Stories by Otto Kreisher

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Raytheon Presses Hard For More Army Biz: NGCV, DeepStrike, Coyote

Raytheon Presses Hard For More Army Biz: NGCV, DeepStrike, Coyote
Raytheon Presses Hard For More Army Biz: NGCV, DeepStrike, Coyote

The growing threat from potential near-peer adversaries, such as Russia and China, has propelled the Army into an all-out drive to rapidly modernize with an array of weapons ranging from technologically enhanced ground combat vehicles to long-range precision-guided missiles. The Army showed its commitment to that quest in its recently released fiscal 2020 budget that…

Raytheon Targets Army Multi-Domain Systems Like DeepStrike

Raytheon Targets Army Multi-Domain Systems Like DeepStrike
Raytheon Targets Army Multi-Domain Systems Like DeepStrike

As the new National Defense Strategy shifts the U.S. armed forces’ focus from combating violent extremists to confronting China and Russia, Raytheon is offering an array of multi-domain capabilities to modernize the Army “not just for today but tomorrow,” Kim Ernzen, executive vice president of the company’s Land Warfare Systems, says. Raytheon is particularly well…

Navy 2016 Budget Funds V-22 COD Buy, Carrier Refuel

Navy 2016 Budget Funds V-22 COD Buy, Carrier Refuel
Navy 2016 Budget Funds V-22 COD Buy, Carrier Refuel

  PENTAGON: The Navy 2016 budget yields to Congress’s strong opposition to the service’s previous efforts to cut the active fleet to save money. It funds nuclear refueling and overhaul of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington –that it had tried to retire — and modifies its plan to put 11 cruisers and an amphibious ship…

‘If It’s Not Survivable, We Don’t Care:’ HAC-D’s Peter Visclosky On Littoral Combat Ship

‘If It’s Not Survivable, We Don’t Care:’ HAC-D’s Peter Visclosky On Littoral Combat Ship
‘If It’s Not Survivable, We Don’t Care:’ HAC-D’s Peter Visclosky On Littoral Combat Ship

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee pressed the leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps today about how they could meet the national security challenges with shrinking budgets, questioning the survivability of the Littoral Combat Ships, the status of the costly and controversial Joint Strike Fighter and the Navy’s plan to take seven cruisers and possibly…

Navy Faces Budget Shortfall Even If Sequester Goes Away

Navy Faces Budget Shortfall Even If Sequester Goes Away
Navy Faces Budget Shortfall Even If Sequester Goes Away

Even if Congress somehow rolls back sequestration, the Navy’s fiscal situation will be uncomfortably tight, like trying to steer a battleship through the Panama Canal. Under the president’s five-year budget plan — which assumes sequester away — the “real buying power” for the Navy and the Marine Corps declines after fiscal year 2016, the Navy…

F-35 Sails Through Crucial Senate Hearing; Witnesses Testify There’s No Alternative

F-35 Sails Through Crucial Senate Hearing; Witnesses Testify There’s No Alternative
F-35 Sails Through Crucial Senate Hearing; Witnesses Testify There’s No Alternative

CAPITOL HILL: The Pentagon’s most expensive conventional weapon program emerged largely unscathed from perhaps its most intensive review before the crucial congressional subcommittee that controls military funding. As over budget and behind schedule as the $391 billion, 2,443-plane F-35 program has fallen since initial promises of a low-cost, multi-service Joint Strike Fighter, two high-powered panels…

Navy Budget Share Grows, Boosted By Pacific Strategy Shift

PENTAGON: The Navy would get the largest budget share among the three military services in the 2014 budget submitted Wednesday, but would still see a drop in total funding from what Congress provided for this year in the final version of the continuing resolution. The $155.8 billion requested for the Navy Department in the president’s…

Success Of AIA’s Anti-Sequester Campaign Looks Unlikely

WASHINGTON: Apparently realizing that its year-long campaign to stop the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration by focusing on the severe impact on national security has not been effective, the Aerospace Industries Association tried to broaden its appeal Monday by joining with a coalition of non-defense organizations and trying to shift the focus to “entitlements.”…

Air Force Nuke Force Commander Cuts B-52 Flying Hours As Specter of Sequester Looms

The Air Force general responsible for most of the nation’s military nuclear force is worried that the Continuing Resolution and the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration will wipe out 20 percent of the money he needs to keep his force combat ready. “You can’t take those kinds of reductions we’ll be looking at without…

House Just Can’t Get Deals Done To Fix Budgets, HASC Dem Rep. Courtney Says

CRYSTAL CITY: A senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee has given up hope that the House can agree on anything to prevent sequestration, provide defense appropriations for the remainder of the year, or raise the debt ceiling. Judging from the way all the recent fiscal crises have been resolved, the solution has been…

Air Force Leaders Warn Budget Woes Could Hollow the Force

The Air Force’s top leaders warn that the “nation’s on-going budget gymnastics impose costly consequence on the Air Force and other services” and pleaded with Congress to avoid sequester, which they said would leave a “hollow force” unable to perform its mission. In a joint appearance before Pentagon reporters Friday, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley…

Pacific Strategy Is Sunk If We Can’t Solve Fiscal Crisis: State Dept Official

WASHINGTON: There’s an increasing consensus in Washington that America’s future lies in the Pacific. It’s one of the few things both parties can agree on. Unfortunately, if we can’t reach an agreement to get our fiscal house in order, the governments in the Asia-Pacific region will have every reason not to take our strategy seriously.…

European Defense Ain’t Getting Better: Budgets, People, R&D All Down

WASHINGTON: You think US defense spending is a mess? At least we’re not Europe. A study out Tuesday from the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that a decade of shrinking forces and funding is likely to continue, threatening a European defense industrial base already burdened by inefficiencies, national rivalries, and governmental tendencies to…

US, Turkey Have ‘Never Been So Close’; Amb. Tan Lauds Patriot, F-35

Despite international perceptions that the Turkey’s Islamic-oriented government has turned its back on its American ally, Ankara’s ambassador to the United States insists that “the relationship has never been so close.” “That doesn’t mean that we don’t have any disagreements,” Ambassador Namik Tan told reporters this morning. “Turkey is, of course, an independent state.” But…

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