VIRGINIA BEACH, VA: During a decade of relentless focus on counterinsurgency, the military has let other skills erode, skills it will have to struggle to get back even as budgets tighten. In particular, the capacity of the US and allied navies to hunt enemy submarines has suffered even as potential adversaries like China and Iran… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Iran’s threat to strangle oil tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz has the Navy scrambling to redress its decades-old neglect of mine warfare. Admirals from the Chief of Naval Operations on down have publicly admitted the service is not where it needs to be. “What I find amazing is the amount of interest… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Lasers are déclassé even in science-fiction nowadays – the guys in Avatar and Mass Effect shoot bullets – and the big Air Force and Army laser programs of the last decade were ignominiously cancelled. So I was surprised at last week’s Navy League Sea-Air-Space conference to hear “directed energy” technology mentioned by no less… Keep reading →

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD [updated 7:30 am Thursday 19 April with Congressional comment and Raymond Pritchett’s retraction] : The smartest man in the Department of the Navy, Under Secretary Robert O. Work, erupted today in a passionate defense of the service’s integrity in how it counts its ships and of the controversial Littoral Combat Ship‘s place… Keep reading →

ISTANBUL: For the six world powers negotiating with Iran, the crucial, perhaps 11th-hour meeting in Istanbul hinges on deciding whether the Islamic Republic is serious about making a deal on its nuclear program. No one expects a concrete agreement to come out of this effort on Saturday to revive a diplomatic process that stalled almost… Keep reading →

A study by a Washington think tank that closely follows the Iranian nuclear program, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), concludes that Iran could have tested a nuclear trigger in a device at the disputed Iranian site of Parchin. Breaking Defense obtained a copy of the draft report. The Iranian military testing ground… Keep reading →

What the hell is hybrid warfare, anyway? While the other services increasingly fixate on China, “hybrid” is becoming the buzzword du jour in the U.S. Army, invoked even in Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno‘s official “marching orders” to the service. But like “counterinsurgency” before it – and like “transformation” before that – the term… Keep reading →

More missions, less money: That’s the dilemma the U.S. Army faces as it looks beyond Afghanistan. The service is certainly grateful that the all-consuming commitments of the last decade are finally winding down, but it’s still struggling to shift gears on a shrinking budget. After ten years of optimizing itself for protracted counterinsurgency – a… Keep reading →

[Updated 2:00 pm with Boeing comment] The chairman of the House subcommittee on strategic nuclear forces slammed the Obama Administration today for what he called its lackadaisical approach to missile defense in the face of rising threats from North Korea, Iran, and – implicitly – China. “We all know that the world is getting less… Keep reading →

The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, detailed the Navy’s build-up in the Persian Gulf today, but he downplayed the prospects of any immediate conflict with Iran – even as the fleet develops new weapons for coastal combat and plans to double its deployment of minesweepers and upgunned patrol craft to Bahrain. “I will… Keep reading →