Senior Taiwanese military personnel observed a US-led joint air exercise alongside the South Korean and Japanese air forces in Alaska, a now-removed image published on Tuesday by the Pentagon showed.
The caption of the image — which has since been removed from the US military’s Defense Visual Information Distribution Service — said that senior-ranking military observers from Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, the UK and Canada on Friday last week gathered at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to observe the Red Flag-Alaska 25-2 exercise.
The exercise involved an estimated 1,500 personnel and 70 aircraft from the US, Japanese and South Korean air forces, the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) said in a news release.
Photo courtesy of the US Department of Defense
The drills aimed to strengthen multinational integration in support of the US Pacific Air Forces’ strategic objective of “credible, combat-ready forces capable of projecting power and deterring aggression in the region,” it said.
The exercise’s participants conducted offensive and defensive aerial operations in mock battles under “contested, degraded and operationally limited environments,” it said.
INDOPACOM emphasized the US strategic partnership with Japan and South Korea, saying that the exercise would “sharpen warfighting skills and enhance interoperability in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“Red Flag Alaska 25-2 allows US military forces and our Pacific-based allies to safely train for a high-end fight, ensuring a lethal force prepared for deterrence,” said US Air Force Major Michael Dzyndra, the Red Flag-Alaska deployed forces deputy commander.
“We’re not just training together; we’re learning how to integrate more effectively to meet shared challenges head-on,” the release quoted him as saying.
“Red Flag-Alaska offers the Japan Air Self Defense Force a valuable opportunity to enhance interoperability intensively with the United States Air Force and other air forces of allied nations, while also deepening mutual understanding,” Japan Air Self Defense Force Air Support Commander Colonel Kazuhiro Nakajima said in the release.
The joint combat scenarios build the operational capability of participating units with the training occurring across the Joint Pacific-Alaska Range Complex, the Pacific Air Forces said.
The air drills build operational capability by training forces across the Joint Pacific-Alaska Range Complex, INDOPACOM said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS