With the Senate in recess, three of the military branches are guaranteed to have acting chiefs of staff. And due to a political impasse, it's unclear when the situation will be resolved.
A savvy DC veteran, Sec. Christine Wormuth didn’t outright call for Congress to go above the budget caps, but, she said, “given that we want to make sure that we are not only able to support Ukraine but that we also replenish our own stocks … a supplemental, I think, would be very helpful.”
Cyber resilience has become a frontline mission for the US military. Breaking Defense’s new eBook rounds up key reporting from the 2025 Alamo ACE conference with the latest developments in cyber offense and defense.
On Thursday, three soldiers were killed in a mid-air collision between two Apache attack helicopters in Alaska, weeks after nine died in a Black Hawk incident in Kentucky.
“We say ‘supply chain,’ we say ‘kill chain’; I like networks and fabrics, [because] chains are only as good as the weakest link,” said Gen. James McConville. “Many of these systems are going to need a long-term investment."
Some late-breaking FLRAA news, and other nuggets from the second day of the country's biggest defense conference.
The timeline for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft award is unclear after senior leaders seemed to push it back from an expected October announcement.
It's been a whirlwind of a year — and the defense establishment has plenty of thoughts on how it's unfolded and what might come next.
Now, “just like [new] weapons systems, we want to get it into the hands of our soldiers and commanders” to test it out, Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said of the new FM 3-0.
The Ukraine war proves the US Army is right to focus on high-tech long-range weapons and old-school high-intensity training, Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville tells Breaking Defense.
Army leaders hope the renaming of US Army Alaska to unit with a historic identity will help after a rash of suicides.
"I don't think it would be wise for us to wait to develop the kinds of weapons systems, we need for a future conflict until we had the diplomatic agreements signed," Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said.
The GPS network continues to prove its unmatched reliability, and it’s only getting stronger.
"I have a hard time believing we’re going to have 35 Rangers in the back of an aircraft and they’re going to go up and knock on the door of the cockpit and there’s no one in there,” said Gen. James McConville.
A commander for the task force as been chosen, but no final basing decision has been made.
"The computer models would have said Russia wins in 72 to 96 hours," said Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger. They "cannot explain why Ukraine is still hanging on. Why is that?"
Here's the key Army storylines we'll be tracking at Breaking Defense next year.