UPDATED: Obama Calls On China To Halt Reclamation On Reefs WASHINGTON: China is destroying swaths of coral reefs in one of the most important fisheries in Asia and causing enormous environmental damage as it builds the fake islands it is putting up in the South China Sea, To get some idea as to just how extensive China’s…
By Colin ClarkBAE Systems’ LR-PGK: The Superior Anti-Jam Solution
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WASHINGTON: Forget Gandhi and satyagraha. India needs to be more strategically assertive and take China on, a longtime national security advisor to New Delhi said today. And if the US doesn’t like it, then “screw you.” But Washington should like a more aggressive India, said the American-educated Bharat Karnad, because it’s the only thing that can…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
MANASSAS, Va.: Defense contractors often grouse when the military hesitates to buy their products, but usually sotto voce. As John Langford sits in his office at Manassas Regional Airport and contemplates his company’s world-record-setting Orion drone, now sitting disassembled in a nearby hangar, the Aurora Flight Sciences chief executive officer can’t help speaking up. “When…
By Richard Whittle
UPDATED 9:45 am Tuesday with details of operation & Chinese response WASHINGTON: After five months of hints, declarations, mixed messages, and dithering, the US is reportedly set to challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea. But the months of signaling will cost us. What might have been a low-key “freedom of navigation operation” — sailing,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Are we giving Beijing mixed messages? On the one hand, the US Navy is getting ready — maybe — to challenge Chinese claims around their artificial islets in the South China Sea. On the other hand, the Navy’s also preparing to welcome three Chinese warships at Naval Station Mayport in Florida two weeks from…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Timing matters in war and diplomacy. A Chinese JH-7 pilot performed an “unsafe” maneuver in close proximity to an RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft on Sept. 15, the Pentagon confirmed today. With Chinese President Xi Jinping arriving in Seattle tomorrow, one wonders whether the pilot is being praised as a champion of Chinese sovereignty…
By Colin Clark
UPDATED: Adds House Letter To White House CAPITOL HILL: Defense officials acknowledged today that the US has not directly challenged the sovereignty of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea for at least three years. US aircraft have not flown over the artificial islets. Nor have US ships sailed within 12 nautical miles of one…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
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Technological advancements are key to keeping pace with customer demands and evolving threat landscapes.
Updated with Pacific Air Forces comment AFA CONFERENCE: Just as the White House confirmed Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit at the end of this month, Defense Secretary Ash Carter issued a clear call for “an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation by all claimants” in the South China Sea. China, of course, has done the vast majority of the…
By Colin Clark
AFA CONFERENCE: China’s increasing assertiveness and modernizing military are “concerning,” even “disconcerting,” the head of the US Air Force in the Pacific said today. But there are still strong prospects for military-to-military ties, Gen. Lori Robinson told the Air Force Association conference here this morning. Increased Russian patrols complicates US strategy more, Gen. Robinson told me…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a speech billed as all about a new personnel approach for the Pentagon, laid out a clear line in the sand of the temporary islands the Chinese have been building. He reiterated his “deep concern” about “China’s pace and scope of land reclamation in the South China Sea.” Then he let…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ash Carter — for now — is resisting congressional calls to uninvite China from the biggest naval exercise in the world, known as RIMPAC. In a July 16 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, Carter goes to some lengths to avoid offending China, on the one hand, and, on the…
By Colin Clark
From the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea, the US military is getting more and more worried about the threat from various missiles. But all incoming missiles are not the same, which makes missile defense much harder. That’s the problem Raytheon’s SM-6 interceptor tackled in a recent test that has important tactical implications. If you…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: You’d expect the top admiral in the Japan Self-Defense Force to talk about defending Japan. But Adm. Tomohisa Takei surprised me on his latest visit to Washington — his third in 10 months — with a speech that clearly demonstrates how Japan is broadening its strategic perspective. The new view from Tokyo takes in the Indian…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.