WASHINGTON: Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson says new hires for crucial pilot and cyber slots, as well as the T-X trainer system contract award, may not survive the year if Congress passes a Continuing Resolution, as expected. Wilson told my colleagues at Defense News and Air Force Times earlier today that “the T-X contract award… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The American military faces a two-front war it can’t afford to fight on current budgets, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today. On the one hand, the US must keep the pressure on not only the Islamic State but its inevitable successors in a “long term” — even “generational” — conflict, Gen. Joseph… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The United States, guarantor of the current world order, will lose the ability to maintain that role in five years unless something fundamental changes on Capitol Hill, Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress at an extraordinary Monday evening hearing. Dunford made it personal, saying “…without sustained, sufficient, and… Keep reading →

Breaking Defense contributor James Kitfield spoke with Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during Dunford’s swing through Japan, Singapore, Australia, Wake Island, and Hawaii. Dunford testifies before Congress this week on the administration’s defense budget request. Most important, the chairman tells us he will make the case that the Budget Control Act’s caps “have to be… Keep reading →

        WASHINGTON: The day before an embattled president rolls out an overdue budget that defense hawks say is $37 billion short, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee counseled against despair. “As President Bush said in a different context, don’t be guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations,” Rep.… Keep reading →

Two weeks from today America will either be a laughingstock or Congress will have done the responsible thing, the necessary thing, and passed some kind of useful spending bills. Or, as Mark Cancian, a former senior official at the Office of Management and Budget, suggests, there may be a sort of defense spending bandage to strap… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “Trust, but verify.” On Gus Hargett’s last day at the National Guard Association of the United States, that’s the advice the long-time NGAUS president gave his successor, Roy Robinson, on dealing with regular active-duty leaders. “I think these guys want to do the right thing,” said Hargett, particularly praising the Army Chief of Staff,… Keep reading →

“There is no enemy on the planet than can do more damage to the United States Air Force than us not getting a budget,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told a defense conference on February 23. “Lack of 2017 appropriations and no supplemental increase in funding…will increase risk to the nation and ultimately… Keep reading →

NATIONAL HARBOR: In their desperation to convince Congress that budget gridlock hurts military readiness, Navy officials made public some information that they shouldn’t have, Acting Secretary Sean Stackley told reporters here today. It’s this oversharing of readiness data, along with too much detailed talk about future capabilities that prompted the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John… Keep reading →

NATIONAL HARBOR: More and more House members oppose another Continuing Resolution, which should compel the passage of proper defense spending bills, the House seapower chairman said here this morning. It’s a rare case where the deep divisions in the Republican party between defense hawks and budget hawks could actually smooth the workings of government instead… Keep reading →