WASHINGTON: Offset strategy. Doesn’t exactly make your hair stand on end or make you go wow. Does it have to do with international arms deals and tradeoffs companies and countries make to win business? No. In fact, the offset strategy Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel should unveil in the next few days may be one of… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with Congressional comment] Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reassured the Army today that its role is not “eroding” or “diminishing,” despite shrinking budgets, the rebalance to the watery Pacific theater, and the Obama administration’s commitment to “no boots on the ground” against self-proclaimed Islamic State. Instead, echoing comments by the Army’s own leaders, Hagel said… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The services’ draft budgets delivered to the Office of Secretary of Defense early this month are probably being shredded in light of the campaign in Iraq and Syria against the terrorist group known as ISIL. “If you’re asking me, are we going to have budget problems, the answer is yes,” the president’s top military advisor told reporters this… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with Hagel, Shaffer comments] NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The four armed services only submitted their draft 2016 budgets to the Office of the Secretary of Defense “basically yesterday,” Undersecretary Frank Kendall said this morning — and he’s already “concerned.” As the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, Kendall sees worrying signs. With the automatic budget cuts known as… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: ISIL has battled its way to the Golan Heights, putting its mad troops opposite battle-hardened Israel. NATO says satellite imagery prove Russian troops and materiel are flowing into Ukraine. The president of Ukraine cancels a trip to Turkey and announces mandatory conscription. “Columns of heavy artillery, huge loads of arms and regular Russian servicemen… Keep reading →

Defense Secretaries always “try to get out of Washington and visit as many of our bases and talk to as many of our people” as they can, as Sec. Chuck Hagel said this week at Kings Bay submarine base in Georgia. But when you’re SecDef, you always take Washington with you. Physically, that means the… Keep reading →

LONDON: Sitting in my room here across the street from the building where D-Day was planned and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower huddled for months worrying over those shallow beaches and terrible cliffs, it’s easy to lose sight of the current agonistes faced by Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon leadership and our allies about the F-35A fire.… Keep reading →

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA: Even as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flew here with much fanfare to reaffirm his “strong, strong confidence” in the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force quietly let slip they have started a competition for the Long-Range Strike Bomber. The two programs could hardly be more different. JSF is… Keep reading →

KINGS BAY NAVAL SUBMARINE BASE, GEORGIA: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel came here Wednesday to celebrate the Navy’s nuclear deterrence force. But just 20 minutes in, a petty officer second class stood up in front of almost 200 of his comrades and pointed out the $95 billion elephant in the room: Can the Navy afford to… Keep reading →

Submarine Base Kings Bay, Ga: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, during a two-day round of base visits to highlight top budgetary concerns, told an all-hands gathering of nuclear submariners today that America’s military has let its focus on nuclear issues “drift” under pressure from the last 13 years of land wars. “Over the years we’ve let our focus on the nuclear… Keep reading →