WASHINGTON: It looks like the scum of scandals that’s afflicted the Air Force nuclear program has spread to the Navy — although top admirals took pains today to emphasize how different the two problems are. In both cases, military personnel cheated on exams to requalify so they could continue to work with nuclear materials. The… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Sometimes it can seem as if one lives on several different planets at the same time while living here in Washington. This afternoon saw three top GOP lawmakers decrying China after it apparently tested (we don’t know if the test was successful) a hypersonic vehicle. This evening, the Navy announced it is beefing… Keep reading →

The Navy, is, hands down, the service in the best shape for 2014. Every act of belligerent idiocy from Beijing – and there’ve been a lot of them lately – makes the Navy budget an easier sell. In stark contrast to the Army, the Navy has the central role in the new Pacific-focused strategy, a high-tech threat… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The House Armed Services Committee will hold an extraordinary classified briefing Thursday, open to all House members, on the state of readiness in the US military. Rep. Randy Forbes and other HASC members who pushed for the briefing hope it will help convince Speaker John Boehner and other key GOP leaders that the combined effects… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: We’ve had nearly two years of hearings about how hard the automatic budget cuts called sequestration would hit the Department of Defense. Yesterday, we saw something new. For the first time, the uniformed chiefs of all four services publicly told Congress that they have big problems with their civilian bosses’ plan to cope… Keep reading →

PORTSMOUTH, VA: People tend to think of the Marines as square-jawed jarheads, not tech geeks. But after a decade of wartime investment in network technologies, Marine commanders have acquired lots of high-tech gear — so much so that now they’re returning from long land wars to Navy ships, they can’t always find a place to… Keep reading →

PORTSMOUTH, VA:  Go ahead and cut our budget across the board if you really have to. But please, then give us authority to move money around to save our top priorities — and give it to us soon. That’s the message, in a nutshell, from the Navy’s top officer. [Editorial note: Just to be clear,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Rivalries between the services are a favorite topic in this town, especially when budgets tighten. But when it comes to cyberwarfare, electronic warfare, and the wireless world where they intersect, the Navy’s top man in uniform is more than happy to get help from the Army. Admittedly, Adm. Jonathan Greenert is mostly focused on working with… Keep reading →

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,… Keep reading →

The Navy’s aircraft carrier programs are once again at the vortex of intense scrutiny and debate, fueled by strategic ambiguity, questions about spending billions of dollars for a single ship during a period of painfully tight budgets, and uncertainty whether advanced technologies and systems will deliver the “goods.” As well, carrier critics point to supposed… Keep reading →