ARLINGTON: The Army is reinforcing its combat brigades with cyber soldiers. In 18 months of wargames with a wide range of units — tanks, Strykers, infantry, Airborne, Rangers — Army Cyber Command troops have brought hacking and jamming to bear on the (simulated) battlefield alongside guns and bombs. The exercises have already revealed cybersecurity shortfalls […]
It’s no news to Breaking Defense readers that the U.S. military faces a readiness crisis. But retired Gen. David Petraeus apparently disagrees. Yes, the military’s budget has been cut by 25 percent in real terms since 2011—much of it coming from accounts used to maintain and build combat readiness. Yes, leaders from the Army, Navy, […]
Answering the Pentagon’s call to bolster defense industrial base.
WASHINGTON: The powerful National Guard Association of the US spent a year and a half battling the last Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, over everything from Apache gunships to readiness. NGAUS president Gus Hargett has a very different take on Gen. Mark Milley, who replaced Odierno August 14. “I found him to be […]
UPDATED: Russia is No. 1 threat, Milley tells Senate; give “defensive” arms to Ukraine CAPITOL HILL: The world has changed, and not for the better. That’s the message Gen. Mark Milley brings to the Senate this morning. The current Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Raymond Odierno, has often said the Army cannot execute the national […]
WASHINGTON: “Go drive it, Sydney,” Heidi Shyu called out across a room. “I want you to go drive it. It’s awesome.” “It” is the JLTV, the Army and Marine Corps’ future Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, a $30 billion program for 55,000 vehicles. As the Army’s top acquisition official, Shyu will choose the winning contractor — – […]
WASHINGTON: “In the next two years,” Army chief of staff Ray Odierno said today, the service could move out on four new combat vehicles and reboot its aging inventory for a new era of war. They range from a parachute-droppable light truck for Airborne soldiers to a scout car, a light tank, and a new […]
The challenge for Western democratic institutions is not a lack of capability — it is a structural one.
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 […]
Tight budgets have a way of encouraging critical thinking and forcing a willingness to make painful but well-grounded tradeoffs. The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, and the Army Chief of Staff, General Raymond Odierno, wrote a November letter about the weaknesses of our current missile defense approach to then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. This letter, recently leaked […]
HUNTSVILLE, ALA: There seems to be little support for Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno‘s push for the four service chiefs to get greater authority over procurement — not even from the Army’s civilian head of acquisition Heidi Shyu. It’s not actually clear exactly what Odierno wants. “We’re still working through the exact authorities” in response to a congressional request for more detail, Odierno […]
Phil Coyle knows missile defense. He was director of Operational Test and Evaluation from 1994 through January 2001, during the darkest days of THAAD and when missile defense was a religious issue for both Republicans and Democrats. Thank goodness we had Coyle around to actually bring facts to the roiling debate then. Does Coyle think […]
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CAPITOL HILL: Sequestration will literally hit Congress where it lives. If implemented, Army officials and a key senator said this morning, the Budget Control Act spending caps will require cutbacks or outright closures at bases across the country. “At the end of the day, as much as we all love our bases, we’ve going to have […]
ARLINGTON: There’s no peace dividend in missile defense. While most types of Army units don’t deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan anymore, some scarce specialties are in increasing demand worldwide, such as special operators, division staffs, and missile defense forces like the famous Patriot. As long-range missile threats increase from Iran and North Korea, China and Russia, […]
ARLINGTON: The US Army is trying to reinvent itself, much as it did during the Great Depression. Even if the steep cuts called sequestration return in 2016 — as is current law — the Army would rather get smaller than shortchange innovation, Chief of Staff Ray Odierno said today. The service will hold annual wargames on […]
AUSA: A new generation of generals is rising in the Army. It’s a generation forced to get creative by more than a decade of ugly unconventional conflicts. It’s a generation disillusioned by the mistakes of superiors, military and civilian alike. It’s a generation willing to take on the Army’s bureaucratic culture of top-down management, which […]