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 →

As the end of the fiscal year approaches at the Department of Defense (DoD), teams at most defense organizations are working hard to spend all the funds in the Pentagon’s day-to-day operating budgets, which are available for use only during the ourrent fiscal year. To do otherwise, they fear, would suggest that not all available funds… Keep reading →

Congress comes back after Labor Day and its 535 lawmakers will face one of the most convoluted legislative tangles in recent memory. While there is no clear endgame yet, all parties know what must be done and — roughly — by what time. Up first is the resolution of disapproval for the administration’s Iranian nuclear deal,… Keep reading →

This week, the Republican Congress is expected to unveil its fiscal year 2016 budget resolution just as House defense authorizers start marking up their annual bill. What will that mean for the US military? Bottom line, the Pentagon should realistically expect no more than $569 billion from Congress in the final, enacted 2016 budget between base… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Summer is done. Elections loom. Senators and representatives spent August wining and dining donors and kissing babies in pursuit of a job. In the next few days most of Capitol Hill’s workforce will return from the summer recess and most efforts will be focused on winning reelection and ensuring the primacy of whichever tribe one… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Hours after a House Armed Services Committee on sequestration elicited bitter laugh after bitter laugh from a roomful of observers while the two sides threw figurative spitballs at each other, the Senate almost, but not quite, passed a Continuing Resolution to keep the U.S. government funded for another six months. Sen. Daniel Inouye,… Keep reading →