WASHINGTON: As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis prepared to appear before the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee to defend President Trump’s first defense budget, GOP stalwarts Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mac Thornberry were telling reporters it was dead on arrival. “We’ve got planes that can’t fly, ships that can’t sail and Army units that can’t train,” McCain,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The US Army is rushing to stand up cyber forces but its progress shows both how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go. “From an initial start of six officers in 2014… today we have 397 officers, 141 warrant officers, and 560 non-commissioned officers and soldiers” in the Army’s recently created cyber… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: The Army is reinforcing its combat brigades with cyber soldiers. In 18 months of wargames with a wide range of units — tanks, Strykers, infantry, Airborne, Rangers — Army Cyber Command troops have brought hacking and jamming to bear on the (simulated) battlefield alongside guns and bombs. The exercises have already revealed cybersecurity shortfalls… Keep reading →

AUVSI: Future warfare will “place a premium on all types of unmanned systems,” the Army’s vice chief of staff said Wednesday, and Gen. Daniel Allyn told the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International his service has five priority objectives for them. “First, these systems must increase our situational awareness, going where manned systems cannot, thereby… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Army is developing promising new technology, from long-range missiles to anti-drone defense, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Allyn told reporters today. The problem, of course, is paying for it — which, he said, puts pricey innovations like Iron Man-style powered armor out of reach. So what’s the most exciting tech that could… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: At a recent wargame in Germany, slow communications between the US and an allied unit meant we would have killed our own allies. We saw “what happens when we don’t get it right”  the Army Vice-Chief of Staff said last week. When an allied unit called for artillery support, Gen. Daniel Allyn said that “by the time that… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: This afternoon, the Army announced the painful details of long-awaited cuts. The service must shed 40,000 active-duty troops between now and October 2017, with almost half of them coming from 26 installations across the country. The hardest hit: Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Hood, Texas; and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska — all of which… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: Across-the-board budget cuts have already forced the Army to “mortgage our near- and mid-term modernization,” the service’s vice chief of staff warned this morning. If the mandatory spending cuts known as sequestration occur in 2016 they could “push our volunteer force to the breaking point” by undermining trust between leaders and led. “We face a very real… Keep reading →

AUSA: Expanding on Chief of Staff Ray Odierno’s concerns, the Army’s new Vice-Chief of Staff detailed how “fragile” the service’s readiness is in the face of a 2016 sequester. “We’re in a much better place than we were… a year ago,” said Gen. Daniel Allyn, who until August headed the Army’s main readiness outfit, Forces… Keep reading →