Senior US officials have visited China recently, including Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in an effort to improve relations between the two nations and prevent a conflict
The US is working with India on proposals to co-produce extended-range artillery and infantry vehicles to meet its operational requirements along its border with China and address its "coercion and harassment", a top Pentagon official said on Thursday. The Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an over-three-year confrontation in certain friction points in eastern Ladakh. This is part of the unprecedented steps being undertaken by the Biden administration to enable its allies and partners to contribute to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, said Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, in prepared opening remarks for his Congressional hearing on China. The hearing is taking place at a time when relations between the US and China have been hit badly amid disputes over human rights, access to technology, China's territorial claims in the South China and East China seas and threats against self-governing Taiwan. Pentagon, he said, is supporting
The Pentagon announced a new USD 1.3 billion package of long-term military aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, including four air defense systems and an undisclosed number of drones. The new assistance comes on the heels of a meeting Tuesday by defense and military leaders from around the globe to discuss ongoing efforts to give Ukraine the weapons it needs in its battle to retake territory seized by Russian forces. Included in the aid, which is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, will be funding for four National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, and munitions for them, as well as Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade drones. Unlike the presidential drawdown authority that the Pentagon has used repeatedly over the past 17 months to pull weapons from its own stocks and quickly ship them to Ukraine, the USAI-funded equipment could take a year or two to get to the battlefront. As a result, this new package will do little to help Ukraine in its current ..
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Pentagon's Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh explained the different treatment being meted out to Turkey and India for getting delivery of Russia's S-400 missile system
The United States said that the valuation errors did not limit Washington's provision of support to Ukraine
Ryder added that the Pentagon was not aware of China setting up any type of military base in Cuba or elsewhere in the region
Former President Donald Trump described a Pentagon plan of attack and shared a classified map related to a military operation, according to an indictment unsealed Friday. The document marks the Justice Department's first official confirmation of a criminal case against Trump arising from the retention of hundreds of documents at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. Trump disclosed the existence of the indictment in a Truth Social post Thursday night as well as in a video he recorded. The indictment accuses Trump of having improperly removed scores of boxes from the White House to take them to Mar-a-Lago, many of them containing classified information.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US this month will set new benchmarks for bilateral ties and big announcements are likely to be made on defence industrial cooperation and boosting India's indigenous military base, the Pentagon has said. Prime Minister Modi will embark on his first state visit to the US at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden this month. During his four-day visit starting on June 21, the US president and the First Lady will host Modi for a state dinner on June 22. When Prime Minister Modi comes here to Washington for a State Visit later in the month, I think it will be a historic visit setting new benchmarks for the relationship, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner said during a panel discussion at the Center for New American Security on Thursday. I think it (the visit) will be looked back upon similar to how the Japan two plus two earlier this year was a pivotal moment in the relationship
Several media outlets and millions of Twitter users took the fake verified Twitter account 'Bloomberg Feed' for a real Bloomberg-affiliated account, as it had a blue check
However, Pentagon does not have any indications that China has provided lethal assistance to Russia
The idea of physically capturing or taking over a satellite has been considered a largely impossible task, although it has featured, famously, in the film such as "You Only Live Twice"
As Pentagon jobs go, Teixeira's was pretty junior and his job description says workers like him "keep our communications systems up and running and play an integral role in our continuing success"
Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, 21, had been detained by authorities in connection with the document breach
The online leaks of scores of highly classified documents about the Ukraine war present a very serious" risk to national security, and senior leaders are quickly taking steps to mitigate the damage, a top Pentagon spokesman said Monday. Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, told reporters that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin first became aware on Thursday that a number of classified briefing slides detailing the U.S. military efforts in the Ukraine war and intelligence involving other nations were leaked. In the days since Austin was notified, he has reached out to allies, held daily meetings to assess damage and set up a group not only to assess the scope of the information lost but review who has access to those briefings. The department is looking closely at how this type of information is distributed and to whom, Meagher said, but would not say if steps had already been taken to tighten control over who can access it. At the State Department, ..
The US military must be ready for possible confrontation with China, the Pentagon's leaders said Thursday, pushing Congress to approve the Defence Department's proposed USD 842 billion budget that would modernize the force in Asia and around the world. "This is a strategy-driven budget and one driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People's Republic of China," Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in testimony before the House Appropriations subcommittee on defence. Pointing to increases in new technology, such as hypersonics, Austin said the budget proposes to spend more than USD 9 billion, a 40 per cent increase over last year, to build up military capabilities in the Pacific and defend allies. The testimony comes on the heels of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow, amid concerns China will step up its support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine and increasingly threaten the West. China's actions, said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman o
The Pentagon's inspector general said on Tuesday that to date his office has found no evidence that some of the billions of dollars in weapons and aid to Ukraine has been lost to corruption or diverted into the wrong hands, but cautioned that those investigations are only in their early stages. Keeping military aid to Ukraine protected from waste or fraud has become a critical part of keeping continued support for Ukraine intact in Congress, where some lawmakers have already begun to question why the US is spending so much to help Kyiv. Robert P. Storch was pressed by Congress members several times about any fraud findings. He said that a number of tips and allegations have come in to a new hotline, but that there have been limited findings to date, with many reports pending. Storch, who was testifying with other Pentagon leaders before the House Armed Services Committee, repeatedly said he did not want to talk about investigations that have not yet been completed. Rep. Mike Rogers
The US Department of Defense (DOD) has released a selfie image taken by an American pilot which shows the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month
The military will try to recover the object downed over Lake Huron, which they said likely fell in Canadian waters, to learn more about it
The US wants to be not only India's security partner of the first resort but also its premier partner in its extraordinary growth story, the Pentagon has said. These remarks were made by Pentagon Press Secretary Brig Gen Patrick Ryder on Wednesday while responding to a question on the recently launched India-US initiative on critical emerging technologies, which has a significant defence component in it. The high level of participation from across the US government, US industry, and our universities is unprecedented, and sends a strong signal that the United States wants not only to be India's security partner of first resort but to be the premier partner in India's extraordinary growth story, Ryder said. The Department of Defence is excited to work with other US agencies and partners as part of the White House-led United StatesIndia Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), he said. We look forward to sharing more information on our defence cooperation with India a