UPDATED: Adds Carter & Kirchhoff remarks AUSTIN: Today, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will announce the latest location for his Defense Innovation Unit (Experimental) — but DIUX Austin will be organized differently from the home office in Silicon Valley or its offshoot in Boston. Instead of its own offices, DIU(X) Austin will “occupy space within the well-known… Keep reading →

SAN FRANCISCO: Defense Secretary Ash Carter repeatedly refused to confirm or deny reports that he’s recommended the President split the National Security Agency from US Cyber Command. However, reading between the lines of his remarks here at the TechCrunch conference, there are strong hints he might favor separating the two. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Senate Armed… Keep reading →

NAVAL STATION GREAT LAKES, ILL: As Russian cyber espionage heats up the presidential campaign, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said his Pentagon reforms will endure under the next president, whoever he or she may be. “These things that we’re doing, we the leadership collectively discuss them, invent them, so everybody understands why we’re doing these things,”… Keep reading →

FORT BRAGG, NC: The US is not practicing traditional counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare in Iraq and Syria. Instead, the US is providing high-tech firepower, cyber power, and other “enablers” to local allies who don’t have them, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said here today. That approach, which ranges from stealth fighters to “cyber bombs,” has a lot in common with… Keep reading →

The Army needs to break with DoD’s modernization strategy or risk being broken itself. Simply stated, the Army cannot afford to cut end strength and units in order to free up resources for modernization. This is all the more true if the modernization programs are complex, expensive and will take years to reach IOC. The… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Carter Touts Import Of Biotech CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: Special operations troops will test a high-tech headset that “uses noninvasive electrical stimulation” to help the brain learn better marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat skills, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said here today. This cutting edge example of “enhanced human operations” — a highly controversial field — is just… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Funding for a new space command center will nearly triple if Congress approves the Pentagon’s mid-year reprogramming request. Propelled by personal interest from both Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his deputy, Bob Work, the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSPOC) began this year with just $16 million in 2016 funding. The reprogramming request… Keep reading →

PENTAGON:  Less than two months after Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited the highly classified Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSPOC), the head of Strategic Command’s space command unit has taken over the war games at Schriever Air Force Base. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told me in an interview that Lt. Gen.David Buck, JFCC-Space, was… Keep reading →

NATO HQ: If there’s one undercurrent to all the discussions here and on Ash Carter‘s flight from Washington about NATO, it is that the US is — once again — calling on Europe to do more to defend itself. With the current imbalance of spending at stark levels — America provides 75 percent of NATO… Keep reading →

UPDATE with Hill reaction WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter today asked Congress to help the Pentagon’s quest for talent in specialized areas such as cyber warfare. Among many other reforms, this latest iteration of Carter’s “Force of the Future” initiative requests changes to existing law to: Let cyber and other technical experts join the military at higher… Keep reading →