Not only has China re-tooled its military into a force that can contend with the U.S., but it also has a “willingness to exercise” its growing power, presenting a “significant” challenge to the U.S. in the long term.

While China seeks to have a “world-class” military by 2049, the report says that Chinese capabilities, particularly within “the First Island Chain,” are already significant.

“The first island chain” refers to the initial line of archipelagos out from the East Asian mainland. The “line” stretches from the Kamchatka Peninsula in the northeast to the Malay Peninsula in the southwest. The chain includes major U.S. interests and allies such as Okinawa, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

China now has the world’s largest navy and the world’s most extensive shipbuilding capability, along with mainland air defenses capable of hitting aircraft some 550 kilometers from the coast of China.

In particular, China’s development of Anti-Access/Area-Denial weapons systems represents a significant capability. That capability includes ballistic missiles capable of targeting U.S. ships, such as aircraft carriers, 1,500 kilometers from the Chinese mainland. But, the ballistic and cruise missiles that China has developed are not strictly for interdicting shipping.

According to the report, these missiles can reach Guam and the U.S. logistics and power projection assets stationed there and throughout the region, giving China the present ability to disrupt U.S. military operations west of Guam should China choose to do so.

Guam has “some of the most significant” ammunition and fuel storage capabilities in the Pacific, according to the Defense Department’s 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy. Additionally, DoD is spending an estimated $8.6 billion, along with $3.1 billion from Japan, to bolster Guam’s position as a “strategic hub.” According to the Wall Street Journal, Guam currently hosts some 22,000 U.S. military personnel with at least another 5,000 on their way by the mid-2020s.

While China has seen a rapid advancement in weapons systems and conventional capabilities, it is also expanding this effort into the cyber and space domains, which it views as integral to success on a modern battlefield.

Currently, according to the report, China uses its cyber capabilities to not only “deter and degrade” adversarial operations but to “exfiltrate” information “from the U.S. defense industrial base.”

In the future, China seeks to be the “global leader in [artificial intelligence] by 2030,” which it views as a critical part of both their future military and industrial power. Also, according to the report, China views future space-based systems “as central to modern warfare.” As such, China is developing the ability to conduct anti-satellite strikes through physical and electronic means.

Although China’s military is rapidly modernizing and represents a “pacing threat,” it is still facing several challenges, many of them internal. Among these are international and regional turmoil, such as an ongoing border dispute with India, terrorism, natural disasters, and epidemics.

Additionally, according to the report, while rapidly modernizing its military, China has yet to integrate these upgrades into its operational forces fully. The Pentagon says this causes significant “gaps and shortcomings” in how China could wage war. Additionally, China has yet to fight a war with its “current suite of capabilities,” leaving them largely untested.

To account for and mitigate China’s growing military capability, the GAO recommends that DoD prioritize several areas.

Of primary concern is the readiness of the U.S. military. According to the report, which discussed domains, not individual services, the only DoD domain that increased in total readiness between 2017-2019 were ground forces. This finding is based on an annual GAO report, released in April 2021, analyzing DoD readiness across the five operational domains spelled out in the National Defense Strategy.

The current GAO report addressed three specific domains:

• The “ground domain” increased in both resource and operational readiness.
• Air, space, and cyber domains increased in resource readiness but decreased in operational readiness.
• The “sea domain” decreased in both resource and operational readiness. GAO cited limited shipyard capacity for maintenance as the primary challenge to readiness within the Navy.

In 2020, according to this week’s GAO report, the average U.S. Navy ship was undermanned by 15 percent, while attack submarines, a critical reconnaissance, and deterrent asset, lost some 10,000 operational days between 2008-2018. Additionally, the Navy is in “the early stages” of determining how to repair damaged ships should a war break out in the Pacific.

In addition to military readiness, the GAO offered policy recommendations to DoD so that deterrence can be maintained and “help prevent conflict.”

These include ensuring that DoD is poised to maintain supply chains across the Pacific, ensure that DoD cyber networks are protected from “key cyberattack techniques,” while protecting and updating space-based systems to “ensure warfighters have needed communications tools in the future.”

“For the U.S. to be poised for success in facing threats from China, DoD will need to take timely actions and congressional oversight will be important as these efforts proceed,” the report concludes.

While over-the-horizon capabilities, such as drones and intelligence collection, have grown significantly over the years, Washington should lay out a specific counter-terrorism strategy before utilizing it, specifically in a place such as Afghanistan, experts told Military Times.

Prosecuting an over-the-horizon counter-terrorism campaign against ISIS-K in Afghanistan needs to be part of a larger strategic picture laid out by Washington, said Wes Bryant, former Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller. Without it, such operations in Afghanistan run the risk of “us continuing down the road to nowhere.” Further, strikes against ISIS-K would primarily benefit the Taliban, a group Bryant describes as having “similar” goals to the Taliban with a “near-equal history of oppression, brutality, and atrocities.”

