Special Ops Office Needs To Grow; Meet Adm. McRaven’s Favorite Pundit, Linda Robinson

Special Ops Office Needs To Grow; Meet Adm. McRaven’s Favorite Pundit, Linda Robinson
Special Ops Office Needs To Grow; Meet Adm. McRaven’s Favorite Pundit, Linda Robinson

WASHINGTON: When Linda Robinson speaks, special operators listen. The “silent professionals” are — for good reason — traditionally tight-lipped. The chief of Special Operations Command, Adm. William McRaven, proved that again today during a panel at the Wilson Center, giving eloquent non-answers to questions about what might transpire in Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. But McRaven…

Unclassified Net Assessment of China, US And Japan Released By Carnegie

Unclassified Net Assessment of China, US And Japan Released By Carnegie
Unclassified Net Assessment of China, US And Japan Released By Carnegie

WASHINGTON: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace just released what a spokesman calls the “the first and only unclassified strategic net assessment of the future security dynamic between China, Japan, and the United States-including relative military capabilities and domestic and external variables.” For those who don’t wallow deeply in the Pentagon’s unique world, a net…

What Will F-35 Costs Be In New SAR Estimate; Do They Matter?

What Will F-35 Costs Be In New SAR Estimate; Do They Matter?
What Will F-35 Costs Be In New SAR Estimate; Do They Matter?

WASHINGTON: Acquisition experts agree that accurate cost estimates can be devilishly difficult to get right. The Pentagon’s top cost estimator, Christine Fox, says current cost estimates are often accurate within several percentage points. That’s impressive, but on programs measured in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, a few percentage points can mean a…

Syria, North Korea, China & Beyond: Does Army’s Future Lie In ‘Messy Middle’?

WASHINGTON: What does America need an army for, anyway? The question has bedeviled policymakers since the Founding Fathers, who wrote their distrust of large ground forces into the Constitution. The question returns as budgets come back down after every land war. This time around, the Army leadership has not given the country a clear answer,…

Sec Army McHugh Says No Choice But Accept Apache Transmission Swaps; Line Would Have Shut Down

WASHINGTON: The Secretary of the Army defended today what he admitted was “an unconventional approach” to fielding the service’s cutting-edge AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter, saying the only alternative to the current complex workaround would have been to “shut the line down” for a time. “I will grant the unconventionality of it,” John McHugh said.…

Army Releases The Kraken To Protect Foreign Fire Bases; ‘I’d Like To See The Taliban Try To Attack This Place’

ZARI, Afghanistan: On March 3, 2008, a Taliban suicide bomber driving a green truck packed with explosives barreled through the front gate of a small U.S. outpost in Sabari district, Afghanistan, and blew himself up next to the dining facility where American soldiers were just sitting down to dinner. Taliban foot soldiers streamed in, firing…

Air Force Secretary Donley Resigns; Female SAIC EVP Rumored Next In Line

UPDATED: SAIC‘s Deborah Lee James Rumored To Be Strong Contender For Secretary WASHINGTON: The longest serving Secretary of the Air Force, Mike Donley — harbinger of changing times for the service — is leaving his post after almost five years. [Click here to read a series of op-eds Sec. Donley wrote for Breaking Defense on…

Army Plays Shell Game With Unfinished Apache Helicopters: Put The Transmission In, And Pull It Out Again

WASHINGTON: The Army’s problem with its new Apache helicopters isn’t as bad as we thought when we first wrote about it last week. It’s worse. We knew that Northstar Aerospace, the subcontractor making the transmissions for lead contractor Boeing, had fallen behind on building that crucial component. We knew at least seven of the latest…

Army: AH-64E Apaches Are A-OK; Transmission Problem Didn’t Hit Cost Or Schedule

The Army’s newest attack helicopter is on track, the colonel in charge said in response to congressional concerns: Delays in manufacturing transmissions for the Boeing-built AH-64E Guardian have neither driven up the price nor slowed its fielding to combat units. [But there are still unflyable AH-64Es on the Army’s hands: click here to read the…

Navy’s Ray Mabus: ‘Sequestration Looms Over Everything’ On Shipbuilding

CAPITOL HILL: Sequestration is not the Navy’s only shipbuilding problem. In the near term, the automatic cuts to the 2013 budget are bedeviling efforts to save money by buying ships in bulk. Negotiators are racing the clock to salvage a multi-year procurement contract to buy 10 DDG-51 Aegis destroyers for the price of nine; Navy…

SecAF Donley: Strategy, Sequestration Out Of Synch; National Decision Needed

WASHINGTON: Here’s something to raise your hackles, or to Spider Man fans, set your spidey sense tingling. Air Force Secretary Mike Donley told reporters this morning that the budget and strategy talks are “two separate discussions trucking along in parallel.” “The tension between the need to do something to address the deficit and the strategic…

Hagel’s Budget: Where’s The Beef In Reform Efforts, Weapons Buys?

In a town full of hot air, speeches are a dime a dozen. But money still talks. So let’s compare the new Secretary of Defense’s policy agenda to his first proposed budget. While Leon Panetta, his predecessor, mostly built this budget, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel owns it now and has already spent a considerable amount…

China Takes Baby Steps On Military Transparency; Blots Copybook Whining About Pacific Pivot

WASHINGTON: Even the grim, dark and powerful Soviet Union came to share fairly detailed information about the size and potency of its military to ensure nobody made a wrong step by over- or underestimating its military prowess. The current rising power, China, so far, has largely refused to share much information about either how its…

First Secure Data On Move Transmission Via MUOS

Lockheed’s #MUOS sat has done first operational transmission of secure data on move to Manpack radio. 20K terminals to go. Big tactical info @colinclarkaol