Sentry Contributor United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) launched its annual nuclear command and control exercise Global Thunder 25 in October 2024. This exercise is a critical component of the U.S. efforts to maintain and enhance its nuclear deterrence capabilities. The exercise involved personnel from across the strategic enterprise, including USSTRATCOM components and subordinate units with the primary objective of ensuring a safe, secure and effective strategic deterrent force. The 2024 iteration also included participation from key NATO Partners, such as the United Kingdom, who integrated with the headquarters staff to provide a U.K. policy perspective and operational insight. The exercise…
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Sentry Staff Tensions between strategic competitors, North Korea’s persistent nuclear weapons expansion and Russia’s attempts to shift Europe’s balance of power with its war against Ukraine have contributed to a coalescing among the United States and its Allies and Partners to modernize strategies that more effectively combat 21st century security threats. Geopolitical changes, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and European regions, threaten to upend decades of peace and stability. Alliances like NATO have met these challenges by more closely linking defense plans that span the globe and battlespace domains. “Never before have NATO and defense plans been so closely interlinked,” Royal…
Col. (Ret.) William T. Eliason/National Defense University Press As Commander of United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), Gen. Anthony Cotton leads a command responsible for strategic deterrence, nuclear operations, global strike, nuclear command, control and communications enterprise operations, joint electromagnetic spectrum operations, and missile threat assessment. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is one of 11 unified commands under the U.S. Defense Department and is composed of 41,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Guardians and civilians operating globally to perform the command’s missions. Gen. Cotton entered the Air Force through the ROTC program in 1986 and earned a bachelor’s degree in…
Sentry Staff Security analysts say the accession of Finland and Sweden into the 75-year-old NATO Alliance will strengthen each nation’s own security posture, better protect the Baltic Sea and Europe’s eastern flank, and bolster those regions’ air and sea capabilities. After decades of military nonalignment, the two nations asked to join the Alliance in 2022 — a decision prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move marks the most significant NATO expansion since the Alliance welcomed members from Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It is also a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought…
Agence France-Presse A United Nations nuclear watchdog agency has called for vigilance against trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material, saying it has recorded more than 4,200 thefts or other incidents over the past 30 years. In 2023, 31 countries reported 168 incidents “in line with historical averages,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. Six of those were “likely related to trafficking or malicious use,” it added. Since 1993, the IAEA has recorded 4,243 incidents, with 350 of them connected or likely to be connected to trafficking or malicious use. “The reoccurrence of incidents confirms the need for vigilance and…
Sentry Staff For 75 years, the United States has stood with, and stood up for, fellow members of NATO, a nuclear alliance that has proven itself as a primary success story for collective defense. As one of NATO’s 12 founding members — others include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom — the U.S. has not only helped build the Alliance’s foundations of peace but also helped to fortify and adapt those foundations as new challenges emerge. The spirit of collective deterrence outlined in Article 5 — an attack on one is…
Sentry Staff When the United States signed a $61 billion supplemental aid package for Ukraine in April 2024, the war-battered country quickly received many of the munitions it requested because of their strategic staging for fast delivery, a key component of the Army Prepositioned Stock (APS) at locations throughout Europe. As part of its global posture, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) maintains stocks of mission-essential equipment, supplies and munitions around the world. In addition to the U.S. Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Air Force also maintain equipment stocks on land and at sea. Materiel at these…
Sentry Staff South Korean President Yook Suk Yeol, then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden held an unprecedented in-person summit in August 2023 at Camp David in Maryland, aimed at deepening relations and addressing geopolitical threats in the region. Analysts see the security agreement as opening the door to greater cooperation and marking a significant step to further ease tensions between Japan and South Korea. The leaders emerged from the 2023 summit with The Spirit of Camp David joint statement, a list of areas of collaborations, including missile defense, cybersecurity, economic development, human rights, financial integrity and…
About 60 countries including the United States endorsed a “blueprint for action” in September 2024 to govern responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military, but the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was among those that refused to support the legally non-binding document. The Responsible AI in the Military Domain summit in Seoul, the second of its kind, followed one held in The Hague in 2023. At that time, around 60 nations including the PRC endorsed a modest “call to action” without legal commitment. Government representatives said this latest plan was more action-oriented, in keeping with advanced discussions and…
NASA’s space shuttle system operated in low Earth orbit for 30 years before its retirement in 2011. However, the U.S. space agency’s replacement for these vehicles, the Orion spacecraft, returned to the conical capsule design familiar from Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. This was because NASA intended that this newer craft be used for exploring targets beyond low Earth orbit. In recent years, however, there’s been a return of the spaceplane design. Since 2010, the U.S. Space Force (and formerly the U.S. Air Force) has been launching a robotic spaceplane called the X-37B into low Earth orbit on classified missions.…