“So, before a real over-the-horizon campaign in Afghanistan is initiated, our leadership—political and military—need to really ask themselves, and answer to the American people, the one fundamental question: Toward what end?” Bryant, who retired in 2018 as a master sergeant after 20 years in uniform, told Military Times.

An early example of an effective and targeted over-the-horizon strike occurred in 1986 when then-President Ronald Regan ordered airstrikes on targets in Libya. The strikes were carried out from as far as airfields in England and were in response to Libyan state sponsorship of terrorism, with the catalyst was a nightclub bombing in Berlin that claimed the life of a U.S. service member.

“You can go back to the Reagan strike in Libya,” retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes told Military Times, “It looked like a bombing, but it was an over-the-horizon response to terrorism.” Holmes spent his career commanding Air Force special tactics units, including directing the Inter-Agency Task Force at U.S. Special Operations Command.

This ability has only grown more robust over nearly three decades.

“There are a lot of aircraft that could conduct strikes being termed an “over the horizon capability,” Bryant said. “Really,[over-the-horizon] is a new term for something we’ve been doing for years.”

According to Bryant, the beginning of the campaign in Iraq and Syria against ISIS in 2014 represents a further evolution in over-the-horizon development when DoD implemented “strike cells” to run targeting operations. Advancements in signals intelligence collection, along with “persistent surveillance,” enabled U.S. personnel to hit ISIS targets with relative impunity, often without personnel on the ground.

“There is nothing to say that JTACs on the ground will lead to better, cleaner targeting than in a Strike Cell,” Bryant said. “The capabilities we have from our Strike Cells combined with the rest of our targeting and intelligence bodies are incredible.”

According to Bryant and Holmes, OTH was on display in Afghanistan before U.S. forces entirely withdrew from the country. On Aug 27, two ISIS-K militants, identified by the Pentagon as a “planner” and a “facilitator” for the terrorist organization, were killed in Nangahar province. This was followed by the Aug 29. strike, which the Pentagon said was against a potential car bomb targeting HKIA.

“The president has made it very clear that we will maintain robust over-the-horizon counter-terrorism capability, the kinds of capabilities that you’ve seen us use in just the last 24/36 hours,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said at a press conference on Aug 30, “We still have that capability. We will use that capability.”

However, according to experts that Military Times spoke to, there is still a degree of on-the-ground coordination required. Specifically, the need for local cooperation and basing, as while the range of drones and surveillance reach has increased, it is not infinite.

Regional allies, said Bryant, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council, and other partners, should be able to provide bases from which drones and other over-the-horizon assets could operate, despite the increased distance now needing to be covered to get into the “battlespace.”

“Our modern drone fleet can provide flight times of 20 to 40 hours with persistent surveillance,” Bryant said. “Yes, transit times will be long, but overhead times will still be considerable, and working overlapping flights is fairly standard with persistent overhead surveillance.”

Persistent overhead surveillance is critical for these kinds of strikes, as it enables a target to be precisely identified. Further, this constant “eyes on” allows operators to map out any civilian presence through a “pattern of life” analysis and pick a “strike weapon” that minimizes the risk to civilians.

A “strike weapon” isn’t strictly limited to drones either. Fighter jets can carry any number of munitions, or even B-52′s and cruise missiles are available for an over-the-horizon strike. The key is that the target is verified by multiple independent pieces of intelligence with being able to have “eyes on” the target being the key.

However, while Bryant and Holmes are confident that the U.S. has a robust ability to both identify and hit targets where there is little to U.S. presence, the idea of continuing operations in Afghanistan raises questions.

“If our answer is because the Taliban no longer pose a threat to the security of the United States while ISIS-K does, well, I think that’s very naïve and short-sighted,” Bryant said.

However, unlike the SBD Dauntless or Helldivers of yesteryear, the F-15E isn’t designed for naval warfare. Nor, according to the Air Force, is the JDAM an “ideal” weapon for attacking ships.

“For any large moving ship, the Air Force’s primary weapon is the 2,000-pound laser-guided GBU-24,” Maj. Andrew Swanson, 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron F-15E weapons system officer, said in a release. “Not only is this weapon less than ideal, it also reduces our survivability based on how it must be employed.”

But the Air Force wants to deliver the kind of lethality that a submarine can, without exposing a boat to detection.

The test, called the QUICKSINK Joint Capability Technology Demonstration, is “an effort to rapidly develop and demonstrate a low-cost USAF capability to defeat surface vessels from the air,” Air Force 1st Lt. Lindsey Heflin, Public Affairs Advisor for the 53rd Wing, told Air Force Times via email.

The effort “includes the development of a low-cost seeker for precise placement of the weapon as well as a warhead optimized for maritime conditions,” Heflin said. “The initial demonstrations use a JDAM weapon for its ability to rapidly integrate and demonstrate the technologies. While the technology could be used on a JDAM, the goal is to transition the technology to future systems with longer ranges.”

While details on precisely what tactics and techniques Air Force pilots adjusted and or developed for naval warfare aren’t public, the Air force has been testing various platforms for naval warfare for at least a year.

