The Watch

THE WATCH STAFF U.S. Air Force bombers joined British warplanes for recent exercises over the North Sea. The venerable B-52 Stratofortress planes from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing in South Dakota joined the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron’s B-1B Lancers from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas on November 10, 2021, to support the Bomber Task Force Europe mission series, according to a news release from U.S. European Command (USEUCOM). Aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford station in England included Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4s, F-15D Eagles and F-15E Strike Eagles. (Pictured: Airmen from the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron…

THE WATCH STAFF The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is building targets in the shape of U.S. warships — focusing on aircraft carriers — at two new desert missile sites. The outlines of the ships were seen in recent photographs provided to the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) News website by the satellite imagery company Maxar. At the first suspected site in the Taklamakan Desert in central China, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has built a full-scale outline of a carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, according to a USNI News analysis by H I Sutton on November…

THE WATCH STAFF The Royal Norwegian Navy frigate Thor Heyerdahl affirmed the nation’s territorial sovereignty on a recent Arctic voyage. The HNoMS Heyerdahl sailed October 23 to the Svalbard archipelago, about 400 miles north of the Norwegian mainland. The ship visited the waters around Spitsbergen, the largest island in the archipelago, and docked at Longyearbyen, which is one of the world’s northernmost settlements. (Pictured: The HNoMS Thor Heyerdahl is underway in the Norwegian Sea during a 2019 NATO deployment) Although Norway was granted “full and absolute sovereignty” over the archipelago in the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, some of the agreement’s provisions…

THE WATCH STAFF The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is issuing an early warning. Air Force Col. Kristopher Struve, NORAD’s vice director of operations, said the capability of potential adversaries to strike the United States with conventional weapons has increased to the point that the homeland is “not a sanctuary any longer,” reported The War Zone, a defense news website. NORAD is a joint United States and Canada organization charged with aerospace warning and aerospace control. Struve discussed the defense of domestic infrastructure during a virtual roundtable hosted by the Missile Defense Advocacy Association (MDAA). Struve said that NORAD…

THE WATCH STAFF In the words of an experienced U.S. Marine Corps. pilot, landing on a carrier in an F-35B Lightning II is “surprisingly easy.” “It’s simply pushing the stick forward to go down,” Lt. Col. Robert Guyette told the Stars and Stripes newspaper of the historic landing that “felt identical” to others he had carried out in the short-takeoff, vertical-landing F-35B. What wasn’t identical: The October 3, 2021, touchdown was the first aboard a Japanese carrier, the JS Izumo, by a fixed-wing aircraft since World War II. (Pictured: A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II conducts a vertical landing…

REUTERS The Pentagon sharply increased its estimate of China’s projected nuclear arsenal, saying that Beijing could have 700 warheads by 2027 and possibly 1,000 by 2030. While the numbers would still be significantly smaller than the current United States nuclear stockpile, they represent a significant change from 2020, when the Pentagon warned the Chinese arsenal would top 400 by the end of the decade. Washington has repeatedly called on China to join it and Russia in a new arms-control treaty. In its annual report to Congress on China’s military, the Pentagon on November 3, 2021, reiterated concern about increasing pressure…

THE WATCH STAFF The United States recently bolstered maritime security in the Bahamas by delivering a radar system to its partner in the Caribbean region. Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), officially delivered the Maritime Surveillance System (MSS) to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) and the Bahamian government. “This maritime domain awareness capability will dramatically expand the Royal Bahamas Defence Force’s ability to detect, localize and track vessels in the waters surrounding their nation,” VanHerck said during the handover ceremony at the Coral Harbour base on New Providence island, according to a news…

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The U.S. Air Force recently flew a B-1B strategic bomber over key maritime chokepoints in the Middle East with allies including Israel amid ongoing tensions with Iran. The B-1B Lancer flew October 30, 2021, over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil traded passes. It also flew over the Red Sea, its narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Egypt’s Suez Canal. (Pictured: Egyptian Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons form off the wing of a U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer as part of a presence patrol above Egypt on…

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Poland’s ruling party leader presented plans for a homeland defense bill on October 26, 2021, aimed at “radically” strengthening the military as the country faces migration pressure from its eastern neighbor Belarus. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the deputy prime minister who is undisputedly the most powerful politician in Poland, said the bill is needed because of a deteriorating international situation. Examples he gave included neighboring “Russia’s imperial ambitions” and the hybrid warfare being waged by Belarus against Poland and other European Union nations using migrants. “If we want to avoid the worst, that is war, we have to act…

REUTERS The United States and Mexico in October 2021 discussed a new joint security plan to fight drug cartels as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Mexico’s president during a visit to strengthen ties between the countries. The Biden administration is increasingly reliant on its southern neighbor to stem the flow of Latin American migrants heading to the United States. Overhauling an earlier security plan, known as the Merida Initiative, is expected to take months as the two sides work out how best to work together. The United States has channeled about U.S. $3.3 billion since 2007 to…