The Department of Defense released an annual report outlining the challenges facing the U.S. military and assessing changes in China’s military and security strategy, DOD News reported Tuesday.

The 2022 China Military Power Report details the East Asian country’s efforts to expand its national power to transform the international system; increase military coercion in the Indo-Pacific region; strengthen its space, nuclear and counterspace capabilities; and intensify its diplomatic, political, economic and military pressure against Taiwan.

“It’s important to understand the contours of [Peoples’ Liberation Army] modernization to include their thinking about what the PLA’s way of war would look like, to kind of survey their current activities and modernizing capabilities and to assess their future military modernization goals,” a senior defense official told reporters prior to the report’s release Tuesday.

“As an outcome of the 20th Party Congress [in October], Beijing is focusing on intensifying and accelerating the PLA’s modernization goals over the next five years, including strengthening what they refer to as its system of strategic deterrence,” the official said.

According to the report, PLA started discussing the “multi-domain precision warfare” as an operational concept meant to use its command, control, communications, computers, intelligence and reconnaissance network to detect vulnerabilities in the operational systems of its adversaries.

The document also noted that China has 400 operational nuclear warheads and could deploy about 1,500 warheads by 2035 if the pace of the country’s nuclear expansion efforts continues.

Maj. Gen. Shawn Bratton, commander of Space Training and Readiness Command, said STARCOM is considering offering live operations training to Guardians in addition to conducting training in an “all simulation, all classroom environment,” Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

“And it’s something we’re certainly thinking through and looking for help on is, you know, if I put a Guardian in a simulator, simulator, simulator and then put them on the ops floor live to fly GPS or communication satellite or any of the space capabilities, is that the best preparation? Or is it better if in training, they do some of those live activities?” Bratton said.

He said the command is turning to industry to seek help as it works on establishing its range infrastructure. He also offered updates on the proposed National Space Test and Training Complex.

Army Futures Command’s Air and Missile Defense Cross-Functional Team is mounting a new endeavor to support the service branch’s efforts to defeat unmanned aerial system threats, C4ISRNET reported Tuesday. 

Col. Patrick Costello, director of AMD CFT, said the team’s initiative would focus on supporting the development of new and advanced capabilities against emerging adversarial UAS capabilities.

AMD CFT is the latest Army organization to shift its focus to defeating enemy drone threats, which Army leaders have considered a high-priority objective. 

The Army Rapid Capability and Critical Technologies Office is working on technologies designed to counter drones, including high-capacity microwave systems capable of targeting multiple incoming drone threats simultaneously.

The Program Executive Office Missiles and Space is also aiding the cause by exploring how to bring new capabilities to the force.

Responsible for evaluating and deploying new counter-UAS technologies, the Department of Defense’s Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office has also been assigned to Army leadership in order to double down on this focus area.

Costello said AMD CFT’s new mission “requires coordination with the PEO, it requires coordination with the RCCTO and a close relationship with the JCO.”

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is collaborating with three organizations to explore the potential of a variety of dandelions as a local source of natural rubber.

AFRL revealed Monday that it tapped the BioIndustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem, Farmed Materials and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for the multimillion-dollar project, which aims to secure the supply chain for aircraft tire production.

The team’s objective is to plant and harvest a dandelion species called Kok-saghyz, or TK, which has been found to produce natural rubber when its roots are crushed.

To execute the multiyear program, the AFRL Materials and Manufacturing Directorate’s Manufacturing and Industrial Technologies Division partnered with BioMADE, a public-private manufacturing innovation institute established by the Department of Defense. 

BioMADE subcontracted small business firm Farmed Materials to access its TK dandelion crops. The rubber produced from the crops will be manufactured by Goodyear into aircraft tires tailored to Air Force specifications.

Researchers hope the collective effort will help strengthen the domestic stockpile of natural rubber, currently a major U.S. import.

“We are less than 10 years away from demand [for natural rubber] exceeding supply,” stated Angela Campo, research chemist at AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate and deputy program manager for BioMADE.

“The Air Force needs a secure supply chain of natural rubber. As we saw during COVID, many shutdowns occurred where many countries were no longer shipping items. Eventually, that picked back up, but we don’t ever want to be in that position of not having a consistent supply of critical materials,” Campo continued.