Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with defense chiefs from Australia and the United Kingdom at the U.S. military’s defense technology hub in Silicon Valley on Friday to forge a new agreement to increase technology cooperation and information sharing. The goal, according to a joint statement, is to be able to better address global security challenges, ensure each can defend against rapidly evolving threats and to “contribute to stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.”

Austin met with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Grant Shapps, the British secretary of state for defense, at the Defense Innovation Unit headquarters.

Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Austin said the effort will, for example, rapidly accelerate the sophistication of the drone systems, and prove that “we are stronger together.”

The new technology agreement is the next step in a widening military cooperation with Australia that was first announced in 2021. The three nations have laid out plans for the so-called AUKUS partnership to help equip Australia with a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS is an acronym for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Under the deal, Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the United States and build five of a new AUKUS-class submarine in cooperation with Britain. The subs, powered by U.S. nuclear technology, would not carry nuclear weapons and would be built in Adelaide, Australia with the first one finished around 2040.

Marles said there has been an enormous amount of progress in the submarine program. He added that as an island nation, Australia has a need for improved maritime drones and precision strike capabilities.

And Shapps said that with China “undermining the freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, we’ve never had a greater need for more innovation.” He said that open navigation of the seas, including in the Pacific and the South China Sea is critical.

According to officials, Australian Navy officers have already started to go through nuclear power training at U.S. military schools.

Also, earlier this year the U.S. announced it would expand its military industrial base by helping Australia manufacture guided missiles and rockets for both countries within two years. Under that agreement, they would cooperate on Australia’s production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems by 2025.

The enhanced cooperation between the nations has been driven by growing concerns about China’s burgeoning defense spending and rapidly expanding military presence in the region. Last year Beijing signed a security pact with Solomon Islands and raised the prospect of a Chinese naval base being established there.

The U.S. has increased U.S. troop presence, military exercises and other activities in the region. U.S. relations with China have been strained in recent years, over trade, U.S. support for self-governing Taiwan, Beijing’s military buildup on a series of manmade islands, and a number of aggressive aircraft and ship encounters.

The new agreement also sets up a series of military exercises involving the use of undersea and surface maritime drones and improvement the ability of the three countries to share intelligence and data collected by their sonobuoys. The buoys are used to detect submarines and other objects in the water.

It also calls for plans to expand the use of artificial intelligence, including on P-8A surveillance aircraft, to more quickly process data from the buoys in order to improve anti-submarine warfare. And it says the three countries will establish new radar sites to beef up their ability to detect and track objects in deep space.

High-tech demonstrations were set up across a large parking area at DIU and inside the headquarters, allowing Austin to take a few minutes before the start of the meeting to see a number of projects being developed, including a virtual training device that will help Ukrainian pilots learn to fly F-16 fighter jets and swarming drones being developed for warfighters. The projects aren’t tied to the Australian agreement, but reflect the ongoing effort by the three nations to improve technology — an area where China often has the lead.

As Austin walked through the exhibits, he was able to watch a swarm of five drones lift off from the pavement and hover over the onlookers — all controlled by a single worker with a small handheld module. The short range reconnaissance drones — called the Skydio X2D — are already in use in combat, but the swarming technology and ability to control them all from a single device is still in development, said Skydio CEO Adam Bry.

Inside the DIU offices, Air Force Maj. Alex Horn demonstrated a new portable, pilot training module that will allow instructors in the United States to remotely coach trainees overseas using a virtual reality headset. Four of the so-called “Immersive Training Devices” will be delivered to Morris Air National Guard Base in Arizona next month and will be used to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s.

Horn said the devices, which are cheaper than other systems, will help accelerate the training for Ukrainian pilots who are used to flying Soviet aircraft and need schooling on F-16 basics before moving to cockpit training.

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Berger took over as the 38th commandant in July 2019, and is required to leave the job after four years. Gen. Eric Smith, currently the assistant commandant, has been nominated to be the next leader, but will serve in an acting capacity because he hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate.

Under the law, Smith can serve as the acting commandant, but he can do nothing that would presume confirmation. As a result, he can’t move into the main residence or the commandant’s office, or issue any new formal commandant’s planning guidance, which is traditional for a new leader. He has the authority to implement new policies such as budget, training and other personnel decisions.

