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.
WASHINGTON: In an otherwise pro-forma meeting to approve legislative language for the 2013 national defense authorization, the Seapower panel of the House Armed Services Committee paused to add just one amendment to the otherwise unmodified bill: a provision by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter demanding that the Navy ‘fess up to Congress on problems with…
WASHINGTON: The House Armed Services Committee will authorize — though not require — the Navy to buy 10 Virginia-class attack submarines and 10 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers over five years, instead of the nine of each type requested in the President’s budget. While the Navy was open to buying 10 DDGs, the HASC language constitutes…
WASHINGTON: The US Army is traditionally the most low-tech of the four armed services, but the quest for lighter, stronger armor for troops and vehicles alike puts them on the cutting edge of materials science, from advanced ceramics to carbon nanotubes. That’s the reason the Army made an award worth up to $90 million over…
Reported cybersecurity incidents at federal agencies have risen 680 percent in six years, the Government Accountability Organization testified today — and note that key word “reported,” which means that’s just the ones we know about. Nor is the current threat merely the malicious “script kiddies” of yesterday: It’s increasingly hardened criminals and even nation-states, including…
WASHINGTON: With the Taliban reeling, it is the Afghan government’s own corruption that is the biggest threat to US goals and the biggest reason to keep US advisors in place through 2014 and beyond. That’s the verdict of Marine Maj. Gen. John Toolan, who just finished a year commanding the international force called Regional Command…
WASHINGTON: Lasers are déclassé even in science-fiction nowadays – the guys in Avatar and Mass Effect shoot bullets – and the big Air Force and Army laser programs of the last decade were ignominiously cancelled. So I was surprised at last week’s Navy League Sea-Air-Space conference to hear “directed energy” technology mentioned by no less…
Everyone’s scared of sequestration. But the US Navy and its shipbuilders are particularly upset by the prospect, because both the large-scale nature of naval construction and a historic quirk of the appropriations process leave warships particularly vulnerable. That’s why the Navy League of the United States, one of the nation’s oldest and most influential advocacy…
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD [updated 7:30 am Thursday 19 April with Congressional comment and Raymond Pritchett’s retraction] : The smartest man in the Department of the Navy, Under Secretary Robert O. Work, erupted today in a passionate defense of the service’s integrity in how it counts its ships and of the controversial Littoral Combat Ship‘s place…
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD: Trucks, not sports cars – that’s the Chief of Naval Operations’ vision for an affordable and upgradeable future fleet. And that’s good news for an array of programs, from the controversial Littoral Combat Ship, to the LPD-17 amphibious ship, to a Marine Corps initiative called Harvest Hawk that straps missiles to a…
This is going to hurt. That’s the grim message to defense contractors and federal workers alike from top acquisitions brass in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard who convened at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference this morning to discuss the new “era of austerity.” Pressure to cut costs coming from the highest levels, as…
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD: “The LCS is a warship and it is fully capable of going into combat situations,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus insisted to skeptical reporters yesterday. Mabus was attempting to take the edge off last week’s frank acknowledgment by the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, that the Littoral Combat Ship is significantly…
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD: The Coast Guard is shrinking and may have to cut back on traditional missions like fisheries protection and drug interdiction to free up resources for new issues like cybersecurity and the thawing of the Arctic, warned the service’s commandant, Admiral Robert J. Papp, this morning at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space convention.…
WASHINGTON [updated Friday 3:30 pm to add details from the Air Force statement and comment from Hawker Beechcraft CEO]: The Texan II is back in the saddle again. Next week, on Tuesday the 17th, the US Air Force will meet with both Hawker Beechcraft, which makes the AT-6 Texan II attack plane, and rival Sierra…
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
