The Navy-Marine Corps team just completed the largest amphibious exercise in more than a decade. But what did people see? What did they recognize in the Bold Alligator exercise and focus upon? Because it is called an amphibious exercise, outsiders who attended the exercise tended to focus upon the amphibious ships themselves, the landing ships,…
By Robbin LairdGA-ASI’s MQ-9B: The right UAV for persistence, power, and performance
When assessing the state of the art of unmanned aerial systems, it’s critical to be very clear about what various aircraft can and can’t do – and could never do.
WASHINGTON: The Air Force leadership is hurting in the wake of another botched acquisition and the continuing Dover Air Force Base burial scandal, and you could see it in the face of Gen. Norton Schwartz this morning. The latest cock-up forced the Air Force to set aside, effective March 2, the $355 million contract for…
By Colin ClarkAFGHANISTAN: International Special Operations Forces play an important but largely unheralded role in Afghanistan. American Army Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force, along with Navy SEALs and Air Force specialists work with the best from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and a host of other allied nations to kill and capture insurgents and terrorists. They also…
By David AxeTHE 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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Over the next few years, Special Operations forces will gradually revert to the role that has been their bread and butter for much of their existence: training and assisting local forces around the globe to strengthen partners militaries. The global Special Operations presence will be large, some 12,000 troops around the world, according to…
By Colin ClarkABOARD THE USS WASP: For the first time, Marine and Navy planners have melded a carrier strike group into the Marine Corps’ premiere amphibious operations wargame known as Bold Alligator. This appears to bridge what had appeared to be a growing divide between a Marine Corps eager to build more amphibious ships and a Navy…
By Carlo Munoz
B-21, hypersonics and more: How digital development is driving industry innovation
Technological advancements are key to keeping pace with customer demands and evolving threat landscapes.
Soldiers might be able to ditch awkward goggles or helmets to access data while in the battlefield in favor of virtual reality contact lenses. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to enhance soldiers’ vision with virtual reality contact lenses, according to Federal Computer Week. The technology involves contact lenses with built-in systems that would…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: One lesson the Army has taken to heart from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the value — and often the necessity — of aviation to soldiers fighting on the ground. This is one reason that, even as the Army shrinks by a reported 80,000 or more troops under President Obama’s new military…
By Richard WhittleThe 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,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Before designing and articulating a new defense strategy, DoD officials must answer an important question: Will the most dangerous twenty-first century threats emerge more from unfavorable order or unacceptable disorder? Unfavorable order is rooted in military competition with rising powers like China or Iran and conforms well to emerging concepts like Air-Sea Battle. Unacceptable disorder…
By Nathan FreierAs the war in Afghanistan passed its tenth anniversary this week, many news outlets repeated the frequently repeated claim that the conflict there has replaced Vietnam as America’s longest war. That is a questionable assertion. Even if you count only from the first “official” U.S. combat operations in Vietnam — the Gulf of Tonkin air…
By Otto KreisherWashington: Another memorandum signed by two governments. Yawn. Well, usually. But when the Japanese government confirmed that it would now allow its air forces to refuel American warplanes as part of an agreement signed between the two countries last October it took on an entirely new meaning. The year-old pact between the Air Force and…
By Carlo Munoz
Afghan War Lessons: U.S. Must Make Strategic Choices As Budgets Shrink
Americans paused recently to remember the tenth anniversary of 9/11. In years ahead they will remember and debate the wisdom of American policy and actions in Afghanistan. Far fewer will reflect on the significance of 10/7/2001; the date marking the start of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)-the U.S. and coalition attacks to wipe out Al Qaeda.…
By David Deptula