SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE: Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who spent five years pushing the National Reconnaissance Office and the military to work more closely together, saw the effects today during a tour of the JICSPOC, the experimental effort to improve battle management of America’s satellites. Inside the heavily guarded secure facility where most of America’s satellites are flown and… Keep reading →

  Some anti-nuclear groups along with former Secretary of Defense William Perry suggest eliminating ICBMs in part to save money on upcoming nuclear modernization. Getting rid of ICBMs would be a serious mistake. The U.S. nuclear triad protects the U.S. homeland and allies from a surprise nuclear attack with three types of nuclear delivery systems:… Keep reading →

What could justify the Air Force awarding a sole source contract for helicopters worth close to a billion – that’s a thousand millions – dollars? Pick an answer: A classified joint service military exercise called Mighty Guardian in which some of the 62 aging UH-1N Huey helicopters failed their assignment to carry security forces to… Keep reading →

AFA WINTER: The third experiment in how the Intelligence Community and the Pentagon should fight together in space gets underway next week, says Gen. John Hyten, head of Space Command, A fourth will be held in May. After the first two tests — all details of which are classified — one lesson has become absolutely clear, Hyten made… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The new Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSPOC) has completed two of its nine scenarios and is helping the US military and its Intelligence Community learn how to monitor and fight using space, the head of Strategic Command, Adm Cecil Haney, said today. “While we still have a ways to go — I repeat, a… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: It poses one of the thorniest problems for the United States national security establishment: how to get the nation’s spy agencies, especially the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the military to work together when someone attacks US spy and military satellites. To offer some clarity on the way ahead for this relationship, Deputy Defense Secretary… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: The new Intelligence Community-military space operations center the military is creating may replace the long-established JSPOC, two top commanders said, but a lot has to happen first. The nascent JICSPOC — Joint, Interagency, & Coalition Space Operations Center — will start as an experiment before potentially becoming a backup to JSPOC and then… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: What does the NORAD commander think of America’s current approach to missile defense? “Not only is it unaffordable, it will not work,” Adm. Bill Gortney said. “We are going to lose this fight on our current strategy.” “We’ve made incredible strides in missile defense,” acknowledged Gortney, who heads both NORAD and US Northern… Keep reading →

ARMY & NAVY CLUB: In the dog-eat-dog, admiral-eat-general world of budget warfare in the age of sequestration, it’s easy to pit programs against each other. The Navy’s new nuclear missile submarine and the Air Force’s Long-Range Strike Bomber, for example, are both huge strategic-weapons programs with enormous bills coming due in the next decade and much debate… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: On the day that China’s president took personal charge of his country’s new cyber body, pledging to make the People’s Republic of China a “cyber power,” the outgoing head of America’s Cyber Command laid out a clear red line that, if crossed, could lead to war. “If it destroys government or other networks,… Keep reading →