Smith’s promotion delay is the first of what could be many top level military officers held up by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. Tuberville has stalled all nominations for senior military jobs because he disagrees with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to have the Defense Department pay for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care. Abortion is now illegal in Alabama.

Speaking at a ceremony at the Marine Barracks Washington, just down the street from Capitol Hill, Austin and Berger called on the Senate to take action.

“We need the Senate to do their job so that we can have a sitting commandant that’s appointed and confirmed. We need that house to be occupied,” said Berger, with a nod to the commandant’s quarters at the edge of the parade field.

Austin and other Pentagon officials have pressed the Senate to move forward, saying that delays are already impacting more than 200 military officers, and many key leaders.

“You know, it’s been more than a century since the U.S. Marine Corps has operated without a Senate confirmed commandant,” Austin said during the ceremony.

Because of Berger’s requirement to step down in July, the Marine job is the first of the military chiefs to be affected by Tuberville. The Army, Navy and Air Force are all expected to face the same delay later this year, as could the nomination of the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The current chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley, leaves his job at the end of September. Gen. CQ Brown, the current chief of the Air Force, has been nominated to replace Milley, and is scheduled to go before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his hearing on Tuesday.

The hold, however, is also impacting scores of one, two and three-star officers who are assigned to new commands but can’t move on. It also affects their families, who usually relocate over the summer to their new military communities so school-age children can settle in before fall.

“Smooth and timely transitions of confirmed leadership are central to the defense of the United States and to the full strength of the most powerful fighting force in history,” said Austin. “Stable and orderly leadership transitions are also vital to maintaining our unmatched network of allies and partners. And they’re crucial for our military readiness.”

Smith hit the thorny issue head on during his remarks at the ceremony Monday — saying he wanted to get one thing out fast.

“If you’re saying, ‘what am I supposed to call you?’ ACMC. That is my title, and one that I’m proud of,” said Smith, using the shorthand for his assistant commandant role. But he quickly added, “to make sure that there is no confusion — all orders, directives and guidance, which were in effect this morning remain in effect, unless I direct otherwise. Further guidance to the force will follow.”

Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Monday that as of last Friday, there were 265 senior officers whose promotions have been held up by Tuberville, and that number could leap to 650 by the end of the year if the issue isn’t corrected. She noted that in more than 100 cases, officers — like Smith — would be forced to do two jobs at the same time because no one can move up.

She said the Pentagon is asking officers to delay planned retirements and stay on, while in other cases officers are doing more senior ranking jobs without getting the pay for that new rank.

Later in the day, Jack Reed, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate committee, spoke on the Senate floor, asking that Smith be confirmed and criticizing Tuberville for what he called an unprecedented hold that is driving the U.S. military “to a potential breaking point.

“In General Smith we have a Purple Heart recipient — this man has literally shed his blood for his country,” said Reed, who attended the Marine ceremony. “He stands ready to continue his service to our nation and the Marines he will lead for four more years. He simply awaits our action.”

Tuberville, however, blocked a vote and in a Senate floor speech said the holds would have “minimal effect” on Smith’s ability to lead.

“There may be a delay in his planning guidance, and yet he cannot move into the commandant’s residence, but there is little doubt about General Smith’s ability to lead effectively,” said Tuberville.

The last time the Corps was led by an acting commandant was in 1910. Then-Maj. Gen. George Elliott, who was the commandant, reached the required retirement age in November 1910 and left the office. Col. William Biddle served as the acting commandant until he was promoted to major general and became commandant in February 1911.

Berger, a native of Woodbine, Maryland, graduated from Tulane University and was commissioned in 1981. He commanded at every level including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During his tenure, he spearheaded a broad campaign to transform the Marine Corps to better be able to fight amphibious wars in the Pacific after years of battling terrorist groups in the Middle East. The plan was lauded by many in the Pentagon and Congress as a critical way for the Marines to prepare for a potential conflict with China.

Smith, a career infantry officer, is a highly decorated Marine who served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, including time in Fallujah and Ramadi during heavy combat in 2004 and 2005 in Operation Iraq Freedom. He later was the senior military adviser to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday on orders from President Joe Biden. It was the fourth such downing in eight days and the latest military strike in an extraordinary chain of events over U.S. airspace that Pentagon officials believe has no peacetime precedent.

Part of the reason for the repeated shootdowns is a “heightened alert” following a spy balloon from China that emerged over U.S. airspace in late January, Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said in a briefing with reporters.

