Colin Clark, the founding editor of Breaking Defense, is now our Indo-Pacific Bureau Chief, based in Sydney, Australia. In addition to his foundational efforts at Breaking Defense, Colin also started DoDBuzz.com, the world’s first all-online defense news website. He’s covered Congress, intelligence and regulatory affairs for Space News; founded and edited the Washington Aerospace Briefing, a newsletter for the space industry; covered national security issues for Congressional Quarterly; and was editor of Defense News. Colin is an avid fisherman, grill genius and wine drinker, all of which are only part of the reason he relishes the opportunity to live in Australia.
WASHINGTON: As happened with the F-22, the Air Force gets reports of possible hypoxia incidents — known officially as “physiological episodes” — imposes flight restrictions to investigate and then lifts the restrictions without knowing exactly why they happened. That’s what happened today with the announcement that the 25,000-foot restriction on its F-35A fighters was lifted […]
WASHINGTON: As the Japanese reacted vigorously today to North Korea’s firing of a missile over the northern island of Hokkaido, the head of the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College argued in an article that the possession of nuclear weapons is actually helping to restrain Kim Jong-un’ s actions. In his article, James Forsyth, dean […]
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PENTAGON: Eager to stem the flow of Air Force pilots chasing bigger paychecks and cushier gigs with America’s airlines, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson announced today the service is increasing what used to be called flight pay for the first time since 1999. US airlines hired 4,000 pilots last year, many of them former […]
UPDATED: Adds Comment By Former Top Navy Cyber Warrior WASHINGTON: After half a decade of dithering by Democrats and Republicans, the Trump administration has finally made Cyber Command a unified combatant command. The White House statement does not name the first head cyber warrior since it remains a dual-hatted command, with the head of the […]
WASHINGTON: It probably won’t do much to fend off vigorous efforts by House lawmakers to create a Space Corps, but the Air Force has picked most of the people to staff its new A11 space office in the Air Staff. The pick for assistant deputy chief of staff, Shawn Barnes, for space operations is pretty deft, […]
HOLLOMAN AFB: We first heard about ThunderDrone from Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who told a mystified audience that the Air Force would take part in an event none of us had ever heard of. “In two months, we’re going to have a big competition. They’ve rented out a big warehouse,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson […]
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
CORRECTED: TACO GILBERT’S AFFILIATION HOLLOMAN AFB: It may be hard to believe but the future of the Air Force may depend on three turboprop planes and a $20 million spec-built attack jet. They are the entries in what the service calls the Light Attack Experiment, a back-to-the-future attempt to rekindle the sort of innovation and […]
PENTAGON: In his first interview, the man overseeing the Air Force’s attempt to build the first truly global command and control system says it will demand major changes to the US military. Multi-Domain Command & Control will demand changes to how America commands its troops around the world, to acquisition, to Air Force culture and […]
CAPITOL HILL: The security of nuclear command and control is the Holy Grail of the US military. Nothing, especially in these turbulent days, matters more. Aside from occasional talk about the nuclear football — as the case containing the nuclear codes is known — most Americans know little about what would happen in the event […]
CAPITOL HILL: Stealth was sold as something close to magic when it first appeared. And, as usually happens when extraordinary claims are made, the blowback was intense. Skeptics pointed to its vulnerability to large-scale, land-based radars, to the fact it wasn’t invisible to the naked eye, to the costs and difficulties of maintaining the expensive […]
As threats rapidly evolve, digital engineering, manufacturing capacity and robust supply chains are critical to meeting challenges.
WASHINGTON: Space Corps. It sounds cool. You get visions of space marines and pilots saving the universe. In their latest blast against the Air Force, though, Reps. Mike Rogers and Jim Cooper are more, well, down to earth. They argue that the failings of big-ticket programs such as OCX and FAB-T offer ammunition that a Space […]
WASHINGTON: After the markets closed on a sleepy and rainy summer Friday afternoon, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was ousted and DHS Secretary John Kelly named to take his place, and, oh, by the way, a $3.69 billion contract was awarded Lockheed Martin for 50 foreign F-35s and work on the Lot 11 […]
OMAHA: The deep fissures over how to solve our knottiest national security problem, North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, were on full display here this afternoon as the government’s top expert said Kim Jong-un “does not intend to negotiate those capabilities away at any price.” Markus Garlauskas, the North Korea officer for the Director of […]
OMAHA: Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten today confirmed, more than two months after news first broke of a shift, that he’s ordered a series of sweeping changes at STRATCOM. Basically, he got rid of the Joint Functional Component Commands for space, global strike, cyber, integrated missile defense, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and whittled them […]