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.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the principal military force of the People's Republic of China. The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and Strategic Support Force. It is under the leadership of 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. Although the term "flight surgery" is considered improper by purists, it may occasionally be encountered.
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 was officially established on 11 November 1949, and it 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 is the land-based service branch of the People's Liberation Army and the largest and oldest branch of the entire Chinese armed forces. 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 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 military modernization program of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) which began in the late 1970s had three major focuses. First, under the political leadership of 3rd paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, the military became disengaged from civilian politics and, for the most part, resumed the political quiescence that characterized its pre-Cultural Revolution role. Deng reestablished civilian control over the military by appointing his supporters to key military leadership positions, by reducing the scope of the PLA's domestic non-military role, and by revitalizing the party political structure and ideological control system within the PLA.
The paramilitary forces of China are the military units and formations apart from the People's Liberation Army, the principal military force of the People's Republic of China. They are composed of three main forces, the People's Liberation Army reserve force, the People's Armed Police (PAP), and the Militia, and they act as auxiliaries to the active forces of the People's Liberation Army. They generally perform a wide range of roles. All together, the paramilitary has 98,854,000 troops, as of 2018.
The Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) system is a planned United States Space Force constellation of satellites and supporting ground infrastructure that will improve the ability of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to detect and track space objects in orbit around the Earth.
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 the world's only independent space force is the United States Space 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 is the space, cyber, political, and electronic warfare force and the 5th branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). It was established in December 2015 as part of the first wave of the Chinese military reforms.
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.
