The Watch

THE WATCH staff A sensor that can help satellites detect hypersonic missiles is one of the experiments aboard an uncrewed spacecraft that recently docked at the International Space Station (ISS). The payload aboard the Cygnus NG-16 supply vessel included the Prototype Infrared Payload (PIRPL), which was developed jointly by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Space Development Agency (SDA) and Missile Defense Agency in partnership with the Northrop Grumman Corp. Cygnus, pictured, was captured by astronauts wielding the space station’s robotic arm on August 12, 2021. PIRPL is designed to study the Earth’s infrared background. It would be used in the “tracking layer” of…

THE WATCH staff When the U.S. military conducts a missile test, it generates so much data that there’s more information to be processed than there are people to process it. “When you look at the amount of data we pull from a test, let’s just pick a [ground-based anti-ballistic missile] test — terabytes of data,” U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill, director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), said recently. Analyzing those terabytes might best be undertaken by using artificial intelligence (AI), Hill said at the 2021 Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, according to an August…

THE WATCH staff A newly commissioned Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) ship — the HMCS Harry DeWolf — is on a maritime odyssey to circumnavigate North America. The Arctic and offshore patrol ship, pictured, left Halifax, Nova Scotia, on August 3, 2021, for its first operational mission that will take it through the Northwest Passage and eventually into the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, where it will support U.S.-led counter-narcotics operations while on its four-month deployment. “This is a mission that fully demonstrates the capabilities of our ship and the new capabilities of the RCN. This goes far beyond just focusing on…

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced new sanctions in July 2021 against Cuba’s national revolutionary police and its top two officials to increase pressure on the communist government following protests on the island. The Police Nacional Revolcionaria (PNR) and the agency’s director and deputy director, Oscar Callejas Valcarce and Eddie Sierra Arias, were targeted in the latest sanctions announced by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The police are part of Cuba’s Interior Ministry, which was already the subject of a blanket designation by Donald Trump’s administration in January 2021. “We hear the cries…

REUTERS Two senior U.S. senators introduced legislation in August 2021 that would fight ransomware attacks on U.S. infrastructure by strengthening protections against the attacks and by sanctioning countries that harbor cybercriminals. Senators Marco Rubio, the Republican vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Democrat Dianne Feinstein, a senior member of the intelligence and judiciary committees, introduced the Sanction and Stop Ransomware Act. The bill would require development of cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure, tighten regulation of cryptocurrency, which is often demanded as ransom, and direct the U.S. State Department and intelligence community to designate as a “state sponsor of ransomware” any country deemed to provide support…

THE WATCH staff Commandos of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) worked with U.S. allies recently when they trained with Operational Detachment Alpha from 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Eleven U.S. Soldiers joined 25 commandos from the RBDF for six weeks of Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) in the Caribbean nation. They worked on maritime commando tactics, techniques and procedures from June 8 to July 31, 2021. The 7th Special Forces Group is headquartered at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. In addition, the United States trained with the RBDF in outboard motor maintenance and repair through the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School…

THE WATCH staff The U.S. Space Force (USSF) is quickly coming of age. The military service is poised to launch its warfighting capability less than two years since itscreation after the activation of its third and final field command — the Space Training andReadiness Command (STARCOM) — during a ceremony August 23, 2021, at Peterson SpaceForce Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Congress established the new service, which is part of the Department of the Air Force, in 2019and sought for it to become operational in 18 months, a deadline it met this summer, according tothe Air Force Times. In addition,…

THE WATCH staff U.S. Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the leader of U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), said the military is “prepared to house and feed [Afghan refugees] for as long as it takes” to get them settled as part of Operation Allies Refuge. Tens of thousands of Afghans who helped U.S. forces during the war in their homeland will receive temporary housing, medical screenings and other services at military bases across the country as the first step in their new lives in the United States, VanHerck said during an August 27, 2021, Pentagon news briefing. “They’re coming here, starting over with what they bring…

THE WATCH STAFF Defense leaders from Canada and the United States said they plan to jointly invest in new technology and capabilities to make sure the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) can defend against new ballistic missile threats. “To meet our security and defense objectives, both countries must be secure within our shared North American continent. The stronger and safer we are at home, the more we are capable of engaging and acting together in the wider world, in support of a strong, rules-based international order,” Canadian Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd…

REUTERS Climate change is dangerously close to spiraling out of control, a United Nations panel said in a landmark report in late August 2021, warning that the world is already certain to face weather-related disruptions for decades, if not centuries, to come. The report has implications for homeland defenders in the United States and around the world and has been labeled an “existential threat” by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “Today, no nation can find lasting security without addressing the climate crisis,” Austin said during a speech at the Leaders Summit on Climate, a virtual gathering of 40 world…