The five-domains update
Posted By
Afeeya Akhand, Luisa Gyhn and Shivangi Seth
on September 1, 2023 @ 13:30
Sea state
The Russian and Chinese navies held a joint patrol exercise
last month involving manoeuvres near the US Pacific coast. The ships travelled more than 7,000 nautical miles through the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean for over three weeks. China’s Defence Ministry said the exercise was
aimed at ‘safeguarding the security of strategic waterways’. American officials
noted that the ships didn’t enter US territorial waters.
On 22 August, the coastguards of India and the Philippines
signed a memorandum of understanding on maritime cooperation. The main achievement of a five-member Filipino coastguard delegation’s
official visit to India, it seeks to enhance professional links between the two coastguards in maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, and pollution response. It was followed by the first-ever bilateral meeting between the maritime agencies of India and the Philippines.
Flight path
The US will
begin training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets this month to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences and bolster its counteroffensive against Russian forces. The pilots will be
trained in Texas and Arizona, with the program consisting of English-language and flight training. According to a Pentagon spokesperson, F-16 training can take around five months for experienced pilots. The announcement builds on
plans by Denmark and the Netherlands to donate F-16s to Ukraine and train its pilots.
A US Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey
crashed on the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin over the weekend, killing three US service personnel and hospitalising five others. The crash occurred during joint exercise
Predators Run, conducted by the militaries of the US, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste. The incident is the
latest deadly crash involving an Osprey aircraft, which have been involved in
numerous accidents over the years.
Rapid fire
Singapore and China are to resume
bilateral military exercises in Singapore following a pandemic-induced hiatus, as confirmed by Singapore’s Ministry of Defence. This renewed collaboration, scheduled for a two-week span starting on 1 September, will focus on urban counterterrorism operations, with soldiers engaging in activities such as hand-to-hand combat and live-firing of small arms. The exercise aligns with the Singapore Army’s commitment to cooperate with foreign military forces and coincides with China’s efforts to strengthen
security ties in Southeast Asia.
Australia has
deployed a troop of M1A1 Abrams tanks, an infantry platoon, an array of armoured vehicles, and command-and-control posts to the northeast of Java, Indonesia. Exercise Super Garuda Shield, initiated by the Indonesian National Armed Forces and US Indo-Pacific Command, will take place over the next two weeks. It focuses on enhancing
collaborative deployment capabilities of significant land forces across the Indo-Pacific region.
Final frontier
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s solar-powered Pragyan rover has been exploring the moon’s south pole for the past eight days, with one more week to go. The Chandrayaan-3 mission has
recorded temperature variations in the lunar topsoil, achieving one of its main goals and marking its first scientific results, and the rover
navigated its first surface obstacle—a lunar crater. The mission completed India’s bid to become the fourth country to execute a controlled moon landing, after the US, Russia and China, and the first to do so on the moon’s unexplored south pole.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft, its
first moon mission in 47 years,
collided with the moon’s surface after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit and lost contact with Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. This mission was Russia’s attempt to be the first to conduct a controlled landing on the moon’s south pole, competing with India’s Chandrayaan-3. In its wake, analysts have
noted that Russia’s space program has been
declining for years, with state funding increasingly directed to the military, a pattern likely worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Wired watchtower
A hacking group suspected to be linked to the Chinese government, Flax Typhoon, has been
targeting Taiwanese organisations, including government entities, manufacturing firms and technology companies. Microsoft reported that the attacks were likely aimed at maintaining long-term access to the networks of these organisations for espionage. Microsoft’s reports emerged on the same day that the US
approved a new arms sale worth US$500 million to Taiwan. Such attacks are likely to increase as tensions over Taiwan continue to escalate and spill over into the cyber domain.
Hackers likely associated with North Korea have
targeted a US–South Korea joint military exercise. A joint investigation by South Korean police and the US military has held Pyongyang responsible for the attack. North Korean state media had earlier
described exercises between South Korea and partners as rehearsals for invasion that merit ‘overwhelming’ responses. Officials said that no confidential military information was compromised during the hack, which occurred a day after a
joint statement was issued by South Korea, Japan and the US that emphasised strengthening trilateral cooperation to counter North Korea’s cyber operations—some of which reportedly
pay for its weapons development.
