REUTERS Finland will decide whether it will apply to join the U.S.-led NATO alliance in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin, pictured, said on April 13, 2022, underlining a shift in security perspectives since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland and fellow Nordic state and neighbor Sweden are close partners with NATO but have shied away from joining the 30-member alliance, founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War. “We have to be prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia,” Marin told reporters at a joint news conference in Stockholm with her Swedish counterpart. She said the option to…
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REUTERS Canada will boost military spending slightly over the next five years and review its overall defense policy in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government said on April 7, 2022. The annual budget promised to spend more than U.S. $6.4 billion extra between 2022-23 and 2026-27 on the Armed Forces. Officials said this meant the defense budget in 2022-23 would be 2.7% higher than had initially been forecast. Canada currently spends 1.36% of GDP on defense, and a senior government official said the new spending should push that up to 1.5% by 2026-27. That is still…
THE WATCH STAFF U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond often asserts that Earth’s orbital domain must remain “accessible, stable and secure.” The U.S. Space Force (USSF) is taking an important step to realize that goal by acquiring technology to provide Raymond’s service with a real-time picture of space. The USSF awarded Slingshot Aerospace a U.S. $25-million, 39-month contract March 31, 2022, for its Digital Space Twin, according to a news release from the contractor. The contract was funded by Space Systems Command and the USSF’s venture branch, SpaceWERX, according to the news release. It also includes pilot programs…
THE WATCH STAFF With a record-setting flight test, the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reached another milestone in the development of a Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). The vehicle tested was the Lockheed Martin version of a HAWC cruise missile, which set a record for hypersonic flight — greater than five times the speed of sound — under scramjet power, DARPA reported in an April 5, 2022, news release. The test was the second successful flight in the agency’s HAWC program. In 2021, a vehicle configuration from the contractor Raytheon also reached hypersonic…
THE WATCH STAFF A U.S. Navy warship has visited the Bahamas for the first time since the onset of the COVD-19 pandemic. The Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter’s scheduled stop in Nassau April 3-7, 2022, was hailed as a “wonderful illustration” of the partnership between the countries by Chargé d’Affaires Usha Pitts of the U.S. Embassy. “We have to remember that some country will patrol the ocean, will make a show of force and will hold other countries accountable for their behavior. I thank God it is the U.S. doing it and that we have the tools, like USS Porter,…
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Australia’s government in March 2022 launched Space Command, a new defense agency tasked with securing the country’s place in an “already contested” cosmos. Defence Minister Peter Dutton said the command would be modest in its early stages. He gave no detailed staffing or budget figures. In a speech to the Australian Air Force, he said space “will undoubtedly become a domain that takes on greater military significance in this century.” “Space is becoming more congested and is already contested, particularly as the boundaries between competition and conflict become increasingly blurred through grey-zone activities,” the minister said. Dutton positioned…
U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND Within the past 20 years, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has demonstrated an interest in the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean, but is its claim to the northernmost sea legitimate? The Arctic Council’s answer is a resounding “no.” The Arctic Council is an organization comprised of the eight nations whose borders touch the Arctic Ocean: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. The council’s decisions revolve around environmental action, scientific programs and assessment, and emergency preparedness, and they provide recommendations to other world organizations. Council members have claims to territory within…
THE WATCH STAFF Britain is making defense of the Arctic a priority of its future military strategy, which also urges its fellow NATO nations to have a more energetic presence in the High North. Ben Wallace, the U.K. defense secretary, announced the March 29, 2022, publication of his country’s revised strategy, “Defence Contribution in the High North,” during a visit to Norway for the large-scale Cold Response military exercise. “The U.K. Armed Forces will be doing more with our close Arctic allies and partners, as part of NATO, bilaterally, and through other multilateral groupings such as the Joint Expeditionary Force,”…
THE WATCH STAFF In a first for a U.S. Navy vessel, the nuclear attack submarine USS Delaware was commissioned while underwater in 2020 as COVID-19 spread across the land. Since then, the submarine has been in training — until Saturday, April 2, 2022. That’s when, in a public ceremony delayed two years by the pandemic, U.S. President Joe Biden commissioned the USS Delaware, saying it would enhance national security. The commander in chief told a crowd of invited guests and dignitaries assembled on a restricted dock in Wilmington, Delaware, that the latest Navy vessel to carry the state’s name “is…
THE WATCH STAFF The U.S. Army will experiment with drone swarms that act in concert to overwhelm potential enemies. The tests will be carried out at an aviation-focused Army exercise leading up to Project Convergence in the second half of 2022, the director of the service’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team (FVLCFT) told Defense News in an April 5, 2022, story. The aviation exercise, Edge 22, will take place at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah in May. Edge is a prelude to Project Convergence, the Army’s contribution to military-wide Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) that will link data…