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Sea State<\/strong><\/p>\n In its biggest show of naval force<\/a> in the Asia\u2013Pacific since WWII, Japan has unveiled plans to send its largest warship\u2014the Izumo<\/em><\/a> helicopter carrier\u2014on a three-month tour of the South China Sea, kicking off in May. Stopping off in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, its destination is the Indian Ocean, where it will join India and the US in the Malabar naval exercise. Japan\u2019s drills last week with South Korea and the US in the Sea of Japan further demonstrated that its \u2018naval forces [are] playing a bigger part in the region.\u2019<\/a> Unimpressed, China has promised<\/a> to \u2018take firm responsive measures\u2019 should Japan \u2018persist in taking the wrong actions\u2019.<\/p>\n After last Monday\u2019s hijacking<\/a> of the tanker Aris 13 <\/em>by Somali pirates off Somalia\u2019s coast (the first since 2012), a new spate of attacks is feared, with one pirate warning<\/a>: \u2018In the coming days we are going to seize even more foreign ships.\u2019 Somali officials have now called upon NATO<\/a>\u2014which ended its counter-piracy mission in November\u2014to\u00a0do more to stop illegal fishing in the area, which some believe provoked the attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n Everyone\u2019s favourite submersible, Boaty McBoatface,<\/em> left Chile on Friday<\/a> on board the RRS James Clark Ross<\/em>. It\u2019s headed to the Antarctic<\/a> to explore \u2018some of the deepest and coldest abyssal waters on Earth\u2019\u2026 Better you than me, Boaty!<\/p>\n \u00a0Flight Path<\/strong><\/p>\n The US Air Force\u2019s Next Generation Air Dominance program could receive a massive funding boost<\/a>\u2014from US$21 million to $168 million\u2014as part of the White House\u2019s 2017 supplementary budget request. That would expedite R&D efforts to develop a sixth-generation fighter to eventually replace the F-22. A US Air Force spokesperson<\/a> says additional funding will be necessary for the fighter jet\u2019s timely completion, which is expected to be some time in the 2030s<\/a>. The eight-fold increase is unlikely to be approved in the Senate, however, since Trump would need to overturn the \u201csequestration\u201d caps<\/a> by winning at least eight Democratic votes and avoiding the threat of a filibuster.<\/p>\n Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced last Wednesday that his country will build its first indigenous fighter aircraft.<\/a> Aeronautical design teams have apparently developed a \u2018sketch outline\u2019 of a twin-engine, multirole fighter that\u2019ll bear an external resemblance to the Soviet Mikoyan MiG-29<\/a>, but will use non-Russian on-board systems. The aircraft\u2019s engine will be based on the AI-322F<\/a>, which Ukraine hopes will be its first independently-designed aircraft engine.<\/p>\n The F-35 has fired its first non-American missile<\/a>\u2014the UK-based MDBA\u2019s Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM)\u2014during trials<\/a> at US air bases in Maryland and California. MDBA currently produces the infrared-guided missiles for the Royal Air Force\u2019s Tornado and Typhoon fighters, and it\u2019ll now also be used to produce weapons for the UK\u2019s F-35s.<\/p>\n Rapid Fire<\/strong><\/p>\n Taiwan Ministry of National Defense this week released a report detailing its plans to beef up its military<\/a>. The 2017 Quadrennial Defence Review, delivered to Parliament on 16 March, mentions the usual security concerns in the region; potential for conflict in the disputed South China Sea and the rise in military activity by the PRC<\/a>. Given a limited budget and manpower constraints, Taiwan defence experts\u00a0have suggested troops \u2018hone their expertise in cyber warfare.\u2019<\/a> To help them do this, a cyber-warfare unit<\/a> will be established later this year to \u2018defend Taiwan\u2019s C4ISR and other key infrastructure against cyber-attacks\u2019.<\/p>\n The UK is also considering a major re-organisation of its armed forces<\/a>, set to include the transfer of more than 4,500 soldiers to new units. As part of the \u2018Army 2020 Refine\u2019<\/a> plan, the UK hopes to set up a ‘war-fighting’ division, form two new strike brigades and increase troop strength in existing battalions.<\/p>\n Finally, meet the man who voluntarily starts his day by doing 300 burpees<\/a>. Appropriately nicknamed \u2018the Cyborg\u2019 in an interview by Vice News<\/em>, this former US marine trains elite Southeast Asian military regiments. His job involves being \u2018dropped into the Filipino jungle as a “bunny” for trainees to capture\u2019.\u00a0The interview details the mental control and survival tactics required to survive in the jungle, including fire and shelter building techniques. After four years of his extreme games of hide-and-seek, the Cyborg has never been caught\u2026 Guess those burpees are paying off!<\/p>\n Zero Gravity<\/strong><\/p>\n The Trump administration released its 2018 budget proposal last week. All things considered, the outlook is decent for NASA (PDF p.43<\/a>). Robert Lightfoot, NASA\u2019s acting Administrator, released a statement<\/a> averring that the US$19.1 billion earmarked was \u2018in line with funding in recent years\u2019 and would enable NASA to \u2018effectively execute [the] core mission for the nation.\u2019 The audacious asteroid redirection program<\/a> has been axed, but there\u2019s billions allocated for the Space Launch System<\/a> and the Orion space capsule<\/a>. These developments weren\u2019t too surprising given the increasing political capital<\/a> (and competition<\/a>) that\u2019s being staked on human exploration of the Moon and Mars.<\/p>\n At a time when civilian research funding<\/a> is being channeled into defence, it\u2019s reassuring to see that NASA wasn\u2019t subject to outright fiscal pruning. That said, it\u2019s worrying that four Earth science missions<\/a> are on the chopping block\u2014after the election in November, a Trump advisor stated that the president intended to defund NASA\u2019s climate studies, labelling them \u2018politicized science<\/a>.\u2019<\/p>\n And finally, the Japanese government\u2019s latest spy satellite launched<\/a> this week. Named the Information Gathering Satellite \u2018Radar 5\u2019, most operational details are secret<\/a>. What we do know is that the satellite reportedly<\/a> cost US$327 million to develop and US$93 million to launch, and commentators<\/a> have been quick to link the bolstered surveillance capability with keeping an eye on an increasingly belligerent North Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sea State In its biggest show of naval force in the Asia\u2013Pacific since WWII, Japan has unveiled plans to send its largest warship\u2014the Izumo helicopter carrier\u2014on a three-month tour of the South China Sea, kicking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":30990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1428,271,1276,803,392],"class_list":["post-30989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-donald-trump","tag-f-35","tag-japan-self-defense-forces","tag-nasa","tag-taiwan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n