Sentry Staff

Sentry Staff The strategic environment has changed from competitive to contested, becoming increasingly combative and presenting challenges unlike any the United States and its Allies and Partners have ever faced, according to Gen. Anthony Cotton, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command. Despite these new hurdles, “The fundamental tenants of strategic deterrence are still valid,” Cotton said. “The mission to deter strategic attacks is as important as ever, as is our mandate to prevail in conflict when directed.” Gen. Cotton delivered these comments during welcoming remarks at the 15th annual U.S. Strategic Command Deterrence Symposium. Held August 13-14 in Omaha, Nebraska, this…

Sentry Staff The United States will begin deploying long-range weapons to Germany in 2026 as part of a long-term defense strategy to counter the growing threat Russia poses to Europe, the two nations announced recently. In a joint statement released during the July 2024 NATO summit in Washington, D.C., the countries said the “episodic” deployments will include Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk missiles and developmental hypersonic weapons, “which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe.” The move will place the U.S. weapons on the European continent for the first time in decades.  “Exercising these advanced capabilities will demonstrate…

Sentry Staff Republic of Korea (ROK) and United States defense officials signed joint nuclear deterrence guidelines for the first time, an important step to improve their ability to respond to North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the “U.S.-ROK Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula,” which defense officials signed on the sidelines of the July 2024 NATO summit in Washington, D.C., The Associated Press (AP) reported.  The two leaders said the agreement is part of “tremendous progress” the countries’ alliance has made a year after…

Sentry Staff The United States Defense Department’s new Arctic strategy acknowledges the security challenges brought to the region by climate change and shifting global alliances and aims to counter threats with new technologies and collaboration with Allies and Partners. “The Arctic region of the United States is critical to the defense of our homeland, the protection of U.S. national sovereignty and the preservation of our defense treaty commitments,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said during a briefing at the Pentagon in July 2024. “Our Arctic strategy will guide the department’s efforts to ensure that the Arctic remains a secure and…

Sentry Staff The United States Department of Defense (DOD) has delivered the first system produced under the department’s Replicator, an initiative to field thousands of attritive autonomous systems by 2025 aimed at countering the People’s Liberation Army’s munitions buildup. The first tranche of drones produced under the initiative, announced by Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Kathleen Hick in August 2023, reached warfighters in the Indo-Pacific in early May 2024, Hicks said in a news release. The delivery “shows that warfighter-centric innovation is not only possible, it’s producing real results,” she said. “Even as we deliver systems, our end-to-end capability development process…

Sentry Staff Analysts have long viewed the Arctic as a successful example of multilateral cooperation, with broad agreement among nations to keep the region conflict-free. However, that ambition now faces increasing challenges as climate change and the shifting geopolitical landscape bring into question who will have access to the region’s resources and how they will be used.  The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is some 1,500 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, but it has shown interest in playing a major role in the region’s development, largely by leveraging its relationship with Russia, which controls about half of the Arctic’s…

Sentry Staff A joint team of United States Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen and U.S. Space Force Guardians conducted two routine tests of unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in June 2024. Both launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the tests — named Glory Trip (GT)-249 (June 4) and GT-250 (June 6) — sent the missiles about 6,750 kilometers to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s (USASMDC) Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS) in the Marshall Islands’ Kwajalein Atoll. Each missile was equipped with one re-entry vehicle. The ICBM community, including the…

Sentry Staff Faced with increasing aggression from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines is turning its attention to this and other outside threats by bolstering collaborations with Allies and Partners to enhance external defenses. Philippine and United States military leaders have identified nine sites where rotating batches of U.S. forces can deploy and preposition their weapons and equipment. In September 2023, Australia and the Philippines upgraded their bilateral ties to a strategic partnership, which includes an annual meeting of defense ministers to address rising security concerns. In April 2024, leaders from Japan, the Philippines and the U.S. held…

Sentry Staff The United States Air Force and international Allies and Partners successfully completed a Bomber Task Force deployment aimed at strengthening integration and combat readiness.  Four U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers assigned to the 69th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, along with support personnel, deployed for Bomber Task Force 24-3 (BTF 24-3) in late May 2024 at Royal Air Force Fairford, United Kingdom, where they began a series of exercises in the U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command areas of responsibility. Nations participating in BTF 24-3included Bahrain, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Qatar,…

Sentry Staff Senior Republic of Korea and United States defense officials recently held their third meeting on developing guidelines to strengthen their response to North Korea’s nuclear threats. The Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) met in June 2024 in Seoul to review principles and procedures for the alliance to maintain and strengthen a credible and effective nuclear deterrence policy and posture, according to a joint statement. Cho Chang-rae, South Korea’s deputy minister for national defense policy, and Vipin Narang, U.S. acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, co-chaired the meeting. Officials from the South Korean National Security Office, U.S. National…