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.
cclark@breakingmedia.com
PENTAGON: A second senior nuclear commander in a week has been relieved of his post today. Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, deputy commander of the 20th Air Force, was fired after “a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment,” the Air Force said in a statement. Carey is the deputy commander responsible for…
WASHINGTON: Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Democratic Party stalwart, plans to leave the Defense Department after more than six years there, opening the way for his boss to pick his own deputy. There have long been rumors that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Carter did not mesh well and Carter’s visibility has slipped considerably since…
UPDATED: Senate Clears Stopgap Death Benefits Bill By Unanimous Consent at 12:48 PM Oct. 10. WASHINGTON: Every member of Congress should hang his or her head in shame this afternoon. The Fisher House Foundation has stepped into the breach of the federal government shutdown and agreed to pay the families of Americans who die fighting…
CAPITOL HILL: While the federal government remains supine and Congress fails to pass appropriations bills, at least one lawmaker is engaged in a classic use of senatorial privilege: placing a hold on the nomination of a senior administration official. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who has made clear her unease with what appears to be the Air…
The latest victim of the federal government shutdown is a crucial player in the space and intelligence world, the Aerospace Corporation, which has had to cut back the work of 60 percent of its 3,500 employees. “The Aerospace Corporation started implementing a partial work shutdown on Oct. 3, after the Air Force’s Space and Missile…
UPDATED: Lockheed Now Plans 2,400 Furloughs After DoD Decides To Bring Back Civilian Workers (10/7 at 12:45 p.m) WASHINGTON: OK. That headline is deliberately provocative. But here’s the evidence. The president of the United States cancels an important trip to Asia — including the first visit by a president to the increasingly powerful state of…
WASHINGTON: The federal government shutdown won’t hurt much this week but after two to three weeks, contracts won’t get paid or issued, testing won’t get done. and production of major weapons systems may be disrupted or halted. That was the consensus of several senior defense executives, including Exelis CEO David Melcher, at a gathering held here…
WASHINGTON: If the shutdown of the federal government could get more depressing today, it did. Senior House Republicans, clearly worried about angry constituents, began to press Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and — by extension — the Obama administration to end the furloughs of the 400,000 civilian defense workers. Rep. Buck McKeon, chair of the House…
WASHINGTON: You can imagine the whoops at Lockheed Martin’s Bethesda and Fort Worth offices today when the South Korean government dumped Boeing’s F-15 “Silent Eagle” in favor of a stealthy aircraft likely to be the F-35. “Our air force thinks that we need combat capabilities in response to the latest trend of aerospace technology development…
WASHINGTON: Nuclear weapon accidents should worry everyone until they are contained and proven harmless. At the same time, we have to be rational about the risks. The latest example of how well those risks have been balanced comes from the Guardian, a very fine paper that I used to write for when I lived in…
It’s difficult enough for one ship to find and sink another ship. It may not be quite as hard for planes flying from an aircraft carrier to find enemy ships and sink them, but it’s not easy. The hardest task for a plane — especially a land-based plane — may be to find a small…
CAPITOL HILL: A bipartisan letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus argues that the Navy should reexamine the approach it’s taking to the stealthy carrier-based Unmanned Aerial System known as UCLASS. UCLASS letter fm Forbes to Sec. Mabus 9-17-2013 Reps. Randy Forbes and Mike McIntyre, the chairman and ranking members of the House Armed Services seapower and…
CAPITOL HILL: Even the cameras stopped clicking in a hushed Armed Services hearing room today as Rep. Jim Cooper told the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his colleagues on the biggest committee in Congress today that America’s lawmakers had failed the country. “You gentlemen make life and death decisions in the Tank almost every day,”…
National Harbor, MD: The Air Force will protect and defend the budgets of the KC-46 airborne tanker, the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and the nascent Long Range Strike Bomber, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told a standing room audience of more than 1,200 here. Oh, and Welsh made clear his view of…