Since then, fighter jets last week also shot down objects over Canada and Alaska. Pentagon officials said they posed no security threats, but so little was known about them that Pentagon officials were ruling nothing out — not even UFOs.

“We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase,” said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense.

U.S. authorities have made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them. But the unusually assertive response was raising questions about whether such use of force was warranted, particularly as administration officials said the objects were not of great national security concern and the downings were just out of caution.

VanHerck said the U.S. adjusted its radar so it could track slower objects. “With some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now,” he said, “and that’s why I think you’re seeing these, plus there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.”

He added: “I believe this is the first time within United States or American airspace that NORAD or United States Northern Command has taken kinetic action against an airborne object.”

Asked if officials have ruled out extraterrestrials, VanHerck said, “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”

The Pentagon officials said they were still trying to determine what exactly the objects were and said they had considered using the jets’ guns instead of missiles, but it proved to be too difficult. They drew a strong distinction between the three shot down over this weekend and the balloon from China.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted that airmen in the 148th Fighter Wing, an Air National Guard fighter unit in Duluth, shot down the object over Lake Huron.

The extraordinary air defense activity began in late January, when a white orb the officials said was from China appeared over the U.S. and hovered above the nation for days before fighter jets downed it off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That event played out over livestream. Many Americans have been captivated by the drama playing out in the skies as fighter jets scramble to shoot down objects.

The latest brought down was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana, but it was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was going over Lake Huron, Pentagon officials said Sunday.

U.S. and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object. According to a senior administration official, the object was octagonal, with strings hanging off, but had no discernable payload. It was flying low at about 20,000 feet, said the official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials were still trying to precisely identify two other objects shot down by F-22 fighter jets, and were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalated about what Washington said was Beijing’s large-scale aerial surveillance program.

An object shot down Saturday over Canada’s Yukon was described by U.S. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the balloon — the size of three school buses — hit by a missile Feb. 4. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.

Both were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin.

The three objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike.

The officials said the other three objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that U.S. officials were working quickly to recover debris. Using shorthand to describe the objects as balloons, he said U.S military and intelligence officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information, then compiling a comprehensive analysis.

“The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the spy program that the administration has linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”

Eight days ago, F-22 jets downed the large white balloon that had wafted over the U.S. for days at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. U.S. officials immediately blamed China, saying the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals and could maneuver itself. White House officials said improved surveillance capabilities helped detect it.

China’s Foreign Ministry said the unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course. Beijing said the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down.

Then, on Friday, North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined U.S.-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected and shot down an object near sparsely populated Deadhorse, Alaska.

Later that evening, NORAD detected a second object, flying at a high altitude over Alaska, U.S. officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday and was over the Yukon, a remote territory, when it was ordered shot down by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In both of those incidents, the objects were flying at roughly 40,000 feet. The object on Sunday was flying at 20,000 feet.

The cases have increased diplomatic tensions between the United States and China, raised questions about the extent of Beijing’s American surveillance, and prompted days of criticism from Republican lawmakers about the administration’s response.

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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Michael Balsamo, Ellen Knickmeyer and Tara Copp contributed to this report.

SYDNEY (AP) — Nancy Pelosi hasn’t said if she’s going to Taiwan, but if she does she’d be entering one of the world’s hottest and most contentious spots. While U.S. officials say they have little fear that Beijing would attack the U.S. House speaker’s plane, they are aware that a mishap, misstep or misunderstanding could endanger her safety. So the Pentagon is developing plans for any contingency.

Officials told The Associated Press that if Pelosi goes to Taiwan — still an uncertainty — the military would increase its movement of forces and assets in the Indo-Pacific region. They declined to provide details, but said that fighter jets, ships, surveillance assets and other military systems would likely be used to provide overlapping rings of protection for her flight to Taiwan and any time on the ground there.

Any foreign travel by a senior U.S. leader requires additional security. But officials said this week that a visit to Taiwan by Pelosi — she would be the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to visit Taiwan since 1997 — would go beyond the usual safety precautions for trips to less risky destinations.

Asked about planned military steps to protect Pelosi, D-Calif., in the event of a visit, U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that discussion of any specific travel is premature. But, he added, “if there’s a decision made that Speaker Pelosi or anyone else is going to travel and they asked for military support, we will do what is necessary to ensure a safe conduct of their visit. And I’ll just leave it at that.”

