We will probably never know much about it, but the Air Force’s top Electronic Warfare task force has completed its first scrub and should report to top service leaders in the next month or so.

UPDATED: Did Thomas Say AC-130 or EC-130??? Does It Matter? GEOINT: The Compass Call is supposed to be one of America’s foremost electronic warfare weapons, but the EC-130s flying near Syria are being attacked and disabled “in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet,” the head of Special Operations Command said here today. “Right now… Keep reading →

“We had the dominant electronic warfare capability in the world and we let it atrophy. Now we’re behind,” general turned congressman Don Bacon told me. “I want us to be dominant again. I don’t want us to be second or third best after Russia and China.”

TEL AVIV: The Israeli Air Force (IAF) may delay the acquisition of a third Lockheed Martin F-35 squadron in favor of a fast purchase of additional new versions of the F-15. In recent deliberations within the IAF’s high command, the leading direction was clear – -priority for the additional F-15’s while delaying the purchase of… Keep reading →

“Is this possible? Probably,” one retired Army officer told me. “Are the Russians trying to figure out how to disable all the M1s so they can run over us with their robots? I hope that’s where they’re spending their time.”

Unlike the Taliban, Russia and China can shoot down our drones, jam our transmissions, and hack our computers. So to prepare to fight them, we need a very different communications network — one the US Army is now studying how to build.

All this technology serves a new concept of operations for defeating dense advanced air defenses of the kind Russia and China are both building for themselves and selling abroad.

The long-term solution may take “big, leap-ahead technology,” said Maj. Gen. Pete Gallagher, head of the Cross Functional Team leading the network overhaul. But short-term solutions can be as simple as replacing bulky metal antennas with inflatable ones or loading new software on an off-the-shelf Android phone.

The rise of nationalist movements in the United States and among key allies in Europe is shaping how American defense firms do business, driving them to move weapons production overseas, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson told reporters today.

Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein leads perhaps the most ground-down service in the Pentagon. The service grapples with how to modernize its planes, grant its crews some reprieve from the stresses of flying or maintaining and supporting planes and satellites and still keep the United States the one true global power. Read what Goldfein says he’s doing to keep the Air Force in fighting trim.