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CRYSTAL CITY: The Littoral Combat Ship was supposed to be one of the fastest things in the fleet, but it seems like the skeptics – and the sequester – have caught up with it. The question is, what’s next? After a Pentagon memo recommended slashing the program by more than a third — from 52 ships to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Enterprise-wide training: the Army’s $3.5B program for multi-service combat readiness
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
WASHINGTON: It’s finally official: after three years leading Congress’ largest committee and 22 years in Congress, Rep. Buck McKeon of California has announced he is heading for the door. McKeon, whose departure has been rumored (and denied or deflected by his spokesmen) for more than a year, has been a reliable supporter of the defense…
By Colin ClarkPENTAGON: In her first press conference as Air Force Secretary, Deborah Lee James had the sad duty of detailing the biggest cheating scandal in the history of Global Strike Command, involving 34 of the 190 officers who man the nuclear missile silos at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base. James said she met with Defense Secretary…
By Colin Clark
Solving the massive problem of heat in C4ISR technology
JADC2 and multi-domain operations require computing and communications at the edge, and a way to manage heat generated by these systems.
Multi-Domain Operations: Global C2 and Joint Operations
The war hasn’t started, yet. But unless the regular Army and the National Guard can resolve their differences behind closed doors before the president’s budget request is publicly submitted sometime in February — and prospects are dim — there will be open, brutal conflict on Capitol Hill on a scale not seen since the 1990s.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: Sometimes it can seem as if one lives on several different planets at the same time while living here in Washington. This afternoon saw three top GOP lawmakers decrying China after it apparently tested (we don’t know if the test was successful) a hypersonic vehicle. This evening, the Navy announced it is beefing…
By Colin Clark
With AI and computer vision, almost any platform can be autonomous
The use of computer vision and perceptive autonomy can have a profound impact on speeding the Observe, Orient, Decide and Act (OODA) loop.
WASHINGTON: Positing the future of intelligence — even for one year — poses unique challenges. First, there’s so much those of on the outside don’t know. Then there’s the simple truth that our enemies and competitors drive so much of intelligence. Since we can’t know with certainty what will happen, it’s difficult to predict what the intelligence…
By Colin Clark
As budgets tighten, will the National Guard and the regular Army go to war? Not if Gen. Frank Grass, chief of the National Guard Bureau, can help it. Peppered with questions about the conflict today at the National Press Club, Grass carefully redirected almost every one. In fact, he said, December’s last-ditch budget deal to delay…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Breaking Defense daily newsletter
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Marine Commandant James Amos must make a tough call this year on a program that will define the future Marine Corps: whether to develop and buy the Amphibious Combat Vehicle. “The Commandant considers a replacement craft for his aging AAV7 Amphibious Tractor to be his number-one priority,” said Gen. Amos’s spokesman, Lt. Col. David Nevers,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Japanese national security strategy is shifting. The Pacific power’s new National Security Strategy highlights a comprehensive look ahead built around what they call a “comprehensive defense architecture.” This architecture is built on effective joint forces, a close working relationship with key allies such as the United States, Australia and Japan, and a proactive approach in which…
By Robbin Laird
The Army announced new assignments for ten generals this afternoon, but two in particular stand out as signs of the times. They’re sending a battle-hardened artilleryman from the 82nd Airborne Division to the No. 2 job in South Korea and a veteran acquisition officer to Afghanistan. Moving Maj. Gen. Harold Greene from the Army’s acquisition…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Two years ago, the Obama administration announced its “Pacific Pivot” (hastily renamed a “rebalance”), but crises keep yanking US attention back from a rising China to the unstable cradle of civilization (as we predicted at the time): Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic, Syria disintegrated into an increasingly sectarian…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Sean O’Keefe, who led the bold but ultimately unsuccessful campaign by EADS North America to win the contract to build a new airborne tanker for the United States, is stepping down from his post as CEO and chairman of the American portion of the company now known as Airbus Group Inc. But O’Keefe is…
By Colin Clark
Why cloud modernization is critical to multi-domain operations
JADC2 is a forcing function, driving digital transformation of network infrastructure.
Additive manufacturing, known to the public as 3D printing, may profoundly improve combat readiness and the defense industrial base far more than imagined by most proponents. But the Pentagon must account for the way different organizations measure performance, or it will be doomed to long delays and costly failure. Additive manufacturing can be used to…
By Jonathan Jeckell