Pentagon - Page 26

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday officially signed off on sending more U.S. troops to the nation’s southwestern border ahead of a caravan of migrants headed north from Central America.

Two of the 40 prisoners still held at the U.S. military detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, cannot leave after they refused to cooperate with authorities arranging their release when former President Barack Obama was in office, the Miami Herald learned from the facility’s commander this week.

A Pentagon program for immigrants who can bring critical skills into the U.S. military in exchange for citizenship accepts over 80 percent of recruits, according to Army Secretary Mark Esper, contrary to reports that suggest the Pentagon has been increasingly rejecting applicants.

Employees of Microsoft have issued an open letter requesting that the company not bid on the U.S Military’s JEDI program, joining Google employees who have also refused to bid on the project.

Google will reportedly not be bidding on the JEDI contract, a massive Department of Defense cloud computing contract worth $10 billion, with the company citing its “A.I. Principles” for its refusal to bid.

Jihadist groups, namely al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), remain “the primary trans-national terrorist threat” to the United States despite 17 years of U.S.-led military efforts against radical Islamist groups, the White House pointed out in its National Strategy for Counterterrorism unveiled on Thursday.

The U.S.-led coalition and its local allies, namely the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are closing in on “the last group of remaining fighters in Syria,” a spokesman for the alliance told Pentagon reporters on Tuesday.

A developing report says packages delivered to the Pentagon’s mail facility tested positive for ricin on Tuesday.

Contents: University of N. Florida and Pentagon cut ties with China’s Confucius Institutes; Confucius and the roots of China’s imperialism; The Sayings and Aphorisms of Confucius

Three Air Force explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians based at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland came to the Pentagon on Wednesday to brief reporters on what it takes to be a member of a military bomb squad. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday called it a “sad state of affairs” when most of America’s young males cannot qualify for military service due to obesity or drug use. 

The Pentagon’s new cyber strategy prioritizes defense from cyber attacks and expands military authority to prevent them, according to a summary unveiled Tuesday.

U.S. military officials confirmed on Wednesday that Air Force F-22 stealth fighter jets intercepted two Russian nuclear-capable bombers near Alaska on Tuesday.

Nearly 17 years after the Afghanistan War began, there are few signs of progress and indications the Taliban is increasing its hold onto power in Afghanistan, despite continued U.S. support for the Afghan government.

Forensic scientists have yet to identify nearly 40 percent of the remains collected at the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

Not everyone on Twitter decided to mourn the lives lost on September 11, 2001, this year. Some took to the social media platform — which has supposedly dedicated itself to “conversational health” — to blame America for the terrorist attacks that day.

Vice President Mike Pence joins Defense Secretary James Mattis and Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for a commemoration ceremony at the Pentagon’s 9/11 Memorial.

Trump will deliver remarks at the Tower of Voices, a new 93-foot tower featuring a wind chime for each of the 40 Americans who died aboard the hijacked flight which crash-landed into a Pennsylvania field.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters during a visit to Greece Tuesday that the Pentagon is considering expanding its cooperation with Athens and its general presence in the country, citing easier access to battle theaters in Libya and Syria.

At a rare press conference earlier this week, Mattis discussed some of the historic changes he has overseen since taking office about 19 months ago. 

A Chinese electronics company called Hikvision, partly owned by the Communist government, was one of several such firms banned from working for the U.S. government under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed into law by President Trump on Monday.

Two civilian contractors found themselves in the fight of their lives after Taliban fighters set off a massive suicide vehicle bomb at the gate of their base in Afghanistan the night of August 7, 2015, and rushed inside.

Contents: New Pentagon military assessment details China’s preparations for war; China’s ‘low-intensity coercion’ in the South China Sea; People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM); China’s preparations for war with Taiwan; The growing military threat from China

The Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military and security developments warns that China is building up a fleet of long-range nuclear-capable bombers and is “likely” training its pilots to attack American targets.

The Pentagon on Thursday evening announced that the military parade planned for November will be postponed until next year.

The Pentagon warned on Thursday the Islamic State is “well-positioned to rebuild and work on enabling its physical caliphate to re-emerge.”

The massive National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Donald Trump on Monday includes a provision that requires universities to choose between hosting Chinese language programs funded by the Pentagon or China’s Confucius Institute, which has been linked to the Chinese Communist Party and described as a threat to American academic freedom.

Although he has previously been described as skeptical of President Donald Trump’s plan to create a “Space Force” branch of the U.S. Military, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said on Sunday that he supports the proposal.

Dean Cheng, the senior research fellow at the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, joined SiriusXM hosts Rebecca Mansour and Rick Manning on Friday’s Breitbart News Tonight to discuss President Donald Trump’s “Space Force” proposal and compare it to China’s military space programs.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver said the Navy will continue to challenge China in the South China Sea.

Vice President Mike Pence will deliver a message Thursday at the Pentagon, where he is expected to lay out a plan for the Space Force for which President Donald Trump has been pushing.

The U.S. Navy has sailed ships through the Taiwan Strait throughout the last decade but normally kept those operations quiet — perhaps out of concern it would provoke China, who considers Taiwan its territory and the Taiwan Strait its territorial waters.

The head of the agency tasked with identifying the remains of missing service members credited President Trump for North Korea’s handover last week.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamieson, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for the Air Staff at the Pentagon, warned last week that China is pulling ahead of the United States in artificial intelligence research. Perhaps more ominously, she said China has more concrete plans than any other adversary for actually using A.I. to control its population, enhance its military power, and conduct espionage against other nations.

The Pentagon is expected to send an interim report to Congress this week on how best to stand up the “Space Force” or some other kind of defense agency devoted to countering military threats in space.

The Pentagon announced Friday it is providing $200 million to Ukraine to strengthen its military, which is locked in low-grade war with Russia. The funds will go to additional training, equipment, and advisory efforts.