PENTAGON: The Army showed off an impressive array of battlefield wi-fi gadgetry today in the Pentagon courtyard, exhibiting new-found realism about what gadgets it might not need. Consider the hardware to connect the individual foot soldier to the brigade-wide command network, which has been stripped down from a 14-pound prototype to a militarized smartphone plugged… Keep reading →

A second, “small” fire broke out at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on Saturday night, in the drydock where the fire-ravaged USS Miami is under repair, the shipyard’s public affairs office announced at noon today. There was no new damage to the Miami itself, and in fact a quick-thinking shipyard employee put out the blaze with a… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The United States is still the world’s indispensable nation and we’ll probably avoid sequestration, albeit by the skin of our teeth. That’s the modestly reassuring message from the unlikely duo of Michèle Flournoy, who recently left her job as under secretary of defense for policy, and Dov Zakheim, Pentagon comptroller under George W. Bush.… Keep reading →

“The acquisitions system is so fundamentally broken,” Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) executive Taco Gibert told Breaking Defense this morning. “Everybody loses.” Yesterday, SNC filed suit in federal court, seeking to undo the Air Force’s cancellation of the Light Air Support contract, originally awarded to SNC’s A-29 Super Tucano. That’s just the latest descent into dysfunction… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Apologizing to Pakistan, the economic impact of sequestration, and the possibility of a cyber-war “Pearl Harbor” dominated today’s hearing of the defense panel of the all-powerful Senate Appropriations committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein — who also chairs the intelligence committee — asks Defense Secretary Leon Panetta why we couldn’t just apologize to Pakistan for… Keep reading →

In the end, it was a near-run thing. The US-led coalition broke through to the refugee camps and began delivering aid. But their supply lines were stretched thin across land and sea, with an entire Army brigade embarked on rented cruise ships at one point. Ashore, the troops took heavy losses from local Islamic militants… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy has ordered that vacuum cleaners be emptied after a fire in one caused up to $500 million in damage to the nuclear submarine USS Miami while the boat was in drydock being serviced. The fire at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Maine, started in a vacuum cleaner that had apparently sucked up something hot… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Companies that do business with the federal government will have to announce “hundreds of thousands” of lay-offs just days before the November election, predicted the former Pentagon comptroller for George W. Bush. As sequestration approaches, said Dov Zakheim, the former comptroller, companies large and small will be faced with layoffs, which by law —… Keep reading →

US ARMY WAR COLLEGE: While fictional wars set in the world of 2020 rage on the floors below, up on the third floor of the War College, Army generals wrestled with the budget battles of today. Topic number one: how to beat – or join – the bandwagon that is AirSea Battle. “You’re a couple… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Disaster relief, medical assistance, and other humanitarian missions can provide a low-cost way for the military to build US influence in Asia and elsewhere, a key part of the administration’s new national security strategy, but this “soft power” approach is complicated both by civilian aid groups’ suspicion of the military and by looming budget… Keep reading →