Pelosi would be the highest-ranking American lawmaker to visit the close U.S. ally since a predecessor as speaker, Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., traveled there 25 years ago.

China considers self-ruling Taiwan its own territory and has raised the prospect of annexing it by force. The U.S. maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan even as it recognizes Beijing as the government of China.

The trip is being considered at a time when China has escalated what the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific describe as risky one-on-one confrontations with other militaries to assert its sweeping territorial claims. The incidents have included dangerously close fly-bys that force other pilots to swerve to avoid collisions, or harassment or obstruction of air and ship crews, including with blinding lasers or water cannon.

Dozens of such maneuvers have occurred this year alone, Ely Ratner, U.S. assistant defense secretary, said Tuesday at a South China Sea forum by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. China denies the incidents.

The U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues, described the need to create buffer zones around the speaker and her plane. The U.S. already has substantial forces spread across the region, so any increased security could largely be handled by assets already in place.

The military would also have to be prepared for any incident — even an accident either in the air or on the ground. They said the U.S. would need to have rescue capabilities nearby and suggested that could include helicopters on ships already in the area.

Pelosi has not publicly confirmed any new plans for a trip to Taiwan. She was going to go in April, but she postponed the trip after t esting positive for COVID-19.

The White House on Monday declined to weigh in directly on the matter, noting she had not confirmed the trip. But President Joe Biden last week raised concerns about it, telling reporters that the military thinks her trip is “not a good idea right now.”

A Pelosi trip may well loom over a call planned for Thursday between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, their first conversation in four months. A U.S. official confirmed plans for the call to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement.

U.S. officials have said the administration doubts that China would take direct action against Pelosi herself or try to sabotage the visit. But they don’t rule out the possibility that China could escalate provocative overflights of military aircraft in or near Taiwanese airspace and naval patrols in the Taiwan Strait should the trip take place. And they don’t preclude Chinese actions elsewhere in the region as a show of strength.

Security analysts were divided Tuesday about the extent of any threat during a trip and the need for any additional military protection.

The biggest risk during Pelosi’s trip is of some Chinese show of force “gone awry, or some type of accident that comes out of a demonstration of provocative action,” said Mark Cozad, acting associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corp. “So it could be an air collision. It could be some sort of missile test, and, again, when you’re doing those types of things, you know, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong.”

Barry Pavel, director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, scoffed at U.S. officials’ reported consideration of aircraft carriers and warplanes to secure the speaker’s safety. “Obviously, the White House does not want the speaker to go and I think that’s why you’re getting some of these suggestions.”

“She’s not going to go with an armada,” Pavel said.

They also said that a stepped-up U.S. military presence to safeguard Pelosi risked raising tensions.

“It is very possible that … our attempts to deter actually send a much different signal than the one we intend to send,” Cozad said. “And so you get into … some sort of an escalatory spiral, where our attempts to deter are actually seen as increasingly provocative and vice versa. And that can be a very dangerous dynamic.”

On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the presidential phone call. However, spokesperson Zhao Lijian reiterated China’s warnings over a Pelosi visit. “If the U.S. insists on going its own way and challenging China’s bottom line, it will surely be met with forceful responses,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing. “All ensuing consequences shall be borne by the U.S.”

Milley said this week that the number of intercepts by Chinese aircraft and ships in the Pacific region with U.S. and other partner forces has increased significantly over the past five years. He said Beijing’s military has become far more aggressive and dangerous, and that the number of unsafe interactions has risen by similar proportions.

Those include reports of Chinese fighter jets flying so close to a Canadian air security patrol last month that the Canadian pilot had to swerve to avoid collision, and another close call with an Australian surveillance flight in late May in which the Chinese crew released a flurry of metal scraps that were sucked into the other plane’s engine.

U.S. officials say that the prospects of an intercept or show of force by Chinese aircraft near Pelosi’s flight raises concerns, prompting the need for American aircraft and other assets to be nearby.

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group is currently operating in the western Pacific, and made a port call in Singapore over the weekend. The strike group involves at least two other Navy ships and Carrier Air Wing 5, which includes F/A-18 fighter jets, helicopters and surveillance aircraft.

Prior to pulling into port in Singapore, the strike group was operating in the South China Sea. In addition, another Navy ship, the USS Benfold, a destroyer, has been conducting freedom of navigation operations in the region, including a passage through the Taiwan Strait last week.

