The new commandant says the Corps has to start “unshackling ourselves from previous notions of what war looks like and reimagining how Marines will train, how we will operate, and how we will fight.”

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

Congress is evaluating the proposal to issue a $24 billion contract for the Navy’s next two carriers, as the service looks at months of work to fix ongoing problems with the Ford-class’s first ship.

A British defense official talked up the good news about British defense spending in DC this week — including on many US-built weapons — but some dark clouds hang over the ambitious plan.

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 →

“You fix your roof when it’s sunny out, and right now it appears to be sunny for the next couple of years,” Esper said. “We have to do our best now to find those dollars so we can, again, apply them back to our priorities.”

HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Just calm down and read the document. That, in essence, is the administration’s response to critics who call its new nuclear strategy irresponsible and dangerous. In fact, deputy undersecretary for policy David Trachtenberg said over and over here this morning, the Nuclear Posture Review is fundamentally conservative (with a small “c”). The 2018… Keep reading →

HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The Navy’s has been forced to resort to awkward, inefficient, even dysfunctional expedients to cope with Congress’s chronic inability to pass a proper spending bill on time, the Chief of Naval Operations said here this morning. “We do need stable funding, right, but the system has adapted….I wouldn’t say in completely healthy ways,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON:  As China forges ahead trying to grab the head of the technology table by throwing money, policy and people at quantum computing and artificial intelligence, the US should carefully watch what companies China invests in or tries to buy. Those were the conclusions of three of the top China and technology experts in Washington… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: President Trump was pretty excited when he announced that the central Chinese bank ordered the cessation of all financial business with North Korea. Dean Cheng, the Heritage Foundation’s expert on China and its military, is much less excited. Cheng’s much more skeptical that this latest Chinese move will make any long-term difference in the… Keep reading →