Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

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.

Army Goes World of Warcraft; Virtual Training To Soften Budget Cut Pain

How do you modernize without money? Army brass are test-driving a new message at the annual Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference in Fort Lauderdale: Modernization is about more than new equipment – which, by the way, we can’t afford. There are plenty of other things we can do to keep our cutting edge.…

Army Makes Big Bets On Small Programs; Train, Advise Mission May Spread Beyond SOF

THE PENTAGON: While multi-billion dollar programs dominate the defense debate, the U.S. Army is quietly placing a big bet on a very small part of the Pentagon budget. The service’s strategy? Leverage the administration’s interest in rebuilding military-to-military relationships around the world – long overshadowed by the simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – by…

Army 2013 Budget Magically Drops 50 Thou Soldiers; Aviation Thrives

It’s budget day, so keep your eye on the cups as budgeteers move them round and round. In real life, the Army will shrink steadily from its peak of almost 570,000 soldiers to 490,000 by 2017. But, on paper, in the Pentagon’s base budget for 2013, that shrinkage will happen overnight at the beginning of…

Nasty Battle Deepens Over Air Force Super Tucano Deal; Foreigners, Buy American, George Soros All In Play

If you thought the Republican primaries had turned ugly, wait till you see what it takes to win an Air Force contract nowadays. The feud between Hawker Beechcraft and Sierra Nevada Corporation over the Light Air Support contract has escalated from the usual appeals to the GAO up to a lawsuit, a freeze on the…

Army Finds Silver Lining In Tough Budget Blueprint

WASHINGTON: The Army may be in the cross-hairs of the budget cutters, but it’s had a surprisingly good week. While the number of soldiers will drop to 490,000 as long expected, the service is getting a lot of what it wanted to cushion that fall – starting with time. “As important as the 490[,000] number…

A Pivot To Asia? Not So Fast

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has started to caveat its grand strategic mantra of a “pivot to Asia” – i.e. shifting from the land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to preparing for “AirSea Battle” against China. In the Defense Budget Priorities released yesterday and, most critically, in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s press conference explaining them, the emphasis…

The Army’s Vision Thing: The Biggest Service Struggles To Define Itself

The U.S. Army has always struggled with what the elder George Bush once called “the vision thing.” Now that struggle is boiling over. At the latest of a series of conferences on the future of the Army, junior officers openly debated with top generals over how to sell the service to the Congress, the country,…

Air Force Buys Light Attack Planes For Afghans — Not U.S.

Air Force Buys Light Attack Planes For Afghans — Not U.S.
Air Force Buys Light Attack Planes For Afghans — Not U.S.

Just before the New Year, the U.S. Air Force finally selected a new Light Air Support plane for ground attack in counterinsurgency, picking the Brazilian Super Tucano over the American AT-6– whose manufacturer, Wichita, Kan.-based Hawker Beechcraft, is filing suit over the decision [update: leading the Air Force to issue a stop-work order on the…

Army Juggles Drawdown; Plans For Future Growth

The Department of Defense is on the defensive nowadays, with everybody braced for cuts. The Army already has marching orders to reduce its manpower from the current 565,000 active-duty personnel to 520,000, and no one expects it to stop there. But some Army leaders are looking past the lean years and planning how to build…

Facing Big Cuts, Army Reshapes Reserves To Keep Key Troops

With the regular Army shedding personnel to fit in ever-tighter budgets, the U.S. Army Reserve is positioning itself as a low-cost way to keep skilled, experienced veterans associated with the military. The plan, in a nutshell: If you can’t keep ’em in the regular Army, keep ’em in the Reserves. Today, only 9 percent of…

Army Targets AirSea Battle; Hungers For Pacific Role

With budgets falling and China rising, the U.S. Army wants in on the one theater where President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have promised to keep investing: the Pacific. The world’s largest ocean is not an obvious fit for America’s land forces. So far, it is the Air Force and the Navy that have…

‘Eternal optimist’ Flournoy: We Won’t Salami-slice Military Budget

National Defense University: We’re going to do downsizing right: That’s the essence of the pledge made today by the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Policy, Michèle Flournoy. It won’t be an easy one to keep. Flournoy talked to reporters here after she spoke to an NDU conference on “grand strategy. While the military’s top civilian strategist…

Hope, Innovation, Risk: How to Survive The Shrinking Army

Washington: The Army faces one of the great post-war declines in budget and people, a time of great uncertainty. How should it cope? The Army can’t just go into a defensive crouch and try protecting what it has, argued a high-powered group of retired generals: The service’s top leaders must articulate a positive vision of…

Army Pushes New Training, Tech For Infantry Squads

Army Pushes New Training, Tech For Infantry Squads
Army Pushes New Training, Tech For Infantry Squads

The Army has launched a major effort to strengthen its seven thousand infantry squads — an effort that will require overcoming cultural and bureaucratic resistance to succeed. Light-infantry traditionalists will have to get over their longstanding suspicion of digital technology both on the battlefield and in training, which will increasingly rely on simulations. Tech geeks…

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