A telling graphic from the International Institute for Strategic Studies’s newly released report on global military spending (click here for the original). The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has released its annual series of reports on international defense spending, The Military Balance 2012. The full text is subscriber-only, but a summary press release, detailed… Keep reading →

If you take the Administration’s word for it, the most recent defense budget represents a sober-minded and far-thinking strategic shift from the Middle East to Asia, creating a smaller, high-tech force oriented increasingly towards inter-state conflict and deterrence. Many are even comparing the Pentagon’s current vision with that of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,… Keep reading →

Buck McKeon wants his $450 billion back. The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee doesn’t just want to avoid sequestration, which would automatically cut $500 billion from Defense spending over the next decade if Congress can’t get its fiscal act together. McKeon (R-Calif.) wants to roll back the $450 billion in cuts that the… Keep reading →

There’s a lot going on in the U.S. Air Force, but for the Senators at this morning’s Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the USAF budget, just one mattered: How budget cuts would impact their home states. While such parochialism is as shocking as gambling in Casablanca, it raises a red flag for the full-scale Base Realignment… Keep reading →

The Chinese National People’s Congress has announced its new defense budget, offering the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) yet another double-digit increase, with funding up 11.2 percent this time. Officially, this amounts to a $106 billion defense budget, although most observers believe that China’s real defense budget is probably twice that much, if not more. In… Keep reading →

THE PENTAGON: While multi-billion dollar programs dominate the defense debate, the U.S. Army is quietly placing a big bet on a very small part of the Pentagon budget. The service’s strategy? Leverage the administration’s interest in rebuilding military-to-military relationships around the world – long overshadowed by the simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – by… Keep reading →

ABOARD THE USS WASP: For the first time, Marine and Navy planners have melded a carrier strike group into the Marine Corps’ premiere amphibious operations wargame known as Bold Alligator. This appears to bridge what had appeared to be a growing divide between a Marine Corps eager to build more amphibious ships and a Navy… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Lighter, faster and more lethal. That’s where he U.S. military is headed as a result of looming budget cuts slated to begin in fiscal 2013. And that’s where the Army wants to take their fleet of light combat vehicles, to help ease that budget blow. But to get there, service leaders plan to radically… Keep reading →

UPDATED WASHINGTON: The Army will cancel a multimillion dollar effort to upgrade its Humvee fleet and funnel those funds into the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, according to sources with knowledge of the program. Pentagon acquisition officials spearheaded Army’s decision to terminate the Modernized Expanded Capability Vehicle program — the official moniker of the Humvee recapitalization… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: One lesson the Army has taken to heart from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the value — and often the necessity — of aviation to soldiers fighting on the ground. This is one reason that, even as the Army shrinks by a reported 80,000 or more troops under President Obama’s new military… Keep reading →