Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Contributing Editor, Breaking Defense
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.Stories by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
LAS VEGAS: As US defense spending ramps down, both the military and the aerospace industry want to sell more drones to friends and allies overseas. Right now, however, export controls and arms control treaties make that awfully hard. “The foreign sales aspect of these RPAs [remotely piloted aircraft] is potentially huge,” Maj. Gen. James Poss,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
LAS VEGAS: As the Army institutionalizes robotic systems that began as ad hoc expedients for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chief of Staff wants drones in every combat aviation brigade and every division — even at the price of spreading them thinner across the force. The Army’s first company of Grey Eagle UAVs, a variant of…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
LAS VEGAS: “We’ve been spoiled,” the colonel said. Since 9/11, the military has had “giant pots of money” to throw at urgent problems without going through the full acquisition process. It’s been a bonanza for contractors with innovative technology to offer. But as the war winds down, Lt. Col. Stuart Hatfield of the Army Capabilities…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
LAS VEGAS: As military spending shrinks, makers of unmanned aircraft are looking to civilian customers to pick up the slack — but getting ready to fly drones in civilian airspace is a big technological and regulatory challenge. On Tuesday, acting Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta became the first FAA chief to address the annual conference…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
LAS VEGAS: The US military depends on drones. But amidst the justifiable excitement over the rise of the robots, it’s easy to overlook that today’s unmanned systems are not truly autonomous but rather require a lot of human guidance by remote control — and bad design often makes the human’s job needlessly awkward, to the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
In the Army, David Fastabend urged his fellow soldiers to “Adapt or Die,” as he entitled his essay on the need for innovation — but the principle also applies to the field he now works in, civilian cybersecurity. With the defeat of the Senate cybersecurity bill last week, one of the crucial unresolved questions is…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The defense spending bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee today keeps Block 30 Global Hawk drones flying, instead of letting them be warehoused as the Air Force had planned, a congressional source confirmed to Breaking Defense. That is arguably the final flourish on Congress’s utter rejection of the Air Force’s proposed cuts in…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL [updated 12:40 with Feinstein, Inouye remarks and results of amendment vote]: Sequestration drama roiled an otherwise pro forma mark-up of the Senate’s defense appropriations bill this morning, with a precious flicker of bipartisanship over the need to avert the sequester soon overtaken by disagreement over the legalities of layoff notices. If the automatic…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, MARYLAND: Most drones land the same way manned airplanes do, on a runway. But what if you don’t have a runway? Well, with an unmanned aerial vehicle called the RQ-21, Marines can string up a cable and snag the drone out of the sky. The military and unmanned aerial vehicle…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Launching drones/blimps as communication relays after disaster would do more harm than good, say AT&T, Sprint, & APCO: http://politi.co/MiSVqJ SydneyFreedberg
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON [updated 6:45 pm with Rep. Smith and AIA comment]: The Labor Department issued guidance today stating that defense companies and other federal contractors do not need to issue layoff notices sixty days in advance of sequestration. House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon immediately denounced the guidance as “politically motivated,” and his staff called it…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Labor Dept saying WARN act does NOT require layoff notices re sequester: http://bit.ly/Q6urjz. Story soon @ http://aol.it/NkxTqu SydneyFreedberg
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Even as Lockheed Martin chairman Robert Stevens warns of mass layoffs if sequestration hits, his company has been doing remarkably well this year, with revenue up 6 percent this quarter and earnings up 26 percent, according to an analysis by Motley Fool’s Rich Smith. Boeing has done even better, with 58 percent earnings growth, thanks…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
LAS VEGAS: As US defense spending ramps down, both the military and the aerospace industry want to sell more drones to friends and allies overseas. Right now, however, export controls and arms control treaties make that awfully hard. “The foreign sales aspect of these RPAs [remotely piloted aircraft] is potentially huge,” Maj. Gen. James Poss,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.LAS VEGAS: As the Army institutionalizes robotic systems that began as ad hoc expedients for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chief of Staff wants drones in every combat aviation brigade and every division — even at the price of spreading them thinner across the force. The Army’s first company of Grey Eagle UAVs, a variant of…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.LAS VEGAS: “We’ve been spoiled,” the colonel said. Since 9/11, the military has had “giant pots of money” to throw at urgent problems without going through the full acquisition process. It’s been a bonanza for contractors with innovative technology to offer. But as the war winds down, Lt. Col. Stuart Hatfield of the Army Capabilities…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.LAS VEGAS: As military spending shrinks, makers of unmanned aircraft are looking to civilian customers to pick up the slack — but getting ready to fly drones in civilian airspace is a big technological and regulatory challenge. On Tuesday, acting Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta became the first FAA chief to address the annual conference…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.LAS VEGAS: The US military depends on drones. But amidst the justifiable excitement over the rise of the robots, it’s easy to overlook that today’s unmanned systems are not truly autonomous but rather require a lot of human guidance by remote control — and bad design often makes the human’s job needlessly awkward, to the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.In the Army, David Fastabend urged his fellow soldiers to “Adapt or Die,” as he entitled his essay on the need for innovation — but the principle also applies to the field he now works in, civilian cybersecurity. With the defeat of the Senate cybersecurity bill last week, one of the crucial unresolved questions is…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: The defense spending bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee today keeps Block 30 Global Hawk drones flying, instead of letting them be warehoused as the Air Force had planned, a congressional source confirmed to Breaking Defense. That is arguably the final flourish on Congress’s utter rejection of the Air Force’s proposed cuts in…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.CAPITOL HILL [updated 12:40 with Feinstein, Inouye remarks and results of amendment vote]: Sequestration drama roiled an otherwise pro forma mark-up of the Senate’s defense appropriations bill this morning, with a precious flicker of bipartisanship over the need to avert the sequester soon overtaken by disagreement over the legalities of layoff notices. If the automatic…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, MARYLAND: Most drones land the same way manned airplanes do, on a runway. But what if you don’t have a runway? Well, with an unmanned aerial vehicle called the RQ-21, Marines can string up a cable and snag the drone out of the sky. The military and unmanned aerial vehicle…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Launching drones/blimps as communication relays after disaster would do more harm than good, say AT&T, Sprint, & APCO: http://politi.co/MiSVqJ SydneyFreedberg
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON [updated 6:45 pm with Rep. Smith and AIA comment]: The Labor Department issued guidance today stating that defense companies and other federal contractors do not need to issue layoff notices sixty days in advance of sequestration. House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon immediately denounced the guidance as “politically motivated,” and his staff called it…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Labor Dept saying WARN act does NOT require layoff notices re sequester: http://bit.ly/Q6urjz. Story soon @ http://aol.it/NkxTqu SydneyFreedberg
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Even as Lockheed Martin chairman Robert Stevens warns of mass layoffs if sequestration hits, his company has been doing remarkably well this year, with revenue up 6 percent this quarter and earnings up 26 percent, according to an analysis by Motley Fool’s Rich Smith. Boeing has done even better, with 58 percent earnings growth, thanks…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
