UPDATED with Sen. McCain & Dean Cheng comments WASHINGTON: If China builds an artificial island on the disputed Scarborough Shoal, Sen. Dan Sullivan warned today, it will complete a “strategic triangle” of bases that can dominate the South China Sea. At this morning’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sullivan displayed a map (above) of the region… Keep reading →

  When Air Force One touches down at King Khalid International Airport on Wednesday, President Obama will enter a Middle East figuratively as well as literally on fire. In the current revolutionary period, the region is beset by multiple cross-cutting wars, the ongoing disintegration of at least four states (Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen), and the ascendance… Keep reading →

In its eagerness to avoid offending the Chinese, is the administration giving them a green light in the disputed South China Sea? This afternoon, on the eve of his departure for the Philippines and India, Defense Secretary Ash Carter carefully tiptoed around ongoing Chinese national security provocations. Several experts I spoke to were not reassured. Carter… Keep reading →

We write a lot on this site about high-tech, high-cost weapons. But it’s worth remembering that most of the killing around the world, an estimated 200,000 deaths a year, takes place with low-tech tools, like these AK-47 assault rifles the Navy seized Friday in the Arabian Sea. All told, the small cargo ship carried 21… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: America’s most powerful allies in the Pacific, Australia and Japan, are building up their amphibious forces, buying amphibious vehicles, V-22 aircraft and big new warships. While far smaller than the Marine Corps, the Australian and Japanese units could assist America in stabilizing the region and deterring China — if they can overcome their self-imposed… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: With the rise of high-tech threats from Russia and China, the Marine Corps plans a major increase in its forces devoted to jamming, hacking, and deceiving enemies. That includes: putting new sensors and jammers in everything from ground units to drones to V-22 Osprey tiltrotors and KC-130 transports, despite a tight budget; adding 1,000 to… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Senate and House Armed Services committees’ push to review the foundational law underpinning today’s US military, known as Goldwater-Nichols, was given a boost today by a group of top former generals and mostly Democratic Pentagon officials. Their biggest takeaway: the National Security Council is too big and takes activist positions on military operations instead… Keep reading →

Sen. John McCain, a stalwart defense Republican, has come out against GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying he shares the concerns expressed today by fellow former GOP presidential Mitt Romney and 65 GOP national security leaders “about Mr. Trump’s uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues…. “At a time when our world has never… Keep reading →

Ted Cruz now leads Donald Trump in at least some national polls. So when the senator offered a fairly detailed military blueprint for his presidency on Tuesday, CSIS defense budget analyst Mark Cancan jumped on it. He ran Cruz’s assumptions and numbers through CSIS’ Force Cost Calculator. What did he find? Read on. The Editor. In… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Air Force’s top priority programs — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Long Range Strike Bomber, and the KC-46 tanker — will cause Pentagon procurement spending to balloon in the early 2020s, says one of the capital’s leading defense budget experts. Army ground combat programs are also increasing rapidly, but they are rising from such… Keep reading →