Afeeya Akhand, Luisa Gyhn and Shivangi Seth are research interns at ASPI. Image: Kim Jae-Hwan/AFP via Getty Images.
Article printed from The Strategist: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au
URL to article: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-five-domains-update-177/
[1] last month: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/27/russian-ships-return-from-joint-pacific-patrolling-with-chinese-ships-2
[2] aimed : https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1802570/china-russia-to-start-joint-air-and-sea-drill-in-sea-of-japan?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1689511615-1
[3] noted : https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-ships-return-from-joint-pacific-patrol-with-chinese-ships-/7242946.html
[4] signed: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1951181
[5] official visit to India: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/coast-guards-of-india-philippines-to-enhance-professional-bonds/article67223533.ece
[6] begin : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/25/us-will-train-ukrainian-pilots-to-fly-f-16s-from-next-month
[7] trained : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/us-train-ukrainian-pilots-f-16-fighter-jets-ukraine-russia-war
[8] plans : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/20/kyiv-hails-dutch-danish-decision-to-supply-f-16-jets-to-ukraine
[9] crashed : https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/statements/2023-08-27/statement-regarding-us-marine-corps-osprey-incident
[10] Predators Run: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marines-killed-osprey-aircraft-crash-australia/
[11] latest deadly crash : https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/27/asia/aircraft-incident-us-defense-personnel-australia-intl-hnk/index.html
[12] numerous accidents : https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/09/politics/marines-killed-in-california-osprey-crash/index.html
[13] bilateral military exercises: https://www.mindef.gov.sg/web/portal/mindef/news-and-events/latest-releases/article-detail/2023/August/28aug23_nr#:~:text=The%20Singapore%20Armed%20Forces%20(SAF,to%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.
[14] security ties: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-28/singapore-china-set-to-resume-military-exercise-after-pandemic#xj4y7vzkg
[15] deployed: https://www.themandarin.com.au/228608-australian-army-m1a1-abrams-tanks-sent-to-indonesia/#new_tab
[16] collaborative deployment capabilities: https://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/news/adf-joins-exercise-super-garuda-shield-in-indonesia
[17] recorded: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/chandrayaan-3-records-temperature-variation-on-moon-isro-shares-graph-4335266
[18] navigated: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/chandrayaan-3-rover-surmounts-its-first-lunar-obstacle-a-100mm-deep-crater/articleshow/103111021.cms?from=mdr
[19] first moon mission in 47 years: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/science/russias-first-lunar-mission-in-47-years-smashes-into-the-moon-in-failure/article67216025.ece
[20] collided: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66562629
[21] declining: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/us-russia-space-programs-spacex-collaboration-ukraine/671740/
[22] targeting: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/08/24/flax-typhoon-using-legitimate-software-to-quietly-access-taiwanese-organizations/
[23] approved: https://apnews.com/article/us-taiwan-china-invasion-threat-weapons-sales-military-fb9959dff57d5ac8fd2f8400316185b5#:~:text=AP%20News-,US%20approves%20new%20%24500M%20arms%20sale,as%20tension%20from%20China%20intensifies&text=WASHINGTON%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20The%20Biden,despite%20fervent%20objections%20from%20China.
[24] targeted: https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/suspected-north-korean-hackers-target-us-south-korea-joint-military-drills-101692503063673.html
[25] described: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/kim-jong-un-oversees-cruise-missile-test-s-korea-us-military-drills-start#:~:text=North%20Korean%20leader%20has%20pledged,by%20South%20Korea%20and%20US.&text=North%20Korean%20leader%20Kim%20Jong,as%20a%20rehearsal%20of%20war.
[26] joint statement: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3498451/japan-south-korea-us-strengthen-trilateral-cooperation/
[27] pay for its weapons development: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/hacking-08252023094736.html