THE WATCH STAFF The leadership of the United States Air Force is delivering a unified message: The U.S. can maintain air superiority over its potential adversaries through modernization — especially when it comes to the next generation of combat aircraft. Senior leaders also agree on their top challenger: China. U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., speaking at the National Press Club on August 6, 2021, warned that Beijing could overcome U.S. air superiority by 2035. Brown, whose remarks were broadcast by the U.S. television network C-SPAN, said the Air Force can hold on to its…
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PÁL DUNAY/GEORGE C. MARSHALL EUROPEAN CENTER FOR SECURITY STUDIES The Russian Federation is one of six states that border the Arctic Ocean. It has the longest Arctic coastline — more than 24,000 kilometers (14,913 miles). More than 2 million Russians (3% of the country’s population) live above the Arctic Circle, the largest population in any Arctic state. Russia’s Arctic region accounts for 11% of the country’s gross domestic product. The exploitation of energy — including 80% of its known natural gas reserves — and other natural resources in its High North bears an outsized importance for Russia. These factors alone…
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The general who leads U.S. efforts to thwart foreign-based cyberattacks and punish those responsible says he’s mounting a “surge” to fight incursions that have debilitated government agencies and companies responsible for critical infrastructure. U.S. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone broadly described “an intense focus” by government specialists to better find and share information about cyberattacks and “impose costs when necessary.” Those costs include publicly linking adversarial countries to high-profile attacks and exposing the means by which those attacks were carried out, he said. “Even six months ago, we probably would have said, ‘Ransomware, that’s criminal activity,’” Nakasone said.…
THE WATCH STAFF When the Air Force deployed its first Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the United States was fighting the Vietnam War and an Army nurse had recently become the military’s first female general. More than 50 years later, 400 Minuteman IIIs still stand guard in their silos. “Minuteman III was a 10-year weapon system that was asked to last 60 years,” Maj. Gen. Anthony W. Genatempo, commander of the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC), said of the 1970 introduction of the ballistic missile. Genatempo spoke about the Minuteman III’s proposed replacement — the Ground-Based Strategic…
THE WATCH STAFF In 2015, a 61-year-old Florida mail carrier lifted off in a gyrocopter from Pennsylvania bound for Washington, D.C. He flew through protected airspace before landing the aircraft on the U.S. Capitol lawn. U.S. Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, in a September 14 online conversation called “Homeland Defense is a Global Endeavor,” used the incident to illustrate how artificial intelligence (AI) is now detecting threats that may have once been missed. “If it flies, we need to identify it. … Either friendly or foe. It could be a military threat, it could be a civilian threat,” said…
Indo-Pacific Defense FORUM Staff When it comes to engagement in the Arctic, China’s approach is much softer than its aggressive tactics in the South China Sea, where it remains in constant disagreement with nations about maritime rights and often instigates spats over freedom of navigation, according to some Arctic experts. The reasons behind the contrasting approaches are many. Two scholars agreed that China faces an increasingly complex atmosphere in its attempts to contribute to the intergovernmental Arctic Council, collaborate with Arctic states and make the case that the future of the Arctic region is a matter of Chinese national security.…
Professor Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen and Dr. Mariia Kobzeva/UiT-The Arctic University of Norway There are two misleading narratives circulating about the Arctic in international politics that cloud the view of the region today. First, that the Arctic is removed from or exceptional from international politics. This narrative became prevalent after the Ukraine crisis in 2014, when some observers expressed surprise at the continuing circumpolar cooperation in many fields between Russia and the seven other Arctic states while relations involving Russia, the European Union, NATO and their member states sharply deteriorated. The second is that the Arctic became part of international politics nearly…
Indo-Pacific Defense Forum Majority-Muslim governments in Central Asia have avoided condemning the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) persecution of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang not only because the PRC’s influence has been growing in the region but also because they want Chinese investment. The Taliban, in its return to power in Afghanistan, has made the same political and economic calculation. In a July 2021 meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, high-level Taliban representatives pledged that in exchange for economic support, they would not allow Afghanistan, which stands at the crossroads of Central and South Asia, to become…
THE WATCH STAFF Norway’s recent announcement that it plans to deploy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft to the Arctic in 2022 is the latest step in the country’s effort to strengthen its defense capabilities in a region of strategic competition. Norway signed a Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA) with the United States, a NATO ally, on April 16, 2021. The deal allows the U.S. to build facilities at three Norwegian airfields and one naval base but will not amount to separate bases. The Ministry of Defence has already approved Evenes Air Station in northern Norway as the main base for its…
THE WATCH STAFF The Department of the Air Force has chosen an Ohio base as the preferred home for the first Air National Guard (ANG) cyberwarfare wing in the United States. With the August 25, 2021, selection of Mansfield-Lahm ANG Base, the cyberwarfare wing will further elevate the National Guard’s capability to be — as U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel, former chief of the National Guard Bureau, once called it — the “Swiss Army knife” of the U.S. military. In this mission, the tool used is the expertise in cybersecurity and information technology that citizen Soldiers and Airmen…