The House Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2022 defense policy bill further reduces the U.S. Air Force’s C-130 fleet, with a member targeting aircraft in his own district as the Guard has pressed to keep more of the aircraft.

The House Armed Services Committee has approved a bill to authorize spending $778 billion for U.S. defense efforts in fiscal 2022, increasing by about 3% the amount it had initially sought.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense has requested billions of yen to study and develop both defensive and offensive capabilities in the unmanned, hypersonic, electronic warfare and space domains.  

The Pentagon is reaching out to small businesses to learn about the barriers they face in winning Defense Department contracts, as the proportion of smaller companies in the defense industrial base continues to shrink.

The House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 1 voted 42-17 to authorize a $23.9 billion increase in U.S. defense spending, for a total of $778 billion in fiscal 2022.

The Pentagon is not ruling out possible collaboration with the Taliban as it looks to target the Islamic State-Khorasan group within Afghanistan for “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism strikes with no U.S. forces in the country.

The U.S. Marine Corps will fly Lockheed Martin F-35Bs off of a Japanese ship for the first time in October or November, Gen. David Berger, the commandant, said on Sept. 1. 

The Japanese Defense Ministry’s fiscal 2022 budget request seeks 5.48 trillion yen ($50 billion), a 7% increase from the 5.12 trillion yen it sought the prior year.