Obscured by the attention focused on the Quadrennial Defense Review and various mobility studies is a Defense Acquisition Board review of the future of Global Hawk—the highly praised unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicle that was rushed while still in development to the war in Afghanistan. The news is good, according to a decision memo from Kenneth Krieg, DOD’s acquisition point man who also serves as the chairman of the DAB. His memo states, “The board members agreed that this program is critical to providing a persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability to the warfighter.” Though that fact is completely obvious, it’s still good to hear a DOD official say it outright.
The attempt by Ukraine to hold the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk ended June 23 as the Biden administration announced another $450 million in military aid, including four additional HIMARS rocket systems, to help strike Russian artillery as unmanned aerial systems have grown ineffective against Russian air defenses. “Air defense is…