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Knickmeyer reported from Washington.

In a statement Monday, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said investigations into the deaths found that the crew “exercised sound judgment in their decision to get airborne as quickly as possible when faced with an unprecedented and rapidly deteriorating security situation.”

Video and other reports from that day vividly show Afghans mobbing the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, frantic to get out of the country when the Taliban seized control and U.S. forces were withdrawing. The C-17 transport plane was surrounded as it landed on the tarmac, and military officials have said the crew feared the plane would be overwhelmed, so they decided to take off.

As the plane lifted off, mobile phone video captured two tiny dots dropping from the aircraft. It later became clear that the dots were Afghans who had tried to hide in the wheel well. As the wheels folded into the body of the plane, the stowaways faced the choice of being crushed to death or letting go and plunging to the ground.

Human remains were found in the wheel well when the plane landed at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“This was a tragic event and our hearts go out to the families of the deceased,” said Stefanek. She said the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations looked into the incident and then turned the scene over to Qatar authorities, who declined to investigate further.

“The aircrew’s airmanship and quick thinking ensured the safety of the crew and their aircraft,” said Stefanek. “After seeking appropriate care and services to help cope with any trauma from this unprecedented experience, the crew returned to flight status.”

It is still unclear how many were killed. Videos show the two dots falling from the airborne plane, several seconds apart. But two bodies landed on the same rooftop at the same time, suggesting they fell together, so the other figure seen falling in the videos could be at least one other person.

Afghans later identified one of those who fell to the roof as Fida Mohammad, a 24-year-old dentist. And local media said the second body was identified as a young man named Safiullah Hotak. At least one other person died on the tarmac, crushed under the C-17’s wheels.

The MV-22 Osprey went down at 12:25 p.m. Wednesday during training in a remote area in Imperial County near the community of Glamis, about 115 miles (185 kilometers) east of San Diego and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Yuma, Arizona.

The aircraft was based at Camp Pendleton with Marine Aircraft Group 39 and was part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing headquartered at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.

“We mourn the loss of our Marines in this tragic mishap,” Maj. Gen. Bradford J. Gering, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to their families and friends as they cope with this tragedy.”

The statement said as a matter of policy, the Marine Corps would be contacting family members before identifying those who were killed. Efforts to recover equipment were underway and an investigation into the cause of the crash has started. No additional details were provided in the Marine Corps statement.

The Marines were participating in a routine live-fire training over their gunnery range in the Imperial Valley desert, said Marine Maj. Mason Englehart, spokesperson for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

The Osprey, a hybrid airplane and helicopter, flew in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but has been criticized by some as unsafe. It is designed to take off like a helicopter, rotate its propellers to a horizontal position and cruise like an airplane.

Versions of the aircraft are flown by the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force.

Prior to Wednesday’s crash, Osprey crashes had caused 46 deaths, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Most recently, four Marines were killed when a Marine Corps Osprey crashed on March 18 near a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle while participating in a NATO exercise. In 2017, three Marines were killed when their MV-22 Osprey crashed off Queensland, Australia. In 2015, one Marine was killed and 21 were injured when their MV-22 Osprey caught fire during a “hard landing” in Hawaii.

The Osprey is a joint project of Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing.

Its development was marked by deadly crashes, including an April 2000 accident in Arizona that killed 19 Marines.

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Baldor reported from Washington.

Academy spokesman Dean Miller said that a fourth cadet who had refused the vaccine until about a week ago, decided to be vaccinated and will graduate and become an Air Force officer.

In a statement, Miller said that while the three will get a degree “they will not be commissioned into the United States Air Force as long as they remain unvaccinated.” He added that a decision on whether to require the three to reimburse the United States for education costs in lieu of service will be made by the secretary of the Air Force.

As of Saturday, the Air Force is the only military academy, so far, where cadets are not being commissioned due to vaccine refusal. All of the more than 1,000 Army cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduated and were commissioned as officers earlier in the day and all were vaccinated.

The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, said Saturday that none of the Navy or Marine Corps seniors there are being prevented from commissioning due to vaccine refusals. That graduation is later this week, and the Air Force ceremony is Wednesday in Colorado. Ahead of that ceremony, the U.S. Air Force Academy Board conducted its standard review of whether this year’s class had met all graduation requirements on Friday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is the scheduled speaker at the Air Force graduation, last year made the COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for service members, including those at the military academies, saying the vaccine is critical to maintaining military readiness and the health of the force.

