Defense

To burst China’s anti-access/area-denial bubble, the U.S. Army is looking at using high-flying balloons with payloads that can monitor the battlefield, relay communications and strike adversaries. The Army has tinkered with high-altitude balloons for some time, but interest and experimentation have grown in recent years. Against China’s growing arsenal in the vastness of the Pacific, those…

The Army is preparing for the grim possibility of burying fallen soldiers on the battlefield, testing how fast it can dig temporary graves while preserving remains for eventual identification and return to families after the end of a conflict.  During an exercise in North Carolina, engineers, preventative medicine teams, chaplains and fatality management specialists prepared for mass temporary…

Unmanned systems now inflict more than 90% of Russia’s casualties on the front lines in Ukraine, yet no NATO military, including America’s, has begun the overhaul that kind of war demands, Ret. Army Gen. David Petraeus said Oct. 16, weeks after the Pentagon announced a new command for autonomous warfare. The extent of the drone war is underestimated, with Ukraine and Russia each using roughly…

Saudi Arabia appears to be expanding its ballistic missile factory to build larger solid-fuel missiles that could fly farther or carry heavier payloads, according to two U.S. researchers who analyzed more than a year of commercial satellite images. More capable missiles could help Saudi Arabia to deter attacks by Iran and make its military more self-reliant, while possibly strengthening its…