The Pentagon and, increasingly, Congress have grown frustrated with tech giants who shy away from US government work while flocking to Beijing to tap a massive — but authoritarian — market.

Smart missiles to strike hard targets hundreds of miles away. Wireless links to pull data from stealth fighters and foot soldiers alike. Command posts agile enough to coordinate it all — not only in open war, but in the ambiguous “grey zone” of hacking, proxy warfare, and Twitter trolls. That’s just a few of the… Keep reading →

There are times and places in the history of war in which improvements in firepower force anyone in range to take cover instead of advancing, as machineguns and howitzers did a century ago on the infamous Western Front. The fundamental difference today is the width of the killing zone would be measured, not in hundreds or thousands of yards, but in hundreds or thousands of miles.

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 →

  Few espionage experts speak publicly. Even fewer experts in Chinese espionage do. I first met Nick Eftimiades at the airport when he was a top space intelligence expert. I was en route to my first Space Symposium and knew very little. Nick taught me a bit and was very tolerant of this new space puppy who didn’t know… Keep reading →

Republicans Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Mac Thornberry say to the White House and to the congressional budget hawks: Yes, budget deficits matter, but defense matters more — because of the degradation in readiness and lack of modernization the armed forces have suffered for more than a decade.

The Arctic will become increasingly crowded in the coming years, and the US Navy’s Second Fleet is making it a priority to get up there more often.

“The Chinese chose Djibouti because of its strategic location in Africa and mainly because it gives foreign military forces that built bases in this country control of one of the most important water ways – the Bab Al Mandeb Strait,” says Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at the Center for Iranian Studies, both at Tel Aviv University.

But while the skies are quiet today, US Pacific Air Forces are preparing for possible conflict: fielding new weapons like the F-35 stealth fighter and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), adding more space-operations planners to theater staffs, and reemphasizing that old-fashioned initiative so junior commanders can act when an enemy cuts off their communications with higher headquarters.

From militarized atolls in the South China Sea to a growing Chinese navy looking increasingly aggressive, the head of the Indo-Pacom command lays out his needs and concerns.