WASHINGTON—Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, wants to refocus the U.S. military on countering China. That has put him at the center of the Trump administration’s abrupt moves on providing weapons to Ukraine.
It was Colby, a 45-year-old grandson of a former Central Intelligence Agency director, who wrote a memo to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early June outlining how Ukraine’s requests for U.S. weapons could further stretch already depleted Pentagon stockpiles.
HONG KONG—China’s military is extending its reach deeper into the Pacific, sending ships and aircraft into new territory in a push that has spurred the U.S. to strengthen defenses and alliances in the region.
Beijing has long resented what it sees as interference by the U.S. and its allies in its traditional sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Now, it is asserting itself more aggressively in its backyard while also pushing well beyond longstanding geographical limits of its military.
Of all the threats that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk hurled at one another as their alliance fell apart, those targeting Musk’s contracts with the US government have the potential to do the most damage.
In one sharp exchange triggered by Musk’s criticism of Trump’s signature tax and immigration bill, Trump threatened to cancel federal contracts with the billionaire’s company, SpaceX, that are worth more than $22 billion. Musk said he would decommission the spacecraft SpaceX uses to send supplies and people to the International Space Station, before walking back the statement.
When Ukrainian drones struck deep inside Russia last month and damaged strategic bombers once considered untouchable, it sent shock waves through military circles. Operation Spider’s Web was more than a display of technological ingenuity; it challenged longstanding assumptions about modern warfare. An outgunned but nimble force using off-the-shelf drones disrupted a far larger adversary. Speed, asymmetry and creativity outmatched legacy systems.
The Department of Defense is standing up a joint interagency task force to tackle drone threats, according to a senior officer.
“We recently did a session with the secretary of defense and we are going to stand up a joint interagency task force” focused on thwarting drones, Gen. James Mingus, vice chief of staff of the Army, said during an event Wednesday co-hosted by AUSA and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS), as it is known in DOD parlance, is a key challenge for the military. Commercial technology has evolved in recent years such that drones on the civilian market are extremely cheap to buy and simple to operate. It has also become less challenging to 3D print parts and devices that can fly.
Ukraine’s drone strike on parked Russian bombers and Israel’s destruction of Iranian air defenses sound a warning for NATO countries: Savvy adversaries can eliminate vital battlefield assets anywhere, before they enter a fight.
That makes the work of preparing for battle more important than ever. Addressing the challenge of protecting and mobilizing forces inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s homeland is rising on the alliance’s must-do list.
The captains of the aerospace industry will gather in Paris next week for the marquee aircraft show and, while order announcements usually grab the headlines, the real driver of value the year will be the further recovery of the pandemic-battered aerospace supply chain, though a new obstacle has emerged.
The world wants more aircraft. Airlines want to expand fleets and replace older aircraft that are more costly to operate. Airbus SE and Boeing Co. want to build more planes. The only hang-up has been the recovery of the aerospace supply chain, one of the hardest hit by Covid-19 and the slowest to recover because of its unique structure.
Honeywell is open to acquiring more companies in Europe to beef up its portfolio as the region ramps up its defense spending and military capabilities.
The North Carolina-based company would consider partnerships and venture investment across Europe, Ben Driggs, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer, said on Sunday. Navigation, safety systems and control systems around thermal management and electrification are among the areas which Honeywell would be interested to expand in, he said.
Commerce Department officials weighed new export limits on critical technology going to China ahead of recent trade talks in London, adding to the Trump administration’s arsenal if tensions between Washington and Beijing escalate again.
The Commerce Department unit overseeing export controls in recent weeks weighed tougher limits on semiconductors, including cutting off sales to China of a wider swath of chip-manufacturing equipment, people familiar with the matter said. Such a move would have covered equipment used to make everyday semiconductors, expanding beyond existing export limits on equipment for producing advanced chips.
BELFAST — NATO needs a drastic uplift in its air and missile defense capabilities if the alliance is to ward off Russian aggression, alliance leader Mark Rutte warned today.
“We need five times as many systems to defend ourselves [than we currently operate] against missiles and air defense,” equivalent to a markup of “400 percent,” he said at a Chatham House thinktank event in London.
“Our maneuverable land formations, we simply do not have enough. The UK, Germany, all over Europe. We do not have enough,” he explained. “Our command and control sensors, our long range weapons … clear gaps are there and we have a heavily reconstituting Russia at a pace, which is really threatening.”
