Washington: The head of the Navy, Adm. Gary Roughead, has offered a pretty compelling story line in the last few months, arguing that the next decade will belong to his service as the U.S. withdraws from its land wars and is forced to rely on a steady global presence deliverable only by ship. The Navy… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Lawmakers want the Pentagon’s intelligence shop to play nice with the rest of the intelligence community, and they have the program to do just that. Included in the Senate Armed Service Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill, a Defense Intelligence Agency-led “pilot demonstration” program will allow the Pentagon to share… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: With the White House and Congress searching for defense cuts, a number of big-ticket Pentagon programs have been put under the microscope. With the recent release of two separate reports by the Defense Department and Congressional Budget Office, the Missile Defense Agency’s newest ballistic missile program could suffer. The SM-3 Block IIB missile will… Keep reading →

Washington: They aren’t there yet, but if one peers deep into the voting tendencies of the House Republican Caucus, there are clear indications they are growing more comfortable with the idea of making significant cuts to the Defense Department budget. “The rising tide against defense spending is particularly noticeable among Republicans. A tally by Darcy… Keep reading →

Washington: The bad news: U.S. defense spending is likely — almost certain — to decline. The worse news — our allies spending is also likely to go down even more than it already has. The Council on Foreign Relations has just published what most western strategists and those of our Pacific allies can only regard… Keep reading →

Three senators used the New York Times op-ed page today to call for complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan two years earlier than the Obama administration plans call for. “We commend the president for sticking to the July date he had outlined for beginning the withdrawal. However, his plan would not remove all regular… Keep reading →

Washington: A little-noticed but extraordinary event took place during the Paris Air Show and it had nothing to do with the show. The Senate Armed Services Committee came within a whisker of officially killing the F-35 program. The June 21 vote in a closed committee session came on an amendment offered by Sen. John McCain… Keep reading →

Lt. Gen. Terry Robling talks to Breaking Defense Editor Colin Clark about why funding for the controversial V-22 Osprey must not be cut. The Project for Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group, has called on lawmakers to cut all funding for the plane, as has the New York Times in an editorial.

Robert Gates has been called the best secretary of defense in recent memory. On the other hand, he has a reputation with some as a slick career bureaucrat with a knack for avoiding blame but pocketing credit. Both are true. “Best in recent memory?” It would have been hard for Gates to have been a… Keep reading →

The people who run the U.S. defense industry aren’t real big on metaphors, and yet many of them subscribe to a distinctly metaphorical view of how military spending ebbs and flows. The prevailing view in the sector is that Pentagon spending occurs in waves that crest every 20 years or so, after which demand gradually… Keep reading →