Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. has written for Breaking Defense since 2011 and served as deputy editor for the site's first decade, covering technology, strategy, and policy with a particular focus on the US Army. He’s now a contributing editor focused on cyber, robotics, AI, and other critical technologies and policies that will shape the future of warfare. Sydney began covering defense at National Journal magazine in 1997 and holds degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, and Georgetown.
Life or death in wartime is horrifically random, subject to “fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,” but sometimes that randomness generates not tragedy, but miracles. Such is the story of Army Sergeant Roger Daniels. On a patrol in Afghanistan last August, Daniels, then just 21 years old, took a bullet to the head and survived…
[Updated 4:30 pm] WASHINGTON: The US Navy has decided to scrap the fire-ravaged USS Miami, whose repair bill from arson had soared to $700 million from $450 million. It’s the first time the Navy has written off a damaged sub since the USS Bonefish burned in 1988, and it brings the attack submarine force down to 54…
CAPITOL HILL: Just when the Navy’s surface fleet had started pulling itself out of a 10-year, $2 billion hole, budget dysfunction may kick it right back in. We’ve written a great deal about the damage done to all four armed services by the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. But what is happening to the…
CAPITOL HILL: Syria and sequestration dominated today’s Senate Appropriations Committee’s mark-up of the $594 billion defense spending bill for fiscal year 2014, but there was little actual progress on either. Appropriators are historically the most hard-nosed legislators; they’re the committees that have to match congressional rhetoric with actual money. But today, the appropriators approved a…
One of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate blamed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for Washington’s inability to fix the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. “They assume sequester is the new normal,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, chair of the almost all-powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, sitting in on a meeting of SAC’s defense subcommittee…
By voting to raise troops’ pay at almost twice the rate the Pentagon has requested, the House of Representatives risks suffocating other defense priorities, from combat training to much-needed weapons programs like the Army’s flagship Ground Combat Vehicle, Chief of the Staff of the Army Gen. Ray Odierno said today. “We made a recommendation this…
CAPITOL HILL: To rephrase Doctor Johnson for the 21st century, there’s nothing that concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the prospect of being hacked. In cyberspace, though, that threat goes both ways. While Americans are outraged over Chinese theft of US secrets both commercial and military, a leading expert told Congress yesterday, the Chinese are…
[Updated with new information from the Navy] After we posted our article on the electrical problem that left the USS Freedom “briefly” unable to navigate, the Navy provided us this detailed official explanation from Lt. Cdr. Clay Doss: USS Freedom (LCS 1) returned to Changi Naval Base July 21 after experiencing a problem with the…
[updated Wednesday 11:15 am] Yes, it is a bad idea to drop bombs on a World Heritage site, even when they aren’t armed to explode. But it’s arguably better than dropping the bombs on people. Australians are understandably upset after US Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers, participating in a joint US-Australian exercise called Talisman Saber, jettisoned…
WASHINGTON: Talk about timing. As Congress gears up to grill Navy officials on the much-criticized Littoral Combat Ship program, the fleet’s first LCS suffered yet another power outage that “briefly” shut down its engines near Singapore, where the USS Freedom recently deployed for its first foreign tour. [Click here for the Navy’s detailed official explanations].…
WASHINGTON: For six decades, Americans have been in charge of the joint US-Korean headquarters that would control both countries’ forces in the event of war. The South Koreans were supposed to take over the Combined Forces Command in 2015, but now Seoul is getting cold feet about ending the Cold War arrangement — and Korea’s new…
PENTAGON: The Navy has 10 fewer ships worldwide compared to just a few months ago. It has no warships at all off South America to help combat the drug trade. And training cutbacks will force many units to specialize in a sub-set of their assigned missions instead of getting ready for the full range of…
CRYSTAL CITY: Don’t think Beijing. Think Abottabad. The evolving concept known as Air-Sea Battle isn’t all about a war with China, nor a budget war with the US Army, said the former Air Force chief of staff who is one of the concept’s founding fathers. Instead, said Gen. Norton Schwartz, who retired just last fall,…
Today, the US Air Force announced that squadrons grounded since April, from combat units to the famous Thunderbirds, had the funding to fly again – for now. Congress had given the service permission to move some $423 million from other programs into the training budget, enough to keep planes flying until October 1st, when the…
At AUSA Global Force 2024, IAI will present integrated, AI-driven combat systems – both manned and unmanned – that are opening new opportunities on the battlefield.
At AUSA Global Force 2024, IAI will present integrated, AI-driven combat systems – both manned and unmanned – that are opening new opportunities on the battlefield.