According to the Air Force, this most recent test utilizing an F-15E “builds” off a similar exercise conducted last year. A B-52H Stratofortress from the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron dropped multiple JDAMs in “specific” maritime conditions to check out the viability of such operations.

Does this signal a return to scenarios such as the Battle of Midway, where U.S. dive bombers and B-17′s pelted a fleet on the move with munitions?

Probably not. But, as the Defense Department looks to counter great power competitors like Russia and China, specifically in the Pacific theater, many services have been exploring “outside the box” methods of naval warfare. For example, the Marine Corps has refined its ability to deliver rocket-based artillery into sea lanes, thereby denying movement. Which traditionally has not been a mission associated with the Marine Corps.

While there is no indication that from the Air Force that their anti-ship capability is fully “built out”, it appears that this new role has a future.

When speaking about the challenges associated with attacking ships with a JDAM, Swanson said that both survivability and accuracy were an issue with previous iterations. However, the GBU-31 shows promise in increasing both.

“This munition can change all of that,” Swanson said.

“We’re now including most VHA employees and volunteers and contractors in the vaccine mandate because it remains the best way to keep Veterans safe, especially as the Delta variant spreads across the country,” McDonough said in a release.

Under the upcoming expanded vaccine mandate, employees who will now be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination include Hybrid Title 38 employees and Title 5 VA personnel.

These include psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, nursing assistants, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, peer specialists, medical support assistants, engineers, housekeepers, and other clinical, administrative, and infrastructure support employees who encounter VA patients and healthcare workers.

According to the VA, the expanded VA vaccine mandate has support from numerous medical organizations, including the American Hospital Association, America’s Essential Hospitals, the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Association of American Medical Colleges.

The expansion follows a July 26 mandate from the VA requiring proof of vaccination for Title 38 employees. Physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, registered nurses, physician assistants, expanded-function dental auxiliaries, and chiropractors — who work in Veterans Health Administration facilities, were also given eight weeks to show proof of vaccine or lose their jobs.

While VA employees who do not show proof of vaccination risk losing their jobs under the mandates, the VA is also incentivizing taking a vaccine. All employees are eligible to receive a COVID vaccine free of charge from the department. Additionally, the VA offers four hours of paid administrative leave after an employee demonstrates they are vaccinated.

The move comes amid a recent increase in both cases of and deaths from COVID both nationally and among VA employees and veterans. As of July 11, the VA reported 1,489 active cases tested or treated at a VA facility and 12,299 total deaths from COVID among VA patients who tested positive for the disease. As of Aug. 12, those numbers had increased to 10,101 active cases and 12,950 deaths.

“This pandemic is not over, and VA must do everything in our power to protect Veterans from COVID-19. With this expanded mandate, we can once again make—and keep—that fundamental promise,” McDonough said.

While stripped of its nuclear payload for the launch, the ICBM contained conventional explosives aboard a Hi-Fidelity Joint Test Assembly re-entry vehicle, which successfully detonated above the water’s surface near Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands, some 4,200 miles from the launch site.

“Today’s test launch is just one example of how our nation’s ICBM fleet demonstrates operational readiness and reliability of the weapon system. It also allows us to showcase the amazing level of competence and capability of our Airmen,” Col. Omar Colbert, Commander of the 576th Flight Test Squadron, said.

Defense officials were careful to stress that the test was routine, taking months to plan rather than a response to tensions in the region or around the world. Overall, officials said the Air Force periodically tests the Minuteman 3 to demonstrate the weapons system’s capability and gather data. The Defense Department, Energy Department, and US Strategic Air Command use the data collected to further force development.

“Test launches are not a response or reaction to world events or regional tensions,” said Lt. Col. Aaron Boudreau, Task Force commander said. “The launch calendars are built five years in advance, and planning for each individual launch begins six months to a year prior to launch.”

Conducting the launch were airmen from the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB, 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, and 91st Missile Wing at Minot. These airmen fall under Air Force Global Strike Command, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Shreveport, Louisiana. AFGSC is not only responsible for the nation’s ICBM fleet but also its strategic bomber fleet of B-52, B-1, and B-2 wings, effectively housing two of the three nuclear triad’s “legs.”

“The U.S. nuclear enterprise is the cornerstone of the security structure of the free world,” Colbert said in the release.

According to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, the first iteration of the Minuteman ICBM became operational in the early 1960s. Since then, it has gone through a series of improvements leading to the Minuteman 3 becoming active in the early 1970s.

Despite nearly 60 years of reliable service, the Minuteman series of ICBMs is slated for replacement beginning in 2029, when the Air Force expects an “initial capability” of its replacement, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, to be online.

Until then, the Air Force states it is committed to ensuring that the Minuteman 3 remains a viable deterrent, which is due primarily to the commitment and competence of the Airmen who operate and maintain the weapons platform.

“We’re honored to conduct this mission in conjunction with the 576th Flight Test Squadron and extremely proud to represent the numerous men and women that support the nuclear deterrence mission,” Boudreau said.