With 19 Marines killed in two aircraft crashes since July 10th, Marine Corps Commandant Robert Neller has ordered all aviation units to stand down for safety reviews. This summer’s crashes come after months of rising accident rates, with a total of 22 deaths and 18 “Class A Mishaps” – incidents involving loss of life or… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: How does Trump’s Defense Secretary feel about one of the Obama Pentagon’s more controversial acts, the outreach to tech start-ups known as DIU(X)? “I don’t embrace it,” Jim Mattis told reporters en route to Silicon Valley yesterday. “I enthusiastically embrace it, and I’m grateful that Secretary Carter (Ash Carter, Obama’s last SecDef) had the… Keep reading →

Over the past two years, America’s near-peer competitors have reorganized and integrated their air, deterrent, missile defense, cyber and space forces to make them more effective. But U.S. competitors aren’t just reorganizing; they are building and fielding capabilities that create new vulnerabilities for the U.S. in space. As Gen. Jay Raymond, head of Air Force… Keep reading →

CORRECTED: TACO GILBERT’S AFFILIATION HOLLOMAN AFB: It may be hard to believe but the future of the Air Force may depend on three turboprop planes and a $20 million spec-built attack jet. They are the entries in what the service calls the Light Attack Experiment, a back-to-the-future attempt to rekindle the sort of innovation and… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: In his first interview, the man overseeing the Air Force’s attempt to build the first truly global command and control system says it will demand major changes to the US military. Multi-Domain Command & Control will demand changes to how America commands its troops around the world, to acquisition, to Air Force culture and… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: The morning the news broke that North Korea could tip its ICBMs with nuclear warheads, the US general in charge of strategic deterrence said we could a learn a lot from Kim Jong-un. America prides itself on innovation, but today, said Gen. John Hyten, in matters military, our adversaries are innovating faster because… Keep reading →

President Donald Trump named retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis as Defense Secretary, the highest-ranking civilian position in the Pentagon. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly was named first to head the Homeland Security Department and then replaced Reince Priebus as White House Chief of Staff. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster replaced Air Force Gen. Mike Flynn… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The security of nuclear command and control is the Holy Grail of the US military. Nothing, especially in these turbulent days, matters more. Aside from occasional talk about the nuclear football — as the case containing the nuclear codes is known — most Americans know little about what would happen in the event… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Stealth was sold as something close to magic when it first appeared. And, as usually happens when extraordinary claims are made, the blowback was intense. Skeptics pointed to its vulnerability to large-scale, land-based radars, to the fact it wasn’t invisible to the naked eye, to the costs and difficulties of maintaining the expensive… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: A brand-new ICBM may cost the nation more than $85 billion, but keeping the geriatric Minuteman will cost even more. That’s according to Boeing, the aerospace giant that began building the original Minuteman I in 1958 and has maintained the much-modified Minuteman III since 1970. Sure, the company can reset the odometer on the… Keep reading →