Pundits tend to forget that the 21st century is not the 20th repeated. As much as the US competition with a rising China is framed as a reprise of the Cold War with the Soviets or of the Pacific war with Japan, the game has changed. The rise of China changes the opposing player. The […]
Technology is not enough. What’s equally essential is ideas for how to use it. Wielding new weapons in the same old way is a recipe for defeat. As the US military today invests in innovative programs, none larger than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, it must also invent innovative concepts of operation. The Air Force’s […]
Do more with less: streamline workflows, reduce duplication, invest upfront to save long-term.
The pivot to the Pacific started more than a century ago. The United States first became a Pacific power in 1898, the year the US first annexed Hawaii and then gained Guam and the Philippines (as well as Puerto Rico) from Spain after a “short, victorious war.” The United States is at a turning point […]
Energy security is a key element of national security. The missing piece of America’s energy security policy, in turn, is the glaring absence of a strategy to coordinate and secure the enormous energy resources of the Western hemisphere. Today, America is over-dependent on the increasingly volatile Middle East, China is increasingly aggressive in its quest […]
In an exclusive interview in advance of Wednesday’s new US-Canadian agreement on Artic cooperation, Gen. Charles Jacoby — the Army four-star who leads both the US-Canadian NORAD and US Northern Command — spoke to AOL regulars Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake about the national security aspects of US policy at the top of the world, […]
Since President Obama has declared Syrian use of chemical weapons a “red line” that line should mean something when it has been crossed. And the president better have a clear view of what his options are to change the situation when the “red line” is crossed. But do we? Having spent many years looking at […]
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
YUMA: The first F-35 Bravos are arriving at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma later this month. By early next year, the full complement of 16 F-35 Bs will have arrived to replace Yuma’s four existing squadrons consisting of 56 AV-8B Harriers. This is the beginning of the next 100 years of naval aviation for […]
A christening of a ship of the line is rare. When it happens, thoughts of how that ship might be used, where it might operate and how it might make new naval history are part of the excitement. This was clearly evident at the Oct. 20 christening of the USS America, the fourth ship of […]
Libya has become the Obama administration’s Iraq. Enthusiasm for intervention without clarity of strategy after intervention is common to both the Bush and Obama administrations. What is different is that George W. Bush took ownership of the Iraq crisis; Barack Obama has not. In the Libyan case, the dynamics are occurring in the background of […]
At last year’s Geoint conference, Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper made it clear that a significant amount of the savings needed by the intelligence community over the next five years would come from cutting the budget to buy commercial space imagery. Despite opposition within the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and quiet panic on the […]
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
This is the third in a series of commentaries defense consultant and author Robbin Laird, a member of the Breaking Defense Board of Contributors, is penning about how the U.S. can and should shape its forces to perform the Asia strategy pivot. As a key part of that, he’ll be looking closely at what he […]
This September, the controversial Osprey will reach the five-year mark in its operational deployment history. In September 2007, the Osprey was deployed for the first time to Iraq. The plane has not only done well, but in five short years has demonstrated its capability to have not only a significant impact on combat but to […]
This is the second in a series of commentaries defense consultant and author Robbin Laird, a member of the Breaking Defense Board of Contributors, is penning about how the U.S. can and should shape its forces to perform the Asia strategy pivot. As a key part of that, he’ll be looking closely at what he […]
There were only four men in U.S. History awarded the five star rank of Fleet Admiral: Chester Nimitz, “Bull” Halsey, William Leahy and Ernie King. From their days at Annapolis to commanding the greatest naval fleet in history, each man spent significant time at sea interspersed with time ashore furthering their education. Not only did […]