Author: Defenceline Webdesk

WASHINGTON — The Air Force on Tuesday awarded Boeing a roughly $2.4 billion contract to produce a new batch of 22 F-15EX fighter jets, narrowly meeting a deadline to disburse reconciliation funds.  Despite headwinds like inflation and a 2025 strike that stopped work at Boeing’s F-15 production line, the Air Force said in a press release that the service struck an agreement that managed to preserve all 22 aircraft planned for the jet’s seventh production lot.  “Lot 7 reflects a disciplined approach to executing available resources while balancing the realities affecting defense production,” Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich, the portfolio acquisition…

Febry Triantama has asked difficult questions in these pages about the strategic reasoning behind Indonesia’s acquisition of KRI Sriwijaya, a small aircraft carrier formerly owned and operated as the Giuseppe Garibaldi by the Italian Navy. Much regarding the future of the carrier (and the future of the Indonesian Navy) depends on how much Indonesia invests in maintaining and optimizing the vessel and its air wing. The acquisition of the warship puts Indonesia into a growing club of navies in the Western Pacific to operate aircraft carriers. In recent years Australia, India, China, and Japan have all built or acquired flat-decked…

SINGAPORE — China has announced the opening of a new airbase in Laos, described as a joint training center but marking its third overseas military base, and the second in Southeast Asia. China’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) said on social media on Tuesday that the China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center at Ban Keun Airport in Laos and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy started operations. “The establishment and operation of the two institutions reflect mutual respect and equal consultation between China and Laos, aligning with domestic laws of both countries, as well as international law and common practices,” the…

The Pentagon will create a combatant command to lead its efforts to develop and deploy robotic weapons, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday in a speech peppered with Bible verses and insults to the press. The new Autonomous Warfare Command, or AUTOWARCOM, will be “a new four-star combatant command with service-like authorities built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force,” Hegseth said. It is to stand up by Oct. 1, 2027, according to a memo released after his speech.The secretary seemed to say that planning for the new command would flow from the three-month-old direct reporting portfolio manager…

From September 7 to 10, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira paid official visits to Singapore and Thailand. This followed his attendance at the 3rd Brazil-ASEAN Trilateral Meeting and the Conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, held in Manila, from July 22 to 24. Between these two events, the secretary-general of ASEAN, Kao Kim Hourn, was invited by the Brazilian government to visit the country on a working visit from August 17 to 22.  These events demonstrate the Brazilian government’s recent efforts to strengthen relations with ASEAN. It is worth remembering…

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today announced a series of new initiatives, highlighted by plans to create a new four-star command centered on drones and a new working group on the future of defense. In a speech at Quantico, Va., billed as a “State of the Force,” Hegseth also discussed major cuts to the number of general officers at the Pentagon. The biggest news focused on the new command, which Hegseth dubbed Autonomous Warfare Command, or AUTOWARCOM, that will have “service-like authorities built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force in the fastest peacetime shift in…

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon’s comptroller has a bit of advice for tech makers and founders who want to do business with the military: Make tech that troops like, find out who can buy it for them, and hire someone who knows how things work. . “Having the users like your products is incredibly necessary. That’s a given. But it’s the program offices and the [portfolio acquisition executives, or] PAEs who really have the power to make you successful,” Jules Hurst, the Defense Department’s chief financial officer, said at Y Combinator’s Startup Industrial Base event Wednesday. “You have to provide the solution to them.…

Last week at the United Nations General Assembly, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese officially launched Australia’s campaign for a 2029-2030 non-permanent Security Council seat. Australia last held one of the non-permanent seats in 2013-2014, a period of geopolitics that now seems an entire era away, not just over a decade. Given that we have now entered into a new, far more uncertain, period of international affairs, Canberra has decided that it should have a seat at the table to help shape the global environment. In his bid launch, Albanese argued that foreign conflicts – and potential conflicts – will increasingly…

WASHINGTON ― The White House has formally named its choices to lead US Space Command and serve as the second-highest ranking officer in the US Navy as part of a nomination package sent to the Senate. Lt. Gen. David Miller, currently the deputy Space Force chief responsible for requirements and budget planning, has been nominated for a fourth star, according to Tuesday’s notice, and a SPACECOM spokesperson today confirmed that he was nominated to lead the command. If confirmed, he would replace Gen. Stephen Whiting, who is set to retire at the end of the year. Miller, whose call sign…

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Jouko Ahvenainen – founder and chairman of Mission Grey and serial entrepreneur in data analytics, fintech, and external intelligence – is the 528th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”  In what ways is artificial intelligence shaping geopolitical trends in the Asia-Pacific? AI is increasingly connecting technology policy, national security, industrial policy, and geopolitics. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Asia-Pacific. It is important, however, not to see the region simply…