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Close Air Support Summit Sparks Nod To Textron’s Scorpion

Close Air Support Summit Sparks Nod To Textron’s Scorpion
Close Air Support Summit Sparks Nod To Textron’s Scorpion

PENTAGON: Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. Marine Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford. National Guard Bureau Chief Army Gen. Frank Grass. Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Force Air Combat Command. That’s a lot of stars and command authority gathered in one place and they all came together at…

DoD, DoE Together Can’t Afford Ohio Replacement Sub: Kendall

DoD, DoE Together Can’t Afford Ohio Replacement Sub: Kendall
DoD, DoE Together Can’t Afford Ohio Replacement Sub: Kendall

CAPITOL HILL: The Navy’s already acknowledged that building the next nuclear missile submarine will bust its shipbuilding budget. Now, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer has admitted that the Ohio Replacement Program could be a bill too far for the entire nuclear weapons enterprise across the Departments of Defense and Energy — even if Congress repeals…

Who’s Right On C-130 AMP: The Congressman Or Air Force Lawyers?

Who’s Right On C-130 AMP: The Congressman Or Air Force Lawyers?
Who’s Right On C-130 AMP: The Congressman Or Air Force Lawyers?

UPDATED: Corrects Cost Per Plane To $3.8M; Holmes “Misspoke;” Adds Enhanced Mode S Upgrade CAPITOL HILL: The law is the law. But the law must be written and it must then be interpreted in practice. Ay, there’s the rub. Add the National Guard, local politics, aging C-130s, and a wobbly defense budget in which hard choices must…

Navy, OSD Studies Could Save Boeing’s F-18 Line

Navy, OSD Studies Could Save Boeing’s F-18 Line
Navy, OSD Studies Could Save Boeing’s F-18 Line

CAPITOL HILL: Pentagon leaders are pushing hard to keep up the momentum of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Many in the Navy, though, still look longingly back at the Boeing-built F-18 Hornet, whose St. Louis production line faces closure in 2017. There are two independent trends that together could save the St. Louis line and the Navy’s favorite plane. The first…

Army To Congress: We Are Fixing Acquisition

Army To Congress: We Are Fixing Acquisition
Army To Congress: We Are Fixing Acquisition

WASHINGTON: The top question on defense lawmakers’ minds right now is: “Can we trust you with the people’s money?” And no large military organization has a worse record in that respect than the US Army, with its unhappy track record of canceled programs and wasted billions dating to before 9/11. It’s such a sensitive and high-stakes question that, when I started to ask Army…

Build A ‘Department Of Cyber:’ Former DNI McConnell

Build A ‘Department Of Cyber:’ Former DNI McConnell
Build A ‘Department Of Cyber:’ Former DNI McConnell

PENTAGON CITY: Sen. Susan Collins has a bill about how to improve cyber sharing that should go to markup next week and she spoke about the challenges cyber poses to the government this morning at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance annual conference here. Three former directors of National Intelligence — John Negroponte, Mike McConnell and…

What Should Congress Do About Ukraine?

Poland suddenly reappeared in 1919, 120 years after it vanished from the map of Europe, sowing confusion at the Versailles Peace Conference as the great powers tried to heal the wounds of World War I. The British questioned the legitimacy of the new Polish State and the French were suspicious of Polish ambitions. Frustrated with…

Putin Won’t Blitz Baltic States — But NATO Has A Plan….

Putin Won’t Blitz Baltic States — But NATO Has A Plan….
Putin Won’t Blitz Baltic States — But NATO Has A Plan….

WASHINGTON: Vladimir Putin won’t blitzkrieg the Baltic states any time soon. It’s not his style, said the commander of the soldiers sent to the three small NATO nations last year to reassure them. That’s good news — especially in light of the bad news: The US effort to shore up its eastern allies and Ukraine,…

House GOP Splits On Defense Sequestration

House GOP Splits On Defense Sequestration
House GOP Splits On Defense Sequestration

CAPITOL HILL: Tensions within the GOP over the mandatory budget caps set by the Budget Control Act burst into the open today. The chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee repeatedly warned colleagues and the leaders of the Air Force this morning that they had no choice and must live within the Budget Control Act’s spending limits. Then,…

Pentagon Launches Electronic Warfare Study: Growler Line At Stake

Pentagon Launches Electronic Warfare Study: Growler Line At Stake
Pentagon Launches Electronic Warfare Study: Growler Line At Stake

CAPITOL HILL: The Pentagon has launched a wide-ranging study of electronic warfare, looking across the services at major platforms such as the EA-18G Growler and the F-35’s three versions. “We are doing right now in the Department of Defense a study that looks at all electronic attack[:] what is the situation in electromagnetic warfare across…

What Obama’s Drone Export Policy Really Means

What Obama’s Drone Export Policy Really Means
What Obama’s Drone Export Policy Really Means

It seems like drones are everywhere in Washington. A drone landed on the White House lawn, the Federal Aviation Administration released regulations for small commercial drones in U.S. airspace, and, most recently, the State Department finally unveiled a long-awaited policy on the export of U.S.-origin military and commercial Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), colloquially referred to as…

McCain Points To ‘Dramatic Change’ In Chinese-Built Islands

McCain Points To ‘Dramatic Change’ In Chinese-Built Islands
McCain Points To ‘Dramatic Change’ In Chinese-Built Islands

WASHINGTON: What began with a tiny artificial island built by China to stake a concrete claim in the South China Sea is fast on its way to becoming 600 acres of at least seven islands spread across the South China Sea. One of the most impressive is so-called Fiery Cross Island, the permanent structure above complete with…

www.breakingenergy.com

The US Department of Defense’s latest round of annual jet fuel contracts –worth about $4 billion — is down about 20 percent. The military can thank cheaper crude oil for the discount, as well as the US Air Force conversion from military-specific grade jet fuel to a civilian grade – Jet A with additives.

Read more at www.breakingenergy.com »
Sub Builders Face Triple Threat: Ohio, Virginia, & VPM

Sub Builders Face Triple Threat: Ohio, Virginia, & VPM
Sub Builders Face Triple Threat: Ohio, Virginia, & VPM

CAPITOL HILL: It’s a problem the US Navy wants to have, but it’s still a problem. If the service gets enough money both to build its top priority, the Ohio Replacement Program nuclear missile submarine, and to keep producing its vaunted Virginia-class attack subs, then so much new work will be hitting the shipyards so rapidly that they’ll be…