386! Go On Air Force. Say it Loud. Now!

386! Go On Air Force. Say it Loud. Now!
386! Go On Air Force. Say it Loud. Now!

The Air Force is too small for what it is being asked to do. Here’s what it needs to do to grow.

Industry Can Build 355 Ships, But Which Ones?

Industry Can Build 355 Ships, But Which Ones?
Industry Can Build 355 Ships, But Which Ones?

WASHINGTON: Sure, American industry can build the 355-ship fleet both Trump and the admirals want, three former Navy Secretaries said today. We can even build it a lot faster than most experts expect, but there are a lot of ifs. If we start using small shipyards that currently don’t build warships. If we streamline procurement, and, of…

Bilden Would Be Least Experienced Navy Secretary Since 1980

Bilden Would Be Least Experienced Navy Secretary Since 1980
Bilden Would Be Least Experienced Navy Secretary Since 1980

CORRECTED: Bilden is least experienced, not 2nd to last WASHINGTON: Trump’s pick for Navy Secretary, Philip Bilden, has less relevant experience than any of his predecessors since 1980, Breaking Defense has found. To be precise, every Navy Secretary for 36 years has had significant prior experience in either government or the defense industry or both: Bilden…

What Navy’s New Maritime Strategy Should Say

What Navy’s New Maritime Strategy Should Say
What Navy’s New Maritime Strategy Should Say

It’s fair to say that John Lehman is the most influential Navy Secretary of the last half century. Under President Ronald Reagan, Lehman “had an almost revolutionary impact on the Navy,” according to naval expert Norm Polmar. Lehman drove hard and pushed to build what has become known as the 600-ship Navy. Lehman knows how a…

Can Dems, Pro-Defense GOP & Tea Party Come Together At Reagan’s Tomb?

Can Dems, Pro-Defense GOP & Tea Party Come Together At Reagan’s Tomb?
Can Dems, Pro-Defense GOP & Tea Party Come Together At Reagan’s Tomb?

Less than three weeks from today, a four-star-studded convoy of Obama administration appointees will head west to the modern GOP’s most hallowed ground, the Ronald Reagan Library – and burial site – in Simi Valley, Calif. The one-day conference is a rare attempt to build a national consensus on defense both between the parties and,…

Gen. Amos, Adm. Greenert: F-35 Essential But Procurement ‘Constipated’

NATIONAL HARBOR: The top officers in the Navy and Marine Corps defended their most expensive program, Lockheed Martin‘s troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while acknowledging the way the Pentagon buys such weapons is not merely broken but “constipated.” “There’s no alternative for the United States Marine Corps to the F-35B,” Commandant Gen. James Amos said…

John Lehman, Gary Roughead: Fix Procurement To Save The Navy

WASHINGTON: In a remarkably non-partisan moment amidst the current strife over budget cuts and Chuck Hagel, Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary and George W. Bush’s Chief of Naval Operations told a Republican-helmed committee that the Navy’s real problem was not the Obama administration’s budget but decades of creeping bureaucracy that have eaten every budget’s buying power.…

On 237th Birthday, Navy Feels Its Time Has Come; Budget Pressures Belie Campaign Rhetoric

PENTAGON: “It’s perfectly acceptable to say ‘beat Army,’” the Chief of Naval Operations began, and the assembled sailors laughed. Adm. Jonathan Greenert was making a football joke, but there’s a serious strategic point beneath the smiles. At this morning’s celebration of the Navy’s 237th birthday, the service’s normal pride on such occasions was redoubled by…

Navy Didn’t Fudge Ship Numbers, UnderSec Work Says

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD [updated 7:30 am Thursday 19 April with Congressional comment and Raymond Pritchett’s retraction] : The smartest man in the Department of the Navy, Under Secretary Robert O. Work, erupted today in a passionate defense of the service’s integrity in how it counts its ships and of the controversial Littoral Combat Ship‘s place…

Marines Push Quietly, But Hard, For Navy to Replace C-2s With V-22s

WASHINGTON: Landing a V-22 Osprey helicopter-style on the sprawling flight deck of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush was a snap, says Marine Corps test pilot Capt. Dan McKinney. With Lt. Col. David Weinstein, McKinney did it a dozen times on March 20 – six landings in daylight, six at night. After their…