THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A top military chief in Sweden said January 14, 2022, that there is increased Russian activity in the Baltic Sea that “deviates from the normal picture,” leading the Scandinavian nation’s military to raise its preparedness. “We have decided to reposition our troops. It does not have to mean an increased threat, but we always want to adapt to the prevailing situation,” Swedish Army Lt. Gen Leif Michael Claesson said. Sweden, which is not part of NATO, has noticed landing craft from Russia’s northern navy entering the Baltic Sea. Claesson, who is the operations manager of the Swedish…
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THE WATCH STAFF A mock foreign conflict is being waged across two U.S. states. U.S. Army Special Forces candidates are taking part in a large-scale exercise January 22 to February 4 called Robin Sage, which pits the prospective Green Berets against simulated guerrillas fighting for the fictional nation of “Pineland.” The candidates are students at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Robin Sage, which has been held regularly since 1974, is the final test in their Special Forces Qualification Course. (Pictured: A Special Forces candidate takes part in Robin Sage…
THE WATCH STAFF The U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) plans to have satellites deployed by 2025 that can identify hypersonic weapons in flight. The satellites will make up the low-Earth orbit (LEO) “tracking layer” of an eventual National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). The satellites will detect hypersonic threats by the weapons’ heat signatures, said Dr. Derek Tournear, the SDA’s director, during the Schriever Spacepower Forum hosted January 12, 2022, by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. An ultrafast hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) can take advantage of blind spots in current radar networks because — unlike traditional ballistic missiles — it…
THE WATCH STAFF The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has published an Overarching Space Policy that outlines how the alliance will act in the orbital domain — including its response to attacks on member assets. The document released January 17, 2022, expands on a 2019 classified NATO space policy and a communique released in 2021 that said an attack against one member in space will be considered an attack against all, according to Axios news. There are 30 NATO states, including 1949 founding members Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and United States.…
REUTERS Britain said it would push back at what it casts as attempts by Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to establish national sovereignty over the communications arteries and emerging technologies that will shape the 21st century. Britain depicts the PRC and Russia as strategic rivals whose rush for control of some major technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and microprocessor design could threaten both Western security and a relatively free internet. “China and Russia continue to advocate for greater national sovereignty over cyberspace as the answer to security challenges,” according to Britain’s new National Cyber Strategy.…
REUTERS Finland has chosen U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters to replace aging F/A-18 combat jets and plans to order 64 planes with weapons systems in a U.S. $9.4 billion deal, the government said in December 2021. The purchase is expected to increase Finland’s defense cooperation with allies Norway and the United States, experts said. “When comparing military performance, the F-35 best met our needs,” Defence Minister Antti Kaikkonen told a news conference. Military aircraft manufacturers have been vying for the deal since late 2015, when the Finnish Ministry of Defence began the search for a jet to replace…
THE WATCH STAFF The United States is partnering with Australia, Denmark and Norway to establish guidelines for how governments can safeguard democracy by controlling the export of surveillance technology. In a joint statement released by the White House on December 10, 2021, the four nations said the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative (ECHRI) will be developed over a “year of action” in 2022 to help counter the misuse of commercial technology by authoritarian governments. The White House announcement preceded a warning issued by the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center on January 7, 2022, that informed the public about…
THE WATCH STAFF The U.S. Air Force has accomplished a significant milestone in the development of its “bomb bay in a box” palletized munitions system called Rapid Dragon. An Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130J Commando II aircraft destroyed a target in the Gulf of Mexico with a cruise missile launched from a “palletized deployment box” that was dropped from the plane’s cargo bay, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) announced December 16, 2021. The battle management system on the MC-130 received in-flight targeting data that was routed to the cruise missile. The uploading of new targeting data was a…
THE WATCH STAFF The challenges facing the Arctic have come into greater focus as the region becomes an arena of strategic competition for natural resources. A number of conferences addressed Arctic issues in 2021 — from perspectives ranging from those of the U.S. military and its partners to the cultural and economic. Here is the second installment in a series by The Watch that samples these academic insights. Dr. Marc Lanteigne | Associate professor of political science, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromso (UiT) Lanteigne was a panelist on “China and the Arctic: Great Power Competition, Security and Regional Responses,”…
REUTERS Britain, France, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia and the United States have agreed that a further spread of nuclear arms and a nuclear war should be avoided, according to a joint statement by the five nuclear powers published January 3, 2022. The statement said the five countries, which are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, consider it their primary responsibility to avoid war between the nuclear states and to reduce strategic risks, while aiming to work with all countries to create an atmosphere of security. “We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won…