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Public Services and Procurement Canada has confirmed that Lockheed Martin and Saab are the only contenders that “remain eligible” in the long-delayed plan to supply the RCAF with 88 new fighters as replacement for its legacy fleet of CF-188 Hornets.

The UN says the global need for humanitarian aid is rocketing toward an all-time high in 2022 as COVID-19, climate change and regional conflicts exacerbate the prospect of widespread famine. Accordingly, its humanitarian relief arm appealed today for a record US$41 billion in funding to help people it says are most in need, up from $35 billion in 2021 and double what it sought four years ago.

Lockheed Martin has developed a pared-down F-35 trainer with 90 per cent less hardware which could see air forces expand their training capacity at reduced cost. F-35 Mission Rehearsal Trainer Lightning Integrated Training Environment was unveiled after some 18 months of development and demonstrations to customers.

European Union defence ministers have approved 14 collaborative projects designed to boost the bloc’s military capabilities in in many domains. They include a new large strategic long-haul air transport, a semi-autonomous naval vessel, a “next-generation” small drone and a “three-step approach combining training for space military operations, space resilience and access to space and in-space maneuverability.

Discrete mission-specific weapons appear to be on the way out for the U.S. Air Force as it transitions to generic munitions with “low-cost, swappable” payloads that can be used in a variety of ways. MGen Jason R. Armagost, a global strike command planner, disclosed the plan Nov. 30, saying that the “multi-domain” munitions would comprise the main body of USAF conventional weaponry. Its only specialty weapons likely would be long-range missiles and heavy munitions.

The Ehud air combat maneuvering instrumentation and analysis system from IAI played a major role in the recent international Blue Flag exercise held recently in Israel. 

William LaPlante, a former U.S. assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition until he left for the private sector in 2015, has been tapped to become Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment for the Department of Defense.

The U.S. Defense Department says its latest annual global posture review is “complete” but it has been derided by Benjamin H. Friedman, policy director at the Defense Priorities think-tank. “It arrives at last today, sort of, with a whimper,” he said Nov. 29. “The Pentagon . . . issued a short press release heralding its achievements, which appear to be none. . . . The Pentagon effectively patted itself on the shoulder in secret and told taxpayers ‘trust us; all is well.’ It isn’t.”

Military electronics specialist Aselsan, Turkey’s largest defense company, has signed a deal with two Ukrainian businesses to upgrade Ukrainian-made versions of the Russian-designed Mi-8 medium-lift helicopter. More than 17,000 have been produced and, still manufactured today, are flown in 80 countries and an Aselsan official says “the deal will involve all Mi-8s in the inventory of several militaries.”

Four weeks after the U.S. Department of Defense said it had found no evidence of misconduct in a drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Afghanistan in March 2019, the department opened up new investigation Nov. 29. Gen Michael X. Garrett, head of Army Forces Command, has been 90 days by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to review the strike and how its results were briefed up the chain of command. The New York Times, which broke the story, said the original investigation by the Inspector General reportedly was “stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike.”

The U.S. wants Canada to commit medical units and drones to UN peacekeeping missions and to fulfill a commitment at a November 2017 UN ministerial meeting in Vancouver to provide a 200-member military rapid-reaction force. Part of preparations for a summit next week in South Korea, the request came in a diplomatic note to Global Affairs Canada dated Nov. 8 which thanks Canada for previous deployments but stresses the need to do more.

Human Rights Watch said today that the Taliban have summarily killed or “disappeared” more than 100 former Afghan police and intelligence officers since taking power in mid-August. The New York-based group says the Taliban have been using employment records to targeted those who surrendered and were promised amnesty. “The pattern of killings has sown terror throughout Afghanistan, as no one associated with the former government can feel,” the group says.