WASHINGTON: Since 9/11, the armed services have made great strides in applying information technology to warfare — but their implementation to date has relied on costly, manpower-intensive “brute force,” said the Navy’s director for “information dominance,” Rear Adm. William Leigher. As budgets tighten, he said, the services will have no choice but to operate more… Keep reading →

Imagine Iran, for whatever reason, is threatening the Fifth Fleet, pledging to use its patented swarming boats to whup us. Well, the Army has spent almost $2 billion developing a capability that can track and provide “target-quality data” to protect the Navy from swarming Iranian attackers. It can also track and help kill cruise missiles.… Keep reading →

The past decade has seen an unlikely revival of a long-grounded technology. Military airships, last operational with the U.S. Navy in the 1960s, took back to the skies, propelled by soaring demand for long-endurance, low-cost aerial surveillance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Per flight hour, an airship costs a fraction of what a helicopter or a… Keep reading →