EUCOM HQ: As he addressed reporters today during the European Command change of command ceremony here, a visibly moved Defense Secretary told us he had just learned an American soldier died in Iraq. Carter had few details but he said this: “But it shows you, it’s a serious fight that we have to wage in…
By Colin ClarkA new approach to speed, scale and efficiency for the industrial base
Radars, EW, EO/IR, space imagery, and microelectronics are brought under one roof for a streamlined approach to common people and factories.
STUTTGART, GERMANY: In a last minute-announcement before his meeting with 10 anti-Daesh coalition members, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters that Norway has made a “very significant” pledge to contribute to the fight. He also hinted that American troop commitments would increase in the future. “Norway’s decision to deploy special operations forces to Jordan to…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Robophobes, relax. The robot revolution is not imminent. Machine brains have a lot to learn about the messy physical world, said DARPA director Arati Prabhakar. Instead, DARPA sees some of the most promising applications for artificial intelligence in the intangible realm of radio waves. That includes electronic warfare — jamming and spoofing — as…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
PENTAGON: In a stark indicator of just how grim the situation between Russia and the United States is growing, senior US defense officials say European Command is shifting its focus from “reassurance to deterrence” and “from a training to a warfighting stance.” Defense Secretary Ash Carter himself is flying across the Atlantic to preside over Tuesday’s…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: One word from Defense Secretary Ash Carter yesterday opened the door to US arms sales to Vietnam, a former enemy turned potential ally against a rising China. The administration has tiptoed towards easing the ban on lethal weapons sales ever since Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang met with Obama in 2013, but Carter’s statement…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED with Sen. McCain & Dean Cheng comments WASHINGTON: If China builds an artificial island on the disputed Scarborough Shoal, Sen. Dan Sullivan warned today, it will complete a “strategic triangle” of bases that can dominate the South China Sea. At this morning’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sullivan displayed a map (above) of the region…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
When Air Force One touches down at King Khalid International Airport on Wednesday, President Obama will enter a Middle East figuratively as well as literally on fire. In the current revolutionary period, the region is beset by multiple cross-cutting wars, the ongoing disintegration of at least four states (Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen), and the ascendance…
By James Kitfield
WASHINGTON: NATO would be dangerously slow to respond to a crisis scenario in the Baltics, warns a new report on a closed-doors wargame. That raises the unsettling possibility that in a Crimean-style land grab, Russia could simply seize what it wants before the US and its allies react. Compared to Vladimir Putin’s nimble mix of…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
A London Daily Mail report that the V-22 is “the SAS’s deadly new weapon in the war against Islamic State terrorists threatening to bring murder and bloodshed to the streets of Britain” has Pentagon and Osprey fleet insiders giggling and Bell-Boeing executives doing some wishful thinking. The Daily Mail told us that the SAS (Special Air Service) was…
By Richard Whittle
In its eagerness to avoid offending the Chinese, is the administration giving them a green light in the disputed South China Sea? This afternoon, on the eve of his departure for the Philippines and India, Defense Secretary Ash Carter carefully tiptoed around ongoing Chinese national security provocations. Several experts I spoke to were not reassured. Carter…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
We write a lot on this site about high-tech, high-cost weapons. But it’s worth remembering that most of the killing around the world, an estimated 200,000 deaths a year, takes place with low-tech tools, like these AK-47 assault rifles the Navy seized Friday in the Arabian Sea. All told, the small cargo ship carried 21…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
At the end of this week, thousands of experts in one of humanity’s most terrible possibilities — nuclear war — will meet here in Washington to discuss how to avoid what they have spent their careers planning to do, in hopes they never will. Michael Krepon, one of America’s most experienced practitioners of the arcane art of…
By Michael Krepon and Joe Kendall
PENTAGON: The United States and its allies have turned the tables on Daesh and the battle for Mosul is joined. While the battle will be grim and long, those opposed to the nihilists, murderers, rapists and apostates also known as ISIL now possess the momentum that had for so long been with the other side.…
By Colin Clark
Secretary of State John Kerrry visited Hiroshima’s Peace Park on April 10, becoming the highest-ranking American official to visit the city we pulverized with the first use of an atomic weapon to help end World War II. Kerry seemed to indicate President Obama might visit the site, a diplomatically, strategically and emotionally fraught decision for America, Japan and much…
By Bob Butterworth