Our partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies resumes with this piece by Seth Jones, part of a CSIS series on the National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review and the Missile Defense Review. As our intrepid readers would know, Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Undersecretary of State… Keep reading →

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION SIMILAR TO BUT MAYBE NOT THE SAME AS NORAD HEADQUARTERS IN COLORADO: Ho. Ho. Ho. It may be hard to believe but the new F-35 sensors are so sensitive they can pick up Santa’s laughter from 1,300 miles away. It’s all part of NORAD’s new efforts to improve their ability to get… Keep reading →

A clarion call. Our readers (being wise and smart) know what that means. Sen. John McCain issued one last night in a speech to the next generation of naval leaders at Annapolis. McCain’s words are aimed straight at the heart of the Republican Party and of our country: “We have to fight. We have to… Keep reading →

President Donald Trump has identified a fact few of his recent predecessors have understood: the Defense Industrial Base of the United States (DIB) is a critical component of our national security. The DIB is more important than any individual weapons program – be it an aircraft carrier, long range bomber, or high-tech tank.  But for too… Keep reading →

The United States — preoccupied with the wars of the Middle East and a pivot to Asia — has largely left the global playing field to Russian President Putin and must now lead NATO by forging a new consensus on the Russian threat and investing in new weapons. The correlation of forces in the European theater has arguably… Keep reading →

Bob Scales has run a lot of war games. I covered him doing them back in the late 1990s. Plus he’s held a lot of the most important jobs in the Army, including at the Army’s home of artillery, Fort Sill. He was around when the battle was on to ban landmines, which bear many similarities… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Until 5pm last Friday, Evelyn Farkas was the Pentagon’s top policy expert on Russia. At 8am this morning, the recently liberated Farkas proposed a Russia policy much more assertive than what her former superiors have  publicly endorsed — at least, so far. She wants the US to consider sending (defensive) lethal weapons to Ukraine,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: This time last year, top Pentagon officials were very publicly touting the Pentagon’s new Third Offset Strategy. Then offset went into stealth mode as people went behind closed doors to wrestle with what it would actually be. So, I asked Deputy Secretary Bob Work yesterday, what’s up with offset? Work’s response made clear the concept… Keep reading →

We’ve heard national security leaders at the highest levels say it repeatedly: we are not prepared for cyber war. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, made it clear when he rated America’s readiness for addressing a catastrophic cyber attack “three on a scale of ten.” Homeland… Keep reading →

Over the next 25 years or so, the United States plans to recapitalize its triad of submarines, bombers, and missiles that deliver strategic nuclear weapons, building new versions of these weapons to extend a 50-year-old force structure for another half century. Yet today’s strategic environment is not that of the 1960s, and tomorrow’s may differ… Keep reading →