WASHINGTON: Even as two Navy admirals praised the Littoral Combat Ship to reporters in a hastily convened conference call, the House Armed Services Committee ordered the Government Accountability Office to investigate the program. [CORRECTED (9 p.m. Wednesday) To Reflect That Navy Had Planned Interview For More Than A Week] “It’s disturbing that the Navy would… Keep reading →

Sequestration: it’s a term only Washington could love. Behind the bland euphemism lie dramatic cuts to the U.S. military, shipbuilding and aerospace manufacturing jobs, and in communities across America. Washington politicians insist a half trillion in defense cuts — and the attendant degradation to our national security — is a reasoned belt tightening. In reality,… Keep reading →

The Air Force will choose a winner in its troubled Light Air Support competition without actually flying the two contending planes, the Embraer Super Tucano and the Hawker-Beechcraft AT-6, and it will even disregard what it has data from the limited “flight demonstration” it conducted last year. That’s a disturbing departure from best practice in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Congress orders up innumerable reports, and the Pentagon routinely delivers them months late, but the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan is one report that actually matters. That’s why Rep. Todd Akin, seapower chairman on the House Armed Services Committee, will offer an amendment to the defense authorization bill at Wednesday’s mark-up session that will demand… Keep reading →

31 military & vets’ groups of Military Coalition (http://bit.ly/JKN4Ci) write Congress saying "stop sequestration" – http://1.usa.gov/JKMsfV SydneyFreedberg

WASHINGTON: State governors are complaining to Congress about Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s offer to give the Air National Guard two dozen C-130 aircraft and add back almost 1,200 jobs, saying it isn’t enough. The president’s budget originally proposed cutting 5,100 Air Guard jobs; last week, Panetta offered to restore 1,179 (by the governors’ count) and… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: After you count up all the cuts and additions in the House Armed Services Committee’s mark-up of the Pentagon budget, the bill appears to authorize $554 billion for national defense (budget function 050). At a time when the Pentagon faces the prospect of mandatory spending cuts of another $53 billion if sequestration happens… Keep reading →

The Obama administration late Thursday announced yet another attempt to settle the prolonged and increasingly bitter clash with Japan over the controversial and expensive plan to relocate thousands of U.S. Marines off the crowded island of Okinawa. Senior defense and State Department officials said the revised agreement would strengthen the critical alliance between the U.S.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In an otherwise pro-forma meeting to approve legislative language for the 2013 national defense authorization, the Seapower panel of the House Armed Services Committee paused to add just one amendment to the otherwise unmodified bill: a provision by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter demanding that the Navy ‘fess up to Congress on problems with… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The House Armed Services Committee is giving the US Air Force both marching orders and money to operate its eighteen “Block 30” Global Hawk UAVs instead of warehousing them as the service proposed. The Administration’s fiscal 2013 budget request cancelled the Block 30 program and provided no funds to operate the 18 drones already… Keep reading →