If war is politics by other means, then politics is war by other means, Chinese and Russian leaders believe. And political warfare must be conducted with the same ruthless ingenuity as open war because the stakes are equally high: the survival or destruction of the regime.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“If at some point in future, you need to expand your capability, expand your military,” Maj. Gen. Ryan said, “Australia’s at the end of a very long line of industrial resupply, and we might want to have the capacity ourselves.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The American way of war — using overpowering industrial might, crushing firepower, and owning the sea and skies — may have come to an end, a top Pentagon official says. For the past two decades, “the Chinese and the Russians have been working to undermine that model,” said Elbridge Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense…
By Paul McLearyFaced with erratic funding from Congress, the Navy has pursued cost-efficiency so rigorously that it has cut corners and compromised peacetime safety and, very possibly, wartime performance. Crews are shorthanded and spare parts stockpiles are low.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PENTAGON: The United States government sees a fundamentally more threatening world today, one that requires a more nuanced balance of delivery systems than we’ve deployed since the end of the Cold War. That’s really the change that has driven the results of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, officially released today. Careful transparency continues to…
By Colin ClarkUPDATED w/ Mahnken interview CAPITOL HILL: The US military is not ready for war against Russia or China, leading experts told the House Armed Services Committee this morning. How can Congress help? Champion new technologies that would otherwise drown in the Pentagon bureaucracy, they said, the way it did with the Predator drone and Tomahawk missile in…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The Navy’s new Strategic Readiness Review lays out a bold program to fix the fleet after a summer of deadly collisions. Commissioned and championed by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the SSR (as it’s already initialized) will shape the debate in the Pentagon and in Congress for 2018. So we asked submariner-turned-thinktanker Bryan Clark to review…
By Bryan ClarkUPDATED: Adds Mattis Comment On Allies WASHINGTON: While partisans on both sides will try to recast President Trump’s new legally-mandated National Security Strategy in their own terms, we’re going to try and analyze it in terms of what it actually means. One of the wisest and most rational defense strategists in this country, Anthony Cordesman,…
By Colin ClarkUPDATED: We Run Op-Ed; Pentagon Announces LRSO Contract The Pentagon just awarded the third major contract in the modernization of the nuclear triad. First came the B-21 bomber. Then the Columbia-class submarine, to replace the Ohio class boomers. Two days ago they awarded Boeing and Northrop Grumman contracts to begin work on the new version…
By Mark GunzingerWASHINGTON: Oil, gas, and minerals on the seabed. Disputed territorial claims. An increasingly aggressive China. Are we talking about the South China Sea or the Arctic Ocean? “As I look at what is playing out in the Arctic, it looks eerily familiar to what we’re seeing in the East and South China Sea,” Adm. Paul…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Run silent, run deep — and now, run in packs? Submarines are traditionally lone wolves, but the rise of robotics is starting to change that. Just yesterday, defense contractor BAE announced a $4.6 million award from DARPA to build an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) to accompany manned submarines, helping them spot targets by sending out…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.ARLINGTON: The Army is dialing up its lasers, from 5 to 10 kilowatt weapons that torched quadcopters in successful tests to 50 to 100 kW weapons that could kill helicopters and low-flying airplanes — and, possibly, blind cruise missiles as well. Given rising anxiety over Russia’s Hind gunships, Frogfoot fighters, and Kalibr missiles, the technology…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.UPDATED w/ Sen. McCain’s “optimism,” Cdr. Clark’s analysis WASHINGTON: At 1:10 pm today, the Navy issued its official wishlist for its future frigate and set a 45-day deadline for shipbuilders to respond. As acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley had promised, today’s Request For Information (RFI) opens the door wide to both US and foreign designs. It…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The United States Air Force should consider shifting its balance of its strike forces from fighters to long-range bombers. At the end of the Cold War, the Air Force’s combat aircraft inventory included 411 bombers. Today, it has a total of 158 B-1, B-52, and B-2 bombers, of which only 96 are designated as Primary…
By Mark Gunzinger