WASHINGTON: The seas are shrinking. As missiles grow longer-ranged and more precise, as sensors grow ever sharper, there are ever fewer places for a ship to hide. “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” goes an old naval adage, because a land base can carry more ammunition and armor than anything that floats. Admirals […]
WASHINGTON: One of America’s most respected strategists is calling for a comprehensive review of the military’s roles and missions to prepare the way for revision of the basic law undergirding the modern force, Goldwater-Nichols. The combination of an excellent quartet of lawmakers leading the armed services committees; the markedly complex and global set of threats […]
Balancing security and access to data are critical to providing users with trustworthy, reliable data for real-time decisions.
WASHINGTON: After two decades of procurement disasters, the Army is finally overhauling how it buys new weapons. The service is starting with a difficult test indeed: the new light armored vehicle to provide mobile protected firepower to the 82nd Airborne and other light infantry forces — a role unfilled since the temperamental M551 Sheridan retired in […]
CAPITOL HILL: Where do ground forces fit in the Pentagon’s new offset strategy? The answer may be an intriguing mix of old-fashioned armored forces, mobile missile launchers, and lasers on trucks. While Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s remarks formally launching “offset” were frustratingly vague, we’ve heard plenty from other officials and outside thinkers about how the […]
This is James Kitfield’s first piece for Breaking Defense since his departure from his award-winning tenure at National Journal. As one of the best defense reporters around, Kitfield’s specialty has always been spotting the big strategic trend first and writing clearly, simply and persuasively about it. Following is a classic example of his work, which […]
WASHINGTON: Transformation is back! Sort of. The pursuit of transformation, affiliated with the concept known as a Revolution in Military Affairs, became associated with the failed tenure of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and was publicly dropped as a central organizing concept of the military for that reason. The decade-long pursuit of counter-insurgency warfare didn’t […]
Partnerships with outside industry are a cornerstone of the kingdom’s ambitious growth strategy.
America’s Army has developed a bit of a split personality of late. On the one hand, the top brass has very publicly embraced the administration’s January 2012 strategic guidance that emphasizes “innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches” and “building partner capacity” in lieu of large ground force deployments. Leaders from Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno […]
WASHINGTON: “We in the United States are a bit arrogant in thinking [that] we own the technology high ground,” the civilian told the assembled generals. “Technology doesn’t necessarily belong to us and where it goes is not necessarily in our hands.” For six decades, the United States could count on being the planet’s preeminent economic […]
WASHINGTON: Where’s the strategic beef? That’s what Andrew Krepinevich wants to know. “When the administration came out with its strategic guidance [in] January, I thought the guidance made a lot of sense in terms of setting priorities,” the head of the influential Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said this morning at the headquarters of […]
UPDATED: Krepinevich Says Marines Boast Lots Of Good Senior Leaders The Marine Corps, which always prides itself on being the leanest of the U.S. armed services and having the lowest officer-to-enlisted ratio, now has five four-star generals, the nation’s highest military rank. That is quite a load of brass for a service that never had […]
On today’s battlefield, mobility isn’t optional - it’s mission-critical.
[updated with quote from Army source] WASHINGTON: The battle over the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle isn’t only about one war machine and what it may weigh (80-plus tons) or cost ($13 some million). It’s just one front in a larger war over the Army’s armored heart and its role in the nation’s strategy. As budgets […]
WASHINGTON: Nixon, Ford, and Carter aren’t anyone’s three favorite presidents. But defense policymakers today could learn something from how they handled the hard times of the 1970s: They shifted costly security burdens to foreign partners while pulling US forces out, and they cut defense budgets generally while protecting long-term investments in “seed corn” technologies that […]
WASHINGTON: How much will it really cost to shut down the Army’s ill-fated Future Combat Systems program? Up to $1.5 billion, potentially three times the “special termination cost” reported by Inside Defense on Friday. Three years after then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates cancelled the sprawling FCS program — the Army’s ambitious attempt to build a […]
Since 911, the U.S. military has invested huge amounts of money in protecting troops, buying add-on armor kits for everything from the humble Humvee to the massive M1 tank. But the spread of smart weapons to Third World forces, both rogue states and guerrillas, may be outpacing the Pentagon’s ability to counter them, warns a […]