Are big, expensive vessels like amphibious ships and carriers too vulnerable in a long-range missile war with Russia or China?

WASHINGTON: During the Cold War, the American military boasted enormous advantages in financing over the Soviet Union and smaller militaries, so it could make enormous and often enormously risky investments and take 15 to 20 years to see the results. It often worked, but it was slow, and the world just isn’t that way anymore.… Keep reading →

The initial contract announced today was just $198 million for the first 30 vehicles, to be delivered by next fall, but Marines want to replace approximately 870 existing AAVs with better-protected, more mobile ACVs “as rapidly as we can,” which will take into “the mid to late ’20s.”

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s election is mostly good news for the Marine Corps — but there are a couple of important caveats. Both his campaign promise to increase Marine combat battalions by 50 percent and his public lambasting of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could cause problems for Marine Corps leaders as they struggle to explain… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The conservative Heritage Foundation has published an ambitious Index of Military Strength, which — not surprisingly — finds that the United States military is not beefy enough to manage the many threats it faces around the world. The core finding of the well-written analysis is that the US military could handle two major theater wars… Keep reading →