Top 10 Stories Of 2020: DARPA Dogfights To Polish Bridges

Top 10 Stories Of 2020: DARPA Dogfights To Polish Bridges
Top 10 Stories Of 2020: DARPA Dogfights To Polish Bridges

The list is an impressive marker of the breadth of topics we cover as we chronicle the strategy, policy and politics that decide the weapons America and its allies buy, and how we use them.

Navy’s New Nuke Sub On Track; Early Problems Fixed

Navy’s New Nuke Sub On Track; Early Problems Fixed
Navy’s New Nuke Sub On Track; Early Problems Fixed

CAPITOL HILL The head of the Navy’s Columbia-class nuclear submarine program says that the program, despite earlier concerns over cost, schedule, and industrial base issues, is set to meet its goal of a first deployment in 2031, putting the service’s most expensive and consequential program on track. The boats will come just in time to…

Navy — Don’t Classify It! Tell America ‘The Story Of Seapower’: Rep. Gallagher

Navy — Don’t Classify It! Tell America ‘The Story Of Seapower’: Rep. Gallagher
Navy — Don’t Classify It! Tell America ‘The Story Of Seapower’: Rep. Gallagher

CRYSTAL CITY: When the Chief of Naval Operations told the Navy in March to close its mouth about readiness issues he was heading in the wrong direction, a Marine and member of the House Armed Services Committee told the Surface Navy Association this morning. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who served two tours in Anbar Province before…

What Trump’s First Nuclear Posture Review Should Do

What Trump’s First Nuclear Posture Review Should Do
What Trump’s First Nuclear Posture Review Should Do

If we’re lucky, the fourth Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) will encourage a reawakening of strategic analysis and renewed efforts to assess the role of nuclear weapons in US national security. If we’re not, and this is more likely, we’ll find ourselves awash in time-worn arguments about assured destruction, limited war, arms limitation, modernization, and morality.…

10 Reasons The US Should Build New Nuclear Missiles, GBSD

10 Reasons The US Should Build New Nuclear Missiles, GBSD
10 Reasons The US Should Build New Nuclear Missiles, GBSD

CORRECTED: Minuteman Was First Solid-Fueled ICBM; Jon Wolfsthal’s name The first solid-fueled InterContinental Ballistic Missile, Minuteman 1, was deployed some 55 years ago on the same day that President Kennedy announced that Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba. At the end of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy credited the newly deployed Minuteman ICBM as his “ace…

Our Nukes Cost More Than You Think; Stimson Pegs Annual Nuke Spending At $31B

The defense budget is going down…have you heard? The presidential campaign is shedding a lot of heat, but very little light on this reality; you won’t hear much of substance about how or where it will go down. Or much sensible or reasonable discussion about how we manage a defense build-down in a way that…