March 28, 2024

Mattis: North Korea No. 1 US Threat

DefSec James Mattis

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DefSec James Mattis declared North Korea the “most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security,” before the House Armed Services Committee, moving Kim Jong Un’s regime past Russia as the No. 1 threat that the US faces. North Korea’s persistence of nuclear missile tests is a clear and present danger to all and has not abated even with the sanctions being imposed on them, reports The Washington Post.

DefSec Mattis told members of the HASC he did not yet have funding projections for the troops, ships, and jets President Donald Trump has talked about and offered assurances the budget released in May was the first step toward that goal. The military buildup will happen in 2019 to 2023, Defense News reports.

The effectiveness of the nation’s arsenal of cyberweapons are a disappointment against ISIS, an enemy that exploits the Internet largely to recruit, spread propaganda, and use encrypted communications, all of which can be quickly reconstituted after American “mission teams” freeze their computers or manipulate their data, reports The New York Times.

Russia has developed a cyberweapon dubbed CrashOverride that can disrupt power grids, The Washington Post reports. In December, hackers briefly shut down one-fifth of the electric power generated in Kiev and with modifications could be deployed against US distribution and transmission systems with devastating effects.

The Navy is considering borrowing Air Force training aircraft while the T-45s remain out of commission, reports Fox News. The T-45s have been grounded since April 5 after about 100 instructor pilots refused to fly the planes due to safety concerns over oxygen problems. On April 17, the grounding was lifted for instructors but not student pilots.

Boeing and Huntington Ingalls have been tasked with creating the Echo Voyager, a massive unmanned, autonomous submarine weighing 50-tons and measuring more than 50-feet long, reports Navy Times. It is designed to be able to stay underwater for months at a time and fulfill a variety of roles, such as firing missiles, dropping mines, or conducting underwater research.

Unanimous US appeals court stomped on President Trump’s revised travel ban, saying the administration violated federal immigration law and failed to provide a valid reason for keeping people from six mostly Muslim nations from coming to the country, reports The Washington Post. Attorney General Jeff Sessions insisted the new decision would harm national security — an argument the judges rejected.

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) will be the first two carriers to field the Navy’s MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling tanker. The two carriers will receive upgrades to include the control stations and data links needed to control the tanker, Naval Air Systems Command spokeswoman Jamie Cosgrove told USNI News.

Seven of the 12 men and women who made it into NASA’s 2017 astronaut candidate class are members of the military, Military Times reports.

Senators struck a deal Monday night on a new round of Russian sanctions, moving to punish the resurgent Cold War enemy for fostering unrest in European neighbors and meddling in the US election last year. Top Democrats and Republicans announced the deal as an attachment to an Iran sanctions bill already under consideration, reports The Washington Times.

The Pentagon wants to upgrade its new retirement package, so the military’s longest-serving enlisted personnel have greater incentive to remain in uniform, Military Times reports. The new program is set to debut Jan. 1.

The May 2017 jobs reports from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals the percentage of unemployed post-9/11 veterans went up again in May, reports Military Times. Also in May, 4.6 percent of post-9/11 vets were unemployed, compared to 3.9 percent in April, which was the lowest on record.

Contracts:

ManTech Advanced Systems International Inc., Fairfax, Virginia, is being awarded an $80,278,296 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for warfare analysis, modeling and simulation, software development, Department of Defense architectural framework products, acquisition analysis and support, and analytic program support. These services are in support of the Naval Air Systems Command’s Mission and Engineering and Analysis Department naval and joint warfighting capability assessment and warfighting analytic efforts. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and the ordering period is expected to be completed in June 2022. No funds will be obligated at time of award, funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals, two offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-17-D-0036).

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