Military leaders have argued that troops for decades have been required to get as many as 17 vaccines in order to maintain the health of the force, particularly those deploying overseas. Students arriving at the military academies get a regimen of shots on their first day — such as measles, mumps and rubella – if they aren’t already vaccinated. And they routinely get flu shots in the fall.

Members of Congress, the military, and the public have questioned if the exemption reviews by the military services have been fair. There have been multiple lawsuits filed against the mandate, mainly centering on the fact that very few service members have been granted religious exemptions from the shots.

Until the COVID-19 vaccine, very few military members sought religious exemptions to any vaccines.

Lt. Col. Brian Maguire, an Air Force Academy spokesman, said a week ago that all four of the cadets had been informed of the potential consequences and met with the academy’s superintendent. And he noted then that they still had time before graduation to change their minds – and one did.

The military academies for years have required students under certain circumstances to repay tuition costs if they leave during their junior or senior year. Often those cases involve students with disciplinary issues or similar problems. The costs can be as much as $200,000, or more, and any final decision on repayment is made by the service secretary.

Across the military, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have discharged as many as 4,000 active duty service members for refusing the vaccine. Those who flatly refuse the vaccine without seeking an exemption are still being discharged. But the courts have stalled additional discharges of service members who sought religious exemptions.

According to the military, as many as 20,000 service members have asked for religious exemptions. Thousands have been denied.

About 99% of the active duty Navy and 98% of the Air Force, Marine Corps and Army have gotten at least one shot.

It’s the only military academy, so far, where cadets may face such penalties. The Army and Navy said that as of now, not one of their seniors is being prevented from graduating at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, or the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, due to vaccine refusals. The graduations are in about two weeks.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last year made the COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for service members, including those at the military academies, saying the vaccine is critical to maintaining military readiness and the health of the force.

Military leaders have argued that troops for decades have been required to get as many as 17 vaccines in order to maintain the health of the force, particularly those deploying overseas. Students arriving at the military academies get a regimen of shots on their first day — such as measles, mumps and rubella – if they aren’t already vaccinated. And they routinely get regular flu shots in the fall.

Members of Congress, the military and the public have questioned if the exemption reviews by the military services have been fair. There have been multiple lawsuits filed against the mandate, mainly centering on the fact that very few service members have been granted religious exemptions from the shots.

Until the COVID-19 vaccine, very few military members sought religious exemptions to any vaccines.

Lt. Col. Brian Maguire, an Air Force Academy spokesman, said that while vaccination status may hinder the graduation of the four seniors, “there are still two weeks until graduation, so their status could change as the cadets weigh their options.”

According to Maguire, the four cadets — who are not named — have been informed of the potential consequences, and have met with the academy’s superintendent. In addition to those four, there are two juniors, one sophomore and six freshmen at the academy who have also refused the vaccine.

The military academies for years have required students under certain circumstances to repay tuition costs if they leave during their junior or senior year. Often those involve students with disciplinary issues or similar problems. The costs can be as much as $200,000, or more, and any final decision on repayment is made by the service secretary.

West Point said that there are no members of the Class of 2022 who have refused to get the vaccine.

Across the military, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have discharged nearly 4,000 active duty service members for refusing the vaccine. According to recent data released by the services, more than 2,100 Marines, 900 sailors, 500 Army soldiers and 360 airmen have been thrown out of the military, and at least 50 were discharged during entry level training, before they moved into active duty service.

Those who flatly refuse the vaccine without seeking an exemption are still being discharged. But the courts have stalled additional discharges of service members who sought religious exemptions.

Last month, a federal judge in Texas barred the Navy from taking action for now against sailors who have objected to being vaccinated on religious grounds.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor had, in January, issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Navy from disciplining or discharging 35 sailors who sued over the Navy’s vaccine policy while their case played out. In April, O’Connor agreed the case could go forward as a class action suit and issued a preliminary injunction covering about 4,000 sailors who have objected on religious grounds to being vaccinated.

Also last month, a federal judge in Ohio granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Air Force from disciplining a dozen officers and some additional airmen and reservists who were seeking religious exemptions. The officers, mostly from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, sued in February after their exemption requests were denied.

According to the military, as many as 20,000 service members have asked for religious exemptions. Thousands have been denied.

