WASHINGTON: The pushback to President Donald Trump’s global steel and aluminum tariffs — announced Thursday — has been swift and blunt. Republicans, Democrats, top defense officials, Trump advisors and trade groups have all made public their misgivings, saying the taxes could actually prove harmful to national security, and end up costing the Pentagon money. But […]
UPDATED from hearing and House vote WASHINGTON: The Navy is doing a good job addressing the problems revealed by last summer’s fatal collisions at sea, for example by filing criminal charges this week against officers involved, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the House seapower subcommittee say. Now Congress needs to do its part and pass […]
Standoff capability means warfighters stay connected and remain remotely located in a safer environment while making it harder for adversaries to target them.
UPDATED: Adds SecDef Spox Comment That CRs Are “Damaging” & Mattis Supports Spending Bill CAPITOL HILL: To prevent a government shutdown Dec. 8th, Congress looks likely to pass a stopgap spending bill called a Continuing Resolution. But yet another CR, rather than a proper budget, would do unacceptable damage to the military, defense hawks say. So […]
WASHINGTON: All hands, brace for disappointment. The president’s promised naval buildup won’t begin in the 2018 budget out next week — or maybe ever. Sure, before the election, candidate Donald Trump promised a 350-ship Navy. Sure, just this morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan repeated the 350 figure. Sure, this week the Chief of Naval Operations […]
UPDATED: Republicans Abandon Spending Bills; McCain Says “Madness Needs To End” WASHINGTON: The defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, is the crowning glory of Congress when it comes to the most fundamental function of the federal government: providing for the common defense. To that end, we understand a letter by Rep. Joe Wilson, chairman […]
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump visited the White House this morning for the first time in an official capacity as the initial shock of his election as president of the United States began to wear off. You could tell it was wearing off because Congress already began to remind Trump of the limits of his power. At first, the Republicans […]
It's been a whirlwind of a year — and the defense establishment has plenty of thoughts on how it's unfolded and what might come next.
WASHINGTON: Congress has returned after a week of uncommonly beautiful weather for Washington in late August. But, with all the other miseries that Congress has wrought upon the American people in the last few years, lawmakers appear to have brought the hot and muggy weather back with them. What else might they have brought back? Could […]
WASHINGTON: The most intriguing assessment of President Obama’s veto yesterday of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act comes from a Republican. While Mackenzie Eaglen, defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, clearly doesn’t think much of Obama’s move — citing “his intransigence at anything less than is being demanded of him” — she also concludes that he’s […]
WASHINGTON: What will happen if President Obama vetoes the National Defense Authorization Act? No one really knows. We’ve pinged a number of experienced staff and other experts and no one really knows the likely consequences of a veto. It looks likely that troops will get paid, weapons bought, and operations paid for, albeit at lower […]
This week, the Republican Congress is expected to unveil its fiscal year 2016 budget resolution just as House defense authorizers start marking up their annual bill. What will that mean for the US military? Bottom line, the Pentagon should realistically expect no more than $569 billion from Congress in the final, enacted 2016 budget between base […]
Cyber resilience has become a frontline mission for the US military. Breaking Defense’s new eBook rounds up key reporting from the 2025 Alamo ACE conference with the latest developments in cyber offense and defense.
As bitter as the budget battle has become, there’s no topic more toxic than pay and benefits for military personnel. Pentagon budgeteers and the top brass warn that increasing compensation costs, especially for health care, are growing at an unsustainable pace that threatens every other priority from weapons procurement to combat training. But personnel advocates […]
Much of official Washington likes the budget deal struck this week by Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan, chairs of the two chambers budget committees. No more stupid and debilitating showdowns. No more federal shutdowns. Perhaps Congress can actually do what it is expected to do and pass some spending bills. At least we […]
THE NEWSEUM: In a glass-walled conference center overlooking the snow-shrouded US Capitol, three legislators expressed guarded optimism that Congress could reach a modest budget deal. [UPDATED: The chairs of the House and Senate budget committees announced a plan late Tuesday night, but it has yet to pass into law]. That’s the good news. The bad news […]
The House passed the second Continuing Resolution of the year today, avoiding the direst scenario that had haunted many in American defense circles. But the CR’s passage does not mean anyone has avoided sequestration, as the mandatory budget cuts are known. And cutting $50 billion a year from the Pentagon budget for the next 10 […]