As a first step, Kochavi wants to increase the capabilities of the IDF’s “Spearhead” units – the special units that hit fast and strong. This part of the plan explains the urgent need for a replacement for the old CH-53 of the Israeli Air Force, as well as for the Bell-Boeing V-22.

“The SOF guys are less risk averse than conventional ground forces, so they’re more apt to push the limit,” said Bob Work, father of the AI-driven Third Offset Strategy. “Their commanders also have embraced AI and autonomous ops…. so I think all the conditions are set for SOF to lead the way in the more direct combat applications of AI and autonomy.”

WASHINGTON: The day before Defense Secretary Ash Carter heads to St. Louis to promote outreach to the high tech communities, Sen. John Mccain blasted a proposed new DoD rule that “would have the unfortunate effect of undermining many of the key objectives” of Carter’s efforts to entice Silicon Valley to do much more business with the Pentagon.… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

Rick Whittle’s superb book on the creation and uses of the Predator drone needs to be read by the Pentagon’s head of acquisition, Frank Kendall, and everyone else who decides what weapons America buys, including the professional staff on Capitol Hill who tell their congressional bosses what’s real and why. Whittle, who seems to be making a habit out… Keep reading →

After three years of the “age of austerity” in Western military spending, investors’ imperatives and corporate strategies show one indication of how the defense-industrial base will evolve over the next decade. Investors want public companies that demonstrate an attractive risk-adjusted total return, not just M&A-fueled arbitrage plays. In response, companies are husbanding or harvesting their financial… Keep reading →

Here’s the final piece of Bill Greenwalt’s blueprint for a new defense acquisition system. As Bill points out in this, the third piece: “now comes the hard part.” Congress and the Pentagon have proven clumsily adept at tinkering with the acquisition system over the last 20 years. But no matter how well intentioned, weapons just… Keep reading →

Bill Greenwalt knows acquisition like few people on earth. For more than a decade he wrote acquisition laws — and fought off some — while a staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Then he went to the Pentagon, where he oversaw industrial base issues, which often included acquisition policies. Bill, now a wise man… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Special operations types — like those who found and killed Osama bin Laden –may stand tall and do amazing things sometimes, but they tend to be fairly plain spoken. You rarely hear them say something is “astounding,” especially a new weapon. For example, one special operator recently awarded the Silver Star said he would… Keep reading →

  The military can move in mysterious ways, especially when it comes to the arcane and often-dysfunctional bureaucratics of buying gear. But in our combined 31 years of covering the Defense Department, we here at Breaking Defense had never seen this one before: a defense contractor getting busted for trying to sell the government its… Keep reading →