This completes our series on the initial defense plans of the major presidential contenders for the 2016 election. Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies will keep his eye on Clinton and Trump’s campaign as we get more details (presuming we do) and analyze them. Read on. The Editor Hillary Clinton really,… Keep reading →

President Francois Hollande of France arrives Tuesday in Washington for talks with President Obama. Top of the list will be how much America is willing to commit to destroying Daesh, the terrorist group we used to call ISIL. Robbin Laird, Ed Timperlake and Harald Malmgren explore in detail what America’s options are, what France wants and… 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 →

PARIS AIR SHOW: Crowds thronged around the French Defense Ministry pavilion today, chatting with Rafale fighter pilots and the engineers who helped build the planes. It was a most unusual sight, all those civilians — with a fairly high percentage of women — listening intently to and then chatting with the pilots, who also stood in… Keep reading →

Douglas Barrie knows aerospace. He was the European mastermind of Defense News when I was editor and now he works for the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies. The core of his job there is analyzing global air power capabilities for IISS’ flagship publication, Military Balance. He’s authoritative. Here he writes about the Paris Air Show and the very uncertain state… Keep reading →

There’s an old trope in intelligence circles that defenders have to be right all the time, while the terrorists only need to get lucky once to execute a successful attack. The knowledge that no one is right all the time makes most counterterrorism experts cautiously pessimistic about the likelihood of another successful terrorist attack on… Keep reading →

This is James Kitfield’s first piece for Breaking Defense since his departure from his award-winning tenure at National Journal. As one of the best defense reporters around, Kitfield’s specialty has always been spotting the big strategic trend first and writing clearly, simply and persuasively about it. Following is a classic example of his work, which… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a broad exercise of the senatorial privilege of temporarily stopping a nomination, known as a “hold,” Sen. Lindsey Graham announced this morning that he will not allow any Obama administration nominations to proceed.until he is told the names of those he calls the “Benghazi survivors.” RT @GrahamBlog: Where are the #Benghazi survivors? I’m… Keep reading →

Before his latest State of the Union speech, President Obama was widely reported to be ready to propose a significant reduction in nuclear weapons. Then North Korea conducted a nuclear test the day before the address. (The photo above shows Kim Jong-Un smiling after his country’s recent successful ballistic missile test.) In his speech, President… Keep reading →

HEADQUARTERS, ALLIED COMMAND TRANSFORMATION, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: A new era is dawning for NATO — though no one knows quite what it means. Now Allied Command Transformation, the only NATO organization headquartered on US soil, is driving an overhaul of how the alliance trains, strategizes, and shares the burden among its increasingly cash-strapped members in a… Keep reading →