Five Things to Know, June 12, 2023
1. For the first time in decades, the Army is fielding a new capability to support infantry units: the M10 Booker Combat Vehicle. The service unveiled the vehicle this week at the Pentagon in a briefing to reporters. The M10, which took four years to select and procure, resembles something between a Soviet BMP-2 amphibious infantry fighting vehicle and a small Abrams tank. Named for two soldiers who died in combat but might have survived with heavier support, the M10 will deploy to help infantry brigades start or finish fights on the battlefields of the 21st century. It is part of a larger push to update how the Army travels to combat, and fights when there.
2. China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence-gathering capabilities, according to a Biden administration official. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. intelligence community has been aware of China’s spying from Cuba and a larger effort to set up intelligence-gathering operations around the globe for some time.
3. When Esmita Spudes Bidari was a young girl in Nepal, she dreamed of being in the military, but that wasn’t a real option in her country. Last week, she raised her right hand and took the oath to join the U.S. Army Reserves, thanks in part to a recruiter in Dallas who also is Nepalese and reached out to her through an online group. Bidari, who heads to basic training in August, is just the latest in a growing number of legal migrants enlisting in the U.S. military as it more aggressively seeks out immigrants, offering a fast track to citizenship to those who sign up.
4. Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv’s forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills.
5. Most of the major military policy changes to be passed by Congress this year will be unveiled over the next two weeks, as House and Senate lawmakers offer up their first drafts of the annual defense authorization bill. The House Armed Services Committee will release their draft first, starting with seven subcommittee markups on Tuesday and Wednesday. Next week, the committee and its counterpart in the Senate are scheduled to finalize those proposals, sending them to the full chamber membership for votes later this summer.