Some 21 years ago I started work at Defense News, working for their brand new editor. Today, the redoubtable Theresa Hitchens, space pundit, NATO and nuclear war expert, former UN diplomat, and my longtime colleague joins Breaking Defense to report on space. Theresa will add the rest of Air Force under her wing over the… Keep reading →

The Pentagon insists it doesn’t want them. But could a global ban really rein in Russia or China?

Don’t fear robots who rebel against their human masters. Fear robots that obey the wrong human.

The Pentagon has almost completed a study of how to shoot down hypersonic missiles. It’s also developing new offensive weapons — conventional, not nuclear — whose deployment will become legal with the end of the INF Treaty.

“For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity,” a statement from the White House said. Moscow has refused to admit that it has for years been “covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad.”

Just back from a unsuccessful round of discussions with her Russian counterparts in Geneva to discuss the Cold war-era accord, Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson told reporters today she’s not hopeful of saving the INF Treaty before Feb. 2, when time runs out on the 60 days the Trump administration have given Moscow to acknowledge it had violated the treaty.

In the coming clash between President Trump’s $750 billion defense budget and House Democrats’ desire to cut Pentagon spending, especially on nuclear weapons, there will be tremendous fiscal pressure to shortchange the almost $30 billion annual cost to modernize America’s strategic deterrent. The ideological cover for such penny-wise, pound-foolish cuts is the so-called Global Zero… Keep reading →

After five years of talks and a wall of Russian denials, NATO and Washington call Putin’s bluff and say they’re ready to do something about Russian violations of a 31 year-old arms control treaty. But Europe is worried.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump injected a fresh dose of uncertainty over defense spending Monday when he derided 2019’s defense budget — which he readily signed and has praised for months — as “Crazy!” The sharp turn in sentiment came in another dreaded early-morning presidential tweet that often shift the talking points for entire segments of… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Democrats’ recapturing the House means three major impacts on the Defense Department: The odds are that controversial Trump priorities like new nuclear weapons and a Space Force will go nowhere, defense budgets will go down, and oversight will go up, up, up. Program winners and losers The most likely losers are nuclear modernization… Keep reading →