White House’s new shipbuilding office moved to OMB, leader departs
The staffer leading the relatively new office, Ian Bennitt, announced his departure late Wednesday night on social media.
Trump’s defense secretary should focus on internal Pentagon challenges to meet external threats
In this op-ed, John Ferrari says the incoming secretary of defense needs to fix three things in the Pentagon: acquisition, resources, and recruiting.
10 Breaking Defense op-eds that defined 2025
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.
Clear guardrails mean faster progress on AI: Biden signs sweeping guidance for DoD & IC
In the tech race with China, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued, American ethics aren’t a hindrance: “It's a little bit counterintuitive, [but] ensuring security and trustworthiness will actually enable us to move faster, not slow us down.”
US, China will meet in Geneva this week to discuss ‘AI Risk’
Mid-level officials from the NSC and State Department will lead the talks, which follow on Xi-Biden summit last November. No public joint statement is expected, let alone a formal agreement.
Still ways to go before mil-to-mil talks with China restart: NSC official
"Right now, of course, the secretary of defense does not have a counterpart; there is no [Chinese] minister of defense. We're going to have to probably wait on that one," NSC official Sarah Beran said.
New ‘Watch Center’ to ring alarms on space-related cyber threats
"Space is a warfighting domain and cyber is a critical area to focus on to ensure space security. I think we all know cyber attacks are becoming more frequent. They're more severe, they're even more sophisticated," Sreenidhi Tummala, a senior software engineer at Lockheed Martin, told reporters at today's Space-ISAC press conference.
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Powering the future: Securing America with domestically made microelectronics
Onshoring and investment in military-specific semiconductors anchor a cornerstone of the defense industrial base.
At home and internationally, ‘governance’ is the space watchword: 2023 Preview
There are a host of open questions bedeviling national and international policy- and law-makers as they struggle to get a better grip on both the explosion of commercial players with innovative ideas for space utilization and the growing military interest in space as a tool of, and venue for, war.
EXCLUSIVE: US Strategic Space Review signed out, but no unclassified version is coming
"If we want deterrence to be effective, it takes three things: 1. Capabilities 2. Credible threats in the mind of the adversary and 3. The will to communicate the first two," Chris Stone, Mitchell Institute fellow, told Breaking Defense.
With Russian industrial base in shambles, US looks for arms sale ‘opportunities’
"Countries that have heretofore relied on Russian equipment are going to find it very difficult to get even basic supplies coming through because of this weakened defense industrial base. So it is an opportunity," said Cara Abercrombie, deputy assistant to the president and the White House’s coordinator for defense policy and arms control.
Key senators renew push to undo FCC’s Ligado spectrum ruling
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is planning to release on Sept. 9 its review of the impacts on DoD use of GPS - just a few weeks before Ligado plans to go live.
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Data overload threatens decisionmakers as autonomy expands
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.
Australia, US grapple with Solomon Islands tilt to China
The White House announced that Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of State for east Asian and Pacific affairs, and Kurt Campbell, the National Security Council's Indo-Pacific Coordinator, will lead an interagency delegation to the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
Biden’s space policy nominee backs ban on destructive ASAT testing, pushes norms
"Kinetic destructive tests," White House nominee for ASD Space Policy John Plumb said, "pose a long term enduring problem to all spacefaring nations, including astronauts."
Chirag Parikh Tapped For National Space Council ExecSec
Addressing climate change, and setting norms of behavior are among the focus areas for Biden administration space policy.
Biden Orders Fed Cybersecurity Boost; Targets Prevention, Reporting
"It reflects a fundamental shift in our mindset -- from incident response to prevention, from talking about security to doing security," a senior administration official says.