"The makeup of Congress, and specifically the makeup of the House, I think will actually matter much more to the future of the defense budget than whoever the president is," said Todd Harrison of AEI.
With over two decades in the Pentagon under Clinton, Bush, and Obama, Kathleen Hicks brings the civilian bureaucratic experience that retired Gen. Lloyd Austin sorely lacks. Neither has the political clout of a Jim Mattis or a Bob Gates.
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
"To us, it means that there is going to be much more tension and debate over future modernization programs as flat investment will not enable DoD to recapitalize in a timely and militarily relevant pace," says defense analyst Byron Callan.
One of Washington's leading budget experts explains how bipartisan supporters of Pentagon funding will steamroll the Budget Control Act.
The Army's said it wants 504 of the MPF light tanks. But analyst Byron Callan is betting that either the Marine Corps or foreign buyers (or both) add another 106, bringing the total to 610 machines.
WASHINGTON: Aerospace behemoth Boeing will build the new T-X jet trainer, the Air Force announced this afternoon, beating out the Lockheed/KAI T-50 and the Leonardo DRS/CAE T-100 after years of maneuvering and uncertainty that saw multiple companies drop out of the competition. The first planes will enter service at Randolph Air Force base in 2023, with […]
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
WASHINGTON: After almost a decade of reporting on the Army’s crucial networks, I’d thought they’d started to get things right. Boy, was I wrong. At a hearing this afternoon of the House Armed Services air and land subcommittee, the Army left lawmakers shaking their heads when they announced they plan to shut down the controversial […]
It may be an exaggeration to say the companies are dropping out of the T-X competition like flies, but the Northrop Grumman-BAE Systems team‘s decision to drop out today means that at least four of the biggest defense companies in the world decided they couldn’t come up with competitive offerings for the Air Force’s next generation […]
WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has laid out a measured and cautious spending plan that puts near-term readiness needs first in his first budget guidance memo. The memo, out this morning, largely defers major equipment modernization until 2019 and limits increases in the size of the force to “the maximum responsible rate” (emphasis ours). So, […]
WASHINGTON: Just hours after the President-Elect tweeted F-35 costs were “out of control,” sending manufacturer Lockheed Martin‘s stock price into a nosedive, the first two F-35s to be based abroad landed in their new home country, Israel. Is the famously hard-nosed Israeli Defense Force deceived about what they’re getting for their money? Or is the […]
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.
UPDATED: Adds Air Force, Aboulafia, Callan, And Northrop Grumman Comments WASHINGTON: To no one’s surprise, the Boeing-Lockheed team has filed a formal protest against the award to Northrop Grumman of the $80 billion Long Range Strike Bomber contract. Industry sources had been talking of strategies to prosecute or defend against a protest for at least […]
WASHINGTON: Speaker John Boehner, that always-tanned, often crying fellow who has led House Republicans since 2010, appears to have given up after new challenges from fiscal radicals in the Republican Party and announced his resignation this morning. Boehner, a Catholic, campaigned for 20 years to bring a Pope to Congress. Yesterday he got his wish and […]
CAPITOL HILL: In a bold attempt to fix the Pentagon’s creaking system to develop and buy weapons, the Senate Armed Services Committee today introduced broad changes to who controls weapons programs and tried to encourage Silicon Valley and other non-defense industries to help maintain the country’s global technological and military dominance. This is the beginning of […]
Sometimes dark clouds really do have silver linings. The winding down of two wars and the automatic spending cuts called sequestration have been brutal for the Army budget. The service recently had to cancel its top-priority weapons program, the tank-like Ground Combat Vehicle. But even if sequestration continues, said one leading analyst, ground vehicle spending […]