As of recent data, the Air Force has approved 73 religious exemptions, the Marine Corps has approved seven, and the Army has approved eight. Before the injunction, the Navy conditionally approved one reservist and 26 active-duty requests for religious exemptions, and 10 requests from members of the Individual Ready Reserve. The IRR approvals mean that those sailors don’t have to be vaccinated until they are actually called to serve.

About 99% of the active duty Navy and 98% of the Air Force, Marine Corps and Army have gotten at least one shot.

It was the peak of this year’s omicron surge and an Army medical team was helping in a Michigan hospital. Regular patient beds were full. So was the intensive care. But the nurse heard of an open spot in an overflow treatment area, so she and another team member raced the gurney across the hospital to claim the space first, denting a wall in their rush.

When she saw the dent, Lt. Col. Suzanne Cobleigh, the leader of the Army team, knew the nurse had done her job. “She’s going to damage the wall on the way there because he’s going to get that bed,” Cobleigh said. “He’s going to get the treatment he needs. That was the mission.”

That nurse’s mission was to get urgent care for her patient. Now, the U.S. military mission is to use the experiences of Cobleigh’s team and other units pressed into service against the pandemic to prepare for the next crisis threatening a large population, whatever its nature.

Their experiences, said Gen. Glen VanHerck, will help shape the size and staffing of the military’s medical response so the Pentagon can provide the right types and numbers of forces needed for another pandemic, global crisis or conflict.

One of the key lessons learned was the value of small military teams over mass movements of personnel and facilities in a crisis like the one wrought by COVID-19.

In the early days of the pandemic, the Pentagon steamed hospital ships to New York City and Los Angeles, and set up massive hospital facilities in convention centers and parking lots, in response to pleas from state government leaders. The idea was to use them to treat non-COVID-19 patients, allowing hospitals to focus on the more acute pandemic cases. But while images of the military ships were powerful, too often many beds went unused. Fewer patients needed non-coronavirus care than expected, and hospitals were still overwhelmed by the pandemic.

A more agile approach emerged: having military medical personnel step in for exhausted hospital staff members or work alongside them or in additional treatment areas in unused spaces.

“It morphed over time,” VanHerck, who heads U.S. Northern Command and is responsible for homeland defense, said of the response.

Overall, about 24,000 U.S. troops were deployed for the pandemic, including nearly 6,000 medical personnel to hospitals and 5,000 to help administer vaccines. Many did multiple tours. That mission is over, at least for now.

Cobleigh and her team members were deployed to two hospitals in Grand Rapids from December to February, as part of the U.S. military’s effort to relieve civilian medical workers. And just last week the last military medical team that had been deployed for the pandemic finished its stint at the University of Utah Hospital and headed home.

VanHerck told The Associated Press his command is rewriting pandemic and infectious disease plans, and planning wargames and other exercises to determine if the U.S. has the right balance of military medical staff in the active duty and reserves.

During the pandemic, he said, the teams’ make-up and equipment needs evolved. Now, he’s put about 10 teams of physicians, nurses and other staff — or about 200 troops — on prepare-to-deploy orders through the end of May in case infections shoot up again. The size of the teams ranges from small to medium.

Dr. Kencee Graves, inpatient chief medical officer at the University of Utah Hospital, said the facility finally decided to seek help this year because it was postponing surgeries to care for all the COVID-19 patients and closing off beds because of staff shortages.

Some patients had surgery postponed more than once, Graves said, because of critically ill patients or critical needs by others. “So before the military came, we were looking at a surgical backlog of hundreds of cases and we were low on staff. We had fatigued staff.”

Her mantra became, “All I can do is show up and hope it’s helpful.” She added, “And I just did that day after day after day for two years.”

Then in came a 25-member Navy medical team.

“A number of staff were overwhelmed,” said Cdr. Arriel Atienza, chief medical officer for the Navy team. “They were burnt out. They couldn’t call in sick. We’re able to fill some gaps and needed shifts that would otherwise have remained unmanned, and the patient load would have been very demanding for the existing staff to match.”

Atienza, a family physician who’s been in the military for 21 years, spent the Christmas holiday deployed to a hospital in New Mexico, then went to Salt Lake City in March. Over time, he said, the military “has evolved from things like pop-up hospitals” and now knows how to integrate seamlessly into local health facilities in just a couple days.

