Colin Clark

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.

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Posts by Colin Clark

Naval Warfare

US Nuke Focus Has Drifted ‘A Little:’ Hagel

Submarine Base Kings Bay, Ga: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, during a two-day round of base visits to highlight top budgetary concerns, told an all-hands gathering of nuclear submariners today that America’s military has let its focus on nuclear issues “drift” under pressure from the last 13 years of land wars. “Over the years we’ve let our focus on the nuclear […]

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Air Warfare

No Decisions Yet On F-35B UK Flights; Tomorrow Looms

WASHINGTON: The F-35Bs have not left Patuxent River Naval Air Station to make their way across the Atlantic Ocean. After an all–hands meeting this morning to discuss the issue of securing a waiver or permission to fly from NAVAIR, Naval Air Systems Command — who must decide if the Marine Corps planes are airworthy — […]

Air Warfare

Northrop Takes The Lead From BAE On $11B T-X Trainer

WASHINGTON: While Northrop Grumman isn’t doing much at the upcoming Farnborough Air Show — at least publicly — they certainly shook things up today with their announcement that they are swapping places with BAE Systems to take the lead role in the competition for the $11 billion, 350-plane T-X trainer program. While the BAE-Northrop team […]

Air Warfare

F-35 Fleet Grounded: Air Show Flights May Still Happen

UPDATED: F-35s Grounded, Say OSD, JPO. Still Hoping For Air Show Flights (Thursday 9 pm) WASHINGTON: The Fourth of July may not be much of a holiday for the pilots and program officials trying to decide if the F-35 can fly safely to Britain after the recent fire at Eglin Air Force Base. UPDATE One […]

Air Warfare

Top US Officials Return To Farnborough As F-35 Debuts

WASHINGTON: If you want to know how important the F-35 program is to American strategy and to American business note that Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Frank Kendall, the czar of Pentagon acquisition, top the list of senior American officials going to the Farnborough Air Show this year, making this the largest and […]

Air Warfare

AETC Sharing Info On Fire Damaged F-35A; F-35Bs Resuming Flight

WASHINGTON: The Marines plan to get their F-35Bs back up in the air this afternoon after last week’s F-35A fire at Eglin Air Force Base and remain committed to flying several planes to the Royal International Air Tattoo and the Farnborough Air Show in the United Kingdom. “The Marine Corps will resume F-35B flight operations […]

Air Warfare

Marines Won’t Take The Beaches Head-On Any More; ‘Find The Gaps’

WASHINGTON: Tarawa. Saipan. Iwo Jima. Peleliu. Okinawa, Inchon. These are among the most sacred names in Marine Corps history. They define the sea-borne warriors’ in so many ways: sacrifice, grit, honor, competence. To most Americans, and to many Marines, those amphibious assaults are the soul of the Corps. But those bloody and costly frontal assaults are […]

Air Warfare

JSF Fire Looks Like ‘Isolated Event’; F-35As Stay On Ground

UPDATED: Air Force 33rd Fighter Wing Continues Safety Pause For F-35As. WASHINGTON: The fire that struck an Air Force F-35A as it took of from Eglin Air Force Base should have limited operational effect on the Joint Strike Fighter program if initial conclusions by program officials are accurate.. The Air Force has paused its aircrafts’ […]

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Air Warfare

House Bucks Appropriators; Forbids A-10 Retirement

WASHINGTON: Election fears ruled the day on Capitol Hill when the full House of Representatives voted to stop the Air Force from retiring the venerable and venerated A-10 aircraft in the chamber’s version of the defense appropriations bill. While we heard little of the backroom chatter and didn’t see the emails that doubtless flew as […]

Congress

300 US Advisors Heading To Iraq; Obama Pledges To Eye ‘Mission Creep’

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama today outlined a careful commitment of US forces to Iraq, pledging to watch any “mission creep” as he sends an initial 300 special operations advisors to gauge the strengths, weaknesses and cohesiveness of Iraq’s security forces as they battle the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The U.S., Obama […]

Air Warfare

Air Force Keeps Mum On New Bomber RFP

WASHINGTON:The Air Force really, really doesn’t want to offer any new details about its Long Range Strike bomber. In light of last Friday’s  comments by the new head of Air Force acquisition, Bill LaPlante, to the effect that the new RFP for the Long Range Strike bomber would be out in “days,” I dug around […]

Networks & Digital Warfare

PsyOps Primer: The Battle For Minds And Hearts

We don’t often run such items but the info graphic below nicely summarizes the art and history of psychological operations, though it doesn’t touch on the newer aspects of the art — social media and data mining. (After all knowing details of your target audience — age, sex, location, etc. — and influencing its actions […]