review of its website showed only brief points on those military alliances and the procurement proposal.
Oct 10
The Liberal Party’s campaign platform for the Oct. 21 federal election devotes just 315 words (page 70) to reaffirming Canada’s long-standing defence commitments. They include “stronger oversight and responsible investments” as well as continued involvement in international peacekeeping and expanding role in NATO and the UN, including more funding.
Oct 10
Oct. 17-18 has been set aside by an Ottawa court to hearing a bail application by Cameron Ortis, the former RCMP intelligence director charged with breaching the Security of Information Act and other statutes by allegedly collecting information for possible disclosure. He faces seven counts from early 2015 until his arrest in mid-September.
Oct 10
The Congressional Budget Office says the U.S. Navy would have to spend $200 billion more than its original budget of $600 billion to expand its fleet to 355 ships over the next couple of decades. The latest forecast assumes all ships proposed in the USN’s latest plan but the fleet mix could change as the Department of Navy considers large unmanned vessels. The USN currently has 290 vessels but would need to commission 304 replacements and additions by 2034 to attain its stated target
Oct 10
Two British militants believed to be part of an ISIS group commonly referred to as “The Beatles” are being detained by U.S. officials after their extraction from a Kurdish detention centre in northeastern Syria. They and others were removed due to concerns that they could escape during the current Turkish invasion of the region. El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey were part of an ISIS group that had held more than 20 western hostages in 2014-15, including seven American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers as well as Syrian prisoners who were beheaded on camera.
Oct 10
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says there was “no blackmail” by U.S. President Donald Trump during a July 25 telephone conversation which has fuelled the push for Trump’s impeachment. Playing down suggestions that Trump pressed him to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden in exchange for military aid to help Ukraine battle Russian-backed separatists, Zelenskiy says he only learned afterward that the U.S. had blocked the aid.
Oct 10
Henry Kyle Frese, a Defense Intelligence Agency official in Virginia, has been charged ith leaking classified information to two journalists. Arrested by the FBI Oct. 9 when he arrived for work, the 30-year-old is alleged to have accessed at least five classified reports and provided information about another country’s weaponry to one of the journalists with whom he had a relationship.
Oct 10
President Donald Trump’s proposed Space Force as a sixth branch of the Department of Defense is being questioned by members of the Sustainable Defense Task Force within the Washington-based Center for International Policy. Pointing out that its development depends partly on how the current National Defense Authorization Act addresses parallel proposals, the task force argues against its creation because of the increased bureaucracy, “unworkable” high-tech weaponry and overall cost.
Oct 10
A Royal Canadian Air Force Boeing C-17 had U.S. support on this year’s resupply run to Canadian Forces Station Alert on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island. Operation Boxtop out of Thule, Greenland, also involved Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transports flown by the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard. More than 45 tonnes of cargo was transported between Sept. 26 and Oct. 4.
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