That integration helped the hospital staff recover and catch up.

“We have gotten through about a quarter of our surgical backlog,” Graves said. ”We did not call a backup physician this month for the hospital team … that’s the first time that’s happened in several months. And then we haven’t called a patient and asked them to reschedule their surgery for the majority of the last few weeks.”

VanHerck said the pandemic also underscored the need to review the nation’s supply chain to ensure that the right equipment and medications were being stockpiled, or to see if they were coming from foreign distributors.

“If we’re relying on getting those from a foreign manufacturer and supplier, then that may be something that is a national security vulnerability that we have to address,” he said.

VanHerck said the U.S. is also working to better analyze trends in order to predict the needs for personnel, equipment and protective gear. Military and other government experts watched the progress of COVID-19 infections moving across the country and used that data to predict where the next outbreak might be so that staff could be prepared to go there.

The need for mental health care for the military personnel also became apparent. Team members coming off difficult shifts often needed someone to talk to.

Cobleigh said military medical personnel were not accustomed to caring for so many people with multiple health problems, as are more apt to be found in a civilian population than in military ranks. “The level of sickness and death in the civilian sector was scores more than what anyone had experienced back in the Army,” said Cobleigh, who is stationed now at Fort Riley, Kansas, but will soon move to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

She said she found that her staff needed her and wanted to “talk through their stresses and strains before they’d go back on shift.”

For the civilian hospitals, the lesson was knowing when to call for help.

“It was the bridge to help us get out of omicron and in a position where we can take good care of our patients,” Graves said. “I am not sure how we would have done that without them.”

Rolling out the Defense Department’s $773 billion request for fiscal 2023, Pentagon leaders said the budget was finalized before the invasion so it has no specific money for the war. Congress approved a $13.5 billion emergency funding package in early March.

The leaders said it was too early to predict how quickly Ukrainian forces will use up the weapons and ammunition already being provided, and how much the U.S. will need to replace what it sends to Ukraine, such as Stinger and Javelin missiles or body armor and other equipment.

“We’ll have to look at this again, probably in the summer, to be prepared for some of the more difficult options,” said Pentagon comptroller Michael McCord. “In the initial phases, at least, obviously we have been running through that drawdown at a fairly high rate. So, were that to continue, yes, we probably would need to address that again in the future.”

Despite the war in Europe, McCord said the U.S. still views China as America’s top challenge.

“We did not feel that what’s happening today altered the picture that China is the No. 1 issue to keep our eye on,” he said. “Obviously, you can draw your own conclusions about Russia’s performance on the battlefield.”

As the war enters its second month, the U.S. has been sending troops, aircraft and other weapons to NATO’s eastern flank, where nations worry they may be Russia’s next targets. The Pentagon said the budget recognizes that Russia is an “acute threat,” and the totals include more than $5 billion to provide support to European allies and increase America’s ability to work with them.

The budget also invests heavily in high-tech weapons and capabilities needed to counter China, Russia and other adversaries. The programs range from hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence to cyber warfare and space-based missile warning and defense systems.

The 2023 budget plan includes a 4.6% pay hike for the military and for Defense Department civilians — the largest raise in 20 years. And it provides $479 million to expand sexual assault prevention, treatment and judicial programs, including the hiring of about 2,000 personnel, including counselors and prosecutors.

The department also is seeking $1 billion to continue efforts to shut down the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii that leaked petroleum into Pearl Harbor’s tap water. The money is in addition to $1 billion already allocated, and will help pay for remediation of the site, ongoing needs of the affected families, litigation costs and the development of alternative fuel locations for the U.S. military in the region.

Nearly 6,000 people, mostly those living in military housing at or near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam were sickened, seeking treatment for nausea, headaches, rashes and other ailments. And 4,000 military families were forced out of their homes.

The budget includes $34.4 billion to accelerate modernization of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, largely following the path set by the Obama administration and continued by former President Donald Trump.

One of the few changes was a decision by the Biden administration to eliminate plans for a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile. That program, started by Trump and criticized by many Democrats as overkill, was in the early stages of research and development.

Other cuts are proposed in the budget including the decommissioning of several ships, a reduction in the number of F-35 fighter jets purchased in 2023 compared with earlier plans, and an effort to phase out the Air Force’s A-10 attack aircraft. Congress has repeatedly overruled efforts to cut the A-10 in the past.

Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.