Rising Republican star Sen. Kelly Ayotte said her “libertarian” and “isolationist” Senate colleagues who would cut defense spending to help solve the budget deficit have abandoned the principles of conservative icon Ronald Reagan. Speaking at the conservative American Enterprise Institute late Wednesday afternoon, the junior Senator from New Hampshire said that “with the issues that…
By Otto KreisherGA-ASI’s MQ-9B: The right UAV for persistence, power, and performance
When assessing the state of the art of unmanned aerial systems, it’s critical to be very clear about what various aircraft can and can’t do – and could never do.
WASHINGTON: After a decade of war in which they played a key role and were rewarded with a doubling of their forces and budget, Special Operations leaders want still more — more people, more money and more authority to decide where their troops go and what they do. Those goals are likely to clash with…
By Otto Kreisher[After meeting this morning with Amb. Susan Rice, Senator Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, spoke to reporters today at a 12noon roundtable at the Foreign Policy Institute’s annual conference, where she promised there “absolutely” would be a hold if Amb. Rice is nominated for Secretary of State — and potentially, a hold on any administration nominee for…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: In almost every war of the modern era, artillery has played a decisive role. But the lowly IED, cobbled together explosives ignited by cobbled together detonators, has now replaced artillery as the greatest killer on the modern battlefield, according to Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, head of the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) The…
By Otto KreisherWASHINGTON: In lawless, inaccessible regions of the world, drone strikes are America’s least-worst option for pursuing terrorists, a panel of experts agreed today — and many of the civilians whose deaths are blamed on US drones were actually killed by local factions on the ground or never existed at all. “They are actually our least…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The U.S. and Pakistan are in talks to establish close cooperation and collaboration by their armed forces to counter insurgents who cross the Afghan-Pakistan border, a senior defense official said Wednesday. The official, speaking on background, cited those discussions as additional signs of the improvements in the chronically troubled relations with Pakistan, part of a…
By Otto KreisherWASHINGTON: As terrorist groups increasingly work with drug gangs and other international criminals, they pose new threats to the United States – but they also create new vulnerabilities that savvy Americans can use to attack them, said the Pentagon’s top drug war expert, William Wechsler. The US needs to go beyond thinking of terrorist groups…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
A 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.
WASHINGTON — A judge may have found unconstitutional the law that allows people to be held indefinitely without trial by the military, but the House of Representatives voted Friday to keep it anyway.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Eleven months before the 9/11 attacks, suicide bombers sent by Osama bin Laden blew a huge hole in a U.S. Navy destroyer that had stopped to refuel in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen sailors died and 39 were wounded on the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000. Now, as the alleged mastermind behind the…
By Colin ClarkWashington: A number of sophisticated shoulder-fired missiles looted from Libyan armories have already been smuggled out of the North African country and we don’t know where they’ve gone, a top U.S. general said today. Africa Command chief Gen. Carter Ham said his organization picked up “worrying indicators” that some of the unaccounted for Libyan stockpiles…
By Carlo MunozTwo top Pentagon spokesmen’s exchange with reporters today illustrated why U.S.-Pakistani relations are like a troubled marriage that at least one partner would like to preserve. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s spokesman George Little and Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Michael Mullen’s flak Navy Capt. John Kirby echoed their bosses’ accusation that Pakistan’s Inter-service Intelligence agency (ISI)…
By Otto KreisherI was editor of Defense News on Sept. 11, 2001. My son had been born just a few months earlier, that February. The first hint I had of anything untoward was a bizarre story I heard on National Public Radio as I parked my VW Passat at the office just before 9 a.m. A small…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: Lawmakers want the Pentagon’s intelligence shop to play nice with the rest of the intelligence community, and they have the program to do just that. Included in the Senate Armed Service Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill, a Defense Intelligence Agency-led “pilot demonstration” program will allow the Pentagon to share…
By Carlo Munoz
