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Like many European countries, Italy looks to the East: the future deployment of the Italian Navy’s aircraft carrier Cavour, and its main stops, draw the map of Italy’s defense diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region.

Army Cpl. Luther H. Story. (U.S. Army photo).

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that it had identified the remains of Army Cpl. Luther H. Story, decades after he was killed during the Korean War and subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor. 
On September 1, 1950, Story was 19 years old and a weapons squad leader with Alpha Company, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. His squad was in a fighting position overlooking the Naktong River in South Korea, but other nearby attacks had already left them partially cut off and in danger of being surrounded.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has just commissioned the Xianyang, the eighth large 10,000-ton Type 055-class destroyer. All eight warships of this class have already entered service with the Chinese Navy. 
The PLA Navy’s Type 055 Xianyang (hull number 108) guided-missile destroyer has departed from a PLA Southern Theater Command naval port to carry out the latest combat training mission.
In March 2023, the destroyer Xianyang, China’s last Type 055 The Xianyang, the last destroyer of the Type 055 class in the PLA Navy of China, formally entered service in March 2023.

Andrei Shmatko

Details remain limited at this time, but a Russian MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor crashed in the country’s northern Murmansk region earlier today after suffering an engine fire. The two crewmen were successfully able to eject before the plane crashed, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).
Citing a statement provided by the Russian MoD, the TASS news agency reported that the MiG-31 in question was performing a planned training flight when the accident occurred. Onlookers captured footage of the aircraft as it fell from the sky on fire, which can be seen below.

The Army is altering its acquisition approach for its long-range cyber, electronic warfare and signals intelligence platform, determining it might need a tailored approach for each theater, according to a top official.
The Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) capability will be designed for higher echelons — primarily division and corps — that will need to monitor and sense the battlefield across greater distances than lower, more tactically focused echelons. It will be used by the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force.

The Department of the Air Force is requesting new authorities from Congress that would allow the services to begin development work on brand new programs before funding is appropriated, with the aim of speeding up military modernization. However, acquisition experts say that lawmakers may be hesitant to grant such powers to the Pentagon for a variety of reasons.

Two of Germany’s biggest defense contractors are locked in a legal battle over the rights to the Leopard 2, the main battle tank that Berlin has approved to send to Ukraine after months of international pressure.
Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, the Munich-based company that developed the Leopard 2 in the 1970s and built its chassis, has filed a lawsuit against Rheinmetall, which makes the tank’s gun, over the claims of its chief executive.

USN

A U.S. Navy Ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarine is reportedly set to make a visit to South Korea sometime in the near future. This will be the first time one of these submarines has made a port stop on the Korean Peninsula in at least four decades. This is part of broader plans to more visibly demonstrate America’s ability and willingness to use its nuclear capabilities to defend South Korea if need be in the face of growing concerns about threats from North Korea.
Multiple outlets reported on the expected submarine visit earlier today, citing unnamed U.S.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed off on an update to how the Pentagon oversees its positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) enterprise, which provides critical capabilities that facilitate U.S. military command and control, situational awareness, information networks and targeting.
The move comes as U.S. leaders are concerned about the vulnerability of GPS systems to attack or interference. Potential adversaries such as China already have a variety of counterspace weapons that could degrade or disrupt GPS satellites and associated systems and impede U.S. military operations.

The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Jackson (LCS 6) transits the South China Sea during a search and rescue exercise (SAREX) on Nov. 1, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Andrew Langholf).

The Navy plans on selling off six of its much-maligned littoral combat ships to U.S. allies through the Defense Department’s Foreign Military Sales program after just a few years at sea, according to the service’s recently-released shipbuilding plan.