The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consist of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. All six armed services are among the eight uniformed services of the United States, along with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four services—Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force—and four arms—Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force, Information Support Force, and Joint Logistics Support Force. It is led by the Central Military Commission (CMC) with its chairman as commander-in-chief.
A flight surgeon is a military medical officer practicing in the clinical field of aviation medicine, which is also occasionally known as flight surgery.
The People's Liberation Army Air Force, also referred to as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army. The Air Force is composed of five sub-branches: aviation, ground-based air defense, radar, Airborne Corps, and other support elements.
The Fourteenth Air Force was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). It was headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
The People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF), also referred to as the PLA Army, is the land-based service branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and also its largest and oldest branch. The PLAGF can trace its lineage from 1927 as the Chinese Red Army; however, it was not officially established until 1948.
Los Angeles Air Force Base (LAAFB) is a United States Space Force base located in El Segundo, California. Los Angeles Air Force Base houses and supports the headquarters of the Space Systems Command field command of the United States Space Force, which was established on August 13, 2021. The center manages research, development and acquisition of military space systems.
The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, formerly the Second Artillery Corps, is the strategic and tactical missile force of the People's Republic of China. The PLARF is the 4th branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and controls China's arsenal of land-based ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missiles—both nuclear and conventional. The armed service branch was established on 1 July 1966 and made its first public appearance on 1 October 1984. The headquarters for operations is located at Qinghe, Beijing. The PLARF is under the direct command of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Military Commission (CMC).
The Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit, professional military association for the United States Air Force and United States Space Force. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, its declared mission is "to educate the public about air and space power, to advocate for the world's most capable, most lethal, and most effective Air and Space Forces, and to support Airmen, Guardians, and their families."
Air University is a professional military education university system of the United States Air Force. It is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award master's degrees.
The China Military Power Report, officially the Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China, is an annual report produced by the United States Department of Defense for the United States Congress that provides estimates, forecasts, and analysis of the People's Republic of China (PRC) military and security developments for the previous year. An unclassified form of the congressionally-mandated report is published publicly. The unclassified CMPR represents the most detailed, publicly-available source of information on the Chinese military.
The national security of China is the coordination of a variety of organizations, including law enforcement, military, paramilitary, governmental, and intelligence agencies that aim to ensure China's national security. China considers three factors in its national security: national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
The 12th Fighter Aviation Division (第12歼击机师) was an air division of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLA-AF). It was established in 1950, and disestablished by 2016-18.
A space force is a military branch of a nation's armed forces that conducts military operations in outer space and space warfare. The world's first space force was the Russian Space Forces, established in 1992 as an independent military service. However, it lost its independence twice, first being absorbed into the Strategic Rocket Forces from 1997–2001 and 2001–2011, then it merged with the Russian Air Force to form the Russian Aerospace Forces in 2015, where it now exists as a sub-branch. As of 2024, there are two independent space forces: the United States Space Force and China's People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force.
The Fourth Department (4PLA) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Staff Department (GSD) is also known as the Electronic Countermeasures and Radar Department. It was charged with the Chinese People's Liberation Army's offensive electronic warfare (EW) and information warfare (IW) missions, to include offensive cyber operations. In 2016, its functions were transferred to the Network Systems Department of the PLA Strategic Support Force.
The People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force was a service branch of the People's Liberation Army that existed from December 2015 to April 2024.
The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) is the United States Air Force (USAF) organization focused on education, research, and operational consultation in aerospace and operational medicine. USAFSAM was founded in 1918 to conduct research into the medical and physiologic domains related to human flight, and as a school for medical officers trained to support military aviation operations, later coined as flight surgeons. The school supported early military aviation from World War I through the evolution of aviation and into the modern era. USAFSAM conducted medical research and provided medical support for the initial US space operations beginning in 1947 through the establishment of NASA in 1958. After the creation of NASA, USAFSAM continued to actively support civilian and military manned space missions through clinical and physiologic research. USAFSAM is one of the oldest continually operating school for flight surgeons and other operational medical personnel of its kind in the world. USAFSAM is located in Dayton, Ohio at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and is part of the 711th Human Performance Wing and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
The 8th Bomber Division or 8th Air Division of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is an air formation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Today, the 8th Bomber Division is assigned to the Southern Theater Command and operates Xian H-6 bombers. The 8th Bomber Division, the first and longest-serving bomber unit in the PRC, has been deployed in the 1950–1953 Korean War, 1958 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, 1959 Tibetan uprising, and today conducts deterrence patrols in the South China Sea.
The Harbin Flight Academy is an aviation training academy in the People's Republic of China reporting directly to the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) headquarters. One of three flight academies in the PLAAF, Harbin Flight Academy is located in Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang Province and is the only institution to train the Chinese air force bomber pilots.
