The US Air Force and Norway announced the temporary suspension of flight operations for 15 F-35As today because of “peeling and crumbling insulation in avionics cooling lines inside the fuel tanks.” The problem, caused by a supplier, was discovered during depot modification of an F-35A and affects a total of 57 aircraft, 42 of them still on the […]
WASHINGTON: Airstrikes against the Islamic State have dropped 30 percent since June, because Islamic State retreats and Turkish advances have made it much harder to find targets, three experts told us. The administration’s self-imposed limits and negotiations with Russia — of which the military is very wary — restrict airstrikes as well. The ground war in Iraq […]
Do more with less: streamline workflows, reduce duplication, invest upfront to save long-term.
WASHINGTON: The Russian threat has driven Sweden so close to NATO that the once-neutral nation is becoming an ally in all but name. While the current Swedish government won’t apply for NATO membership — a position it just reiterated Friday — every other kind of collaboration is not only on the table, but actually happening […]
UPDATED: Adds Excellent CSIS Study On International Support For Chinese Claims WASHINGTON: What are China’s intentions in the South China Sea? It’s a question intelligence analysts, diplomats and the senior leadership of the United States and its Pacific allies are all asking in the wake of a range of increasingly belligerent and threatening comments and […]
The Australian military is shaping a transformed military force, one built around new platforms but ones that operate in a joint manner in an extended battlespace. The goal is to extend the defense perimeter of Australia and create, in effect, their own version of an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy. They also recognize a key reality of 21st […]
Lost in this month’s headlines is the fact that the democratically elected leaders of three countries close to the United States and important for its security strategies — France, Mali, and Turkey — have declared (or in France’s case, extended) formal states of emergency. All three states cited good reasons for doing so: France and […]
The Sixth Domain is not defined by geography. It’s a new kind of conflict in which autonomy and networked systems allow thousand-dollar consumer electronics to destroy multi-million-dollar conventional weapons systems.
Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, it may be time for NATO to adopt a new AirLand Battle-like concept to help guide its plans and capability priorities to counter the growing threat of Russia. This concept could take advantage of high-capacity air and missile defense systems and a new generation of long-range precision […]
UPDATED: Adds ACC Carlisle, CSAF Goldfein, SecAF James JPO Bogdan Comments PENTAGON: Critics of the F-35 warned it was too heavy. They warned its stealth wasn’t good enough. They warned stealth, however good, wasn’t enough against advanced detection methods. They warned its range was too short and its weapons load too light. They warned it was […]
AM General will sell Afghanistan 1,259 M1151 Humvees plus 414 M1152 models. Humvee maker AM General just announced a $356 million contract to build 1,673 Humvees for Afghanistan. (The US is paying). It goes to show that even after losing the biggest military wheeled-vehicle contract of the century, AM General just keeps trucking along. Last […]
WASHINGTON: The balance of power underwater is shifting against the West, warns a new report from the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Both Russian and NATO capabilities cratered after the Cold War, but the Russian submarine fleet is clawing its way back — and we’re not ready to face it, CSIS says. The US, […]
As threats rapidly evolve, digital engineering, manufacturing capacity and robust supply chains are critical to meeting challenges.
As pretty much everyone reported at the Farnborough Air Show, Britain — which had waffled considerably over last few months — finally made a firm commitment to buy Boeing’s P-8 Poseidon to keep an eye on Russian submarines. We don’t usually run videos such as these, but this one is pretty interesting. Britain first made the commitment […]
WASHINGTON: After a UN tribunal ruled stingingly against Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, Beijing reacted with its characteristically prickly mix of grandiosity and insecurity. The official Chinese perspective inverts Washington’s worldview so thoroughly it can be hard for Americans to understand: International rules are rigged, US military presence is destabilizing, China rightfully […]
UPDATED with Chinese Ambassador, Sen. Sullivan, & CSIS conference WASHINGTON: “To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape,” Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago. It’s a stratagem – often called the “golden bridge” – that the US and its allies would do well to remember tomorrow morning, when a UN tribunal will almost […]
LONDON: Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, pulled no punches when I asked him at the Royal International Air Tattoo if the F-35’s flying displays in Britain should be read as a signal to Russia. “Yes. You bet.” Several generals at the Royal International Air Tattoo agreed with Carlisle’s view that the plane’s appearance at RIAT and […]