HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Just calm down and read the document. That, in essence, is the administration’s response to critics who call its new nuclear strategy irresponsible and dangerous. In fact, deputy undersecretary for policy David Trachtenberg said over and over here this morning, the Nuclear Posture Review is fundamentally conservative (with a small “c”). The 2018… Keep reading →

  For years, the Pentagon has dreamed and worked to build what it has called Prompt Global Strike, The idea is simple: to build a hypersonic weapon that can destroy targets anywhere on earth within an hour of getting targeting data and permission to launch. The technology and the physics are not simple; nor are they cheap.… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: It’s explicit: China is the Air Force’s “pacing threat.” That was the clearest message from Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who met with the press the day after the Pentagon budget’s release. China’s rapid modernization is driving the Air Force to respond, Wilson said, though she declined to detail any of the service’s efforts… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Air Force was eclipsed as the biggest budget winner this year, partially because of its decision to begin shifting from current weapons to new ones. The Army, which has greatly increased its commitment to land weapons, increased 14.9 percent and the Air Force is up 14.1 percent. Meanwhile the Navy Department — which includes… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The United States government sees a fundamentally more threatening world today, one that requires a more nuanced balance of delivery systems than we’ve deployed since the end of the Cold War. That’s really the change that has driven the results of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, officially released today. Careful transparency continues to… Keep reading →

CORRECTED: Inserted Photo Of Minuteman III; Removed Photo Of Titan WASHINGTON: Gen. Robin Rand, the Air Force bomber and missile boss, really wants new jet engines for his aging B-52s. The service has invited interested companies to a two-day information session in December and Boeing and Rolls-Royce are already publicly campaigning for the contract. But,… Keep reading →

Todd Harrison is one of the best defense budget folks around. Like many budget weenies (that’s the technical term) he really cares about how people come up with cost estimates because the underlying assumptions for them can lead in radically different directions. One example is the recent estimate on how much the next generation of… Keep reading →

Is America’s nuclear arsenal too expensive? The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that concludes the Trump Administration’s plans to operate, sustain and recapitalize the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal over 30 years would cost the American people $1.2 trillion in constant dollars. The report explains ways in which delaying or cancelling the recapitalization of parts of… Keep reading →

CORRECTED: Minuteman Was First Solid-Fueled ICBM; Jon Wolfsthal’s name The first solid-fueled InterContinental Ballistic Missile, Minuteman 1, was deployed some 55 years ago on the same day that President Kennedy announced that Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba. At the end of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy credited the newly deployed Minuteman ICBM as his “ace… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Air Force Chief of Staff appeared to be talking about putting nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour alert, but the man who’d make the decision, the head of Strategic Command, wasn’t. After my colleague Marcus Weisgerber reported that Gen. David Goldfein said the Air Force was considering putting bombers back on alert, I checked with… Keep reading →