By 2021, plans call for Japan to have eight Aegis destroyers, four of them capable of launching the SM-3 Block IIA missiles, whose second successful test in a row comes as a vindication after two previous failures.

There are times and places in the history of war in which improvements in firepower force anyone in range to take cover instead of advancing, as machineguns and howitzers did a century ago on the infamous Western Front. The fundamental difference today is the width of the killing zone would be measured, not in hundreds or thousands of yards, but in hundreds or thousands of miles.

But while the skies are quiet today, US Pacific Air Forces are preparing for possible conflict: fielding new weapons like the F-35 stealth fighter and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), adding more space-operations planners to theater staffs, and reemphasizing that old-fashioned initiative so junior commanders can act when an enemy cuts off their communications with higher headquarters.

“Long-range precision fires… would provide us the capability (to) either, for example, support the Air Force by suppressing enemy air defenses at hundreds upon hundreds of miles or support the Navy by engaging enemy surface ships at great distances as well,” said Army Secretary Mark Esper. But those examples are two distinctly different missions, each most relevant to a different theater of war.

For insights about how the US military currently views the realities of space war, it’s helpful to consider the recently concluded annual Schriever War Game.

WASHINGTON: Unreleased Pentagon documents and Congressional demands for information reveal that Washington has long planned for the day when the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia would be ripped up. The report by the Joint Staff and Strategic Command, exclusively obtained by Breaking Defense, make clear that as far back as 2013 — a… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Unreleased Pentagon documents and Congressional demands for information reveal that Washington has long planned for the day when the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia would be ripped up. The report by the Joint Staff and Strategic Command, exclusively obtained by Breaking Defense, make clear that as far back as 2013 — a… Keep reading →

France and Australia must resolve major differences over the Aussies’ new submarine program before a new Australian government is elected next year, and the most obvious alternative is Japan.

As the Pentagon wrestles with how to ready itself for competition with China and Russia, the issue of how to move troops, equipment, and supplies around the globe is becoming increasingly important.

  WASHINGTON: Most observers of President Trump’s North Korean diplomacy are understandably skeptical of whether the Hermit Kingdom is any closer to curbing expansion of its nuclear arsenal. But presumptive commander of UN Korean Forces did present evidence today to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the temperature of conflict on the Korean peninsula really… Keep reading →