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Tom Dunlop, UK Defence Journal
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Global Defense News
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NRDC-ITA, as ARF Headquarters, held a Study Day on space and cyber readiness, interoperability.

Every alliance contains a struggle over who gets to decide what the alliance is for. The unusual thing about the Mecca Alliance, formally known as the “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement,” is that all three of its members appear to believe they possess something that should give them that privilege: Saudi Arabia has the capital, Turkey has the defense industrial base, and Pakistan has the manpower and nuclear arsenal. Each can therefore imagine itself as the patron and the other two as clients. None of them, however, holds enough leverage to make that hierarchy stick.

Commercial satellite imagery has revealed North Korea’s first ballistic missile submarine, the unique sole vessel of the Gorae class ship, has been placed in drydock at the Sinpho South Shipyard, fuelling speculation that it may be benefitting from upgrades and refurbishment work. The submarine represents an earlier stage in the country’s efforts to develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile capability, and was first used to test ballistic missiles in 2016.

The armed forces of Saudi Arabia have utilised Chinese DF-15A short-range ballistic missile against Yemeni Ansurullah Coalition forces, marking the first ever strike using the weapons following decades of procurements from the East Asian state. Saudi Arabia has maintained one of the Middle East’s most secretive ballistic missile forces since the 1980s, providing a strategic strike capability which China has played a central role in the development of. The debris from one of the missiles was found Yemen’s Marib Governorate amid renewed fighting with Ansurullah Coalition forces.

The United States has publicly acknowledged for the first time that it has weapons already deployed in orbit, marking a major shift in Washington’s longstanding policy of maintaining deliberate ambiguity over the offensive capabilities of its military space architecture. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink made the disclosure on September 14, stating that the United States has on-orbit weapons supporting a mission to protect American interests in space. Meink indicated that the weapons are associated with the U.S.

The U.S. Army is converting an Oregon Army National Guard armoured battalion equipped with M1A2 Abrams tanks into a lighter mobile infantry formation, reflecting a broader effort to increase battlefield mobility and survivability in an era increasingly shaped by drones, long-range fires and dispersed operations. The 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Regiment has been redesignated as the 2nd Battalion, 186th Infantry Regiment, becoming Oregon’s first mobile infantry battalion.

Footage released by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showed an H-6N  medium range strategic bomber flying with the JL-1 ballistic missile during a joint anti-ship exercise, providing one of the clearest public indications yet of the aircraft’s role in China’s developing airborne nuclear force. The bomber has emerged as an increasingly important component of the country’s nuclear deterrent following the public confirmation that the aircraft can carry the nuclear-capable JL-1.

The Pentagon issued a formal waiver to protect whistleblowers who wish to disclose new information about the government’s involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomena and related technologies from prosecution or career retaliation.
An announcement on Monday indicates the Defense Department is actively voiding certain agreements that have previously kept individuals from speaking freely with representatives authorized under the Trump administration’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) project.