PRATT & WHITNEY ENGINE PLANT, MIDDLETOWN, CONN.: [updated 9:05 am Wednesday with comment from Pratt & Whitney President David Hess] This factory builds jet engines for high-performance fighters — an engine a week for the F-35 alone — but the armed forces might want to take a look at an innovation on Pratt & Whitney’s… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: He may come to regret it, but Gen. Martin Dempsey today offered what may come to define his tenure as the president’s top military advisor, a doctrine that the United States should never send the military to war by itself. Here’s the phrase Dempsey uttered: “The military instrument should never be wielded alone.” Before… 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 →

WASHINGTON: Since 2001 America’s share of NATO’s budget has climbed steadily upwards from 50 percent to 75 percent. With the NATO summit coming to Chicago in less than three weeks and the Obama White House’s top NATO advisor speaking publicly about the alliance’s goals, it seemed a good time to ask when the enormous gap… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: State governors are complaining to Congress about Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s offer to give the Air National Guard two dozen C-130 aircraft and add back almost 1,200 jobs, saying it isn’t enough. The president’s budget originally proposed cutting 5,100 Air Guard jobs; last week, Panetta offered to restore 1,179 (by the governors’ count) and… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: After you count up all the cuts and additions in the House Armed Services Committee’s mark-up of the Pentagon budget, the bill appears to authorize $554 billion for national defense (budget function 050). At a time when the Pentagon faces the prospect of mandatory spending cuts of another $53 billion if sequestration happens… Keep reading →

The Obama administration late Thursday announced yet another attempt to settle the prolonged and increasingly bitter clash with Japan over the controversial and expensive plan to relocate thousands of U.S. Marines off the crowded island of Okinawa. Senior defense and State Department officials said the revised agreement would strengthen the critical alliance between the U.S.… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Reporters and congressional staff members share a number of traits and interests; one of the most binding is their love for reports by the Defense Department. The staff like reports because the Pentagon has to provide detailed answers and recommendations. That lets them go to their boss and say, “See. DoD admits what… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The odds keep getting better that the Navy will get two Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines in 2014 instead of one, with senators of both parties chiming in this morning to support yesterday’s pro-sub action by the House, and the Navy’s top acquisition official pointedly did not say no. Congress never liked the plan… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In an otherwise pro-forma meeting to approve legislative language for the 2013 national defense authorization, the Seapower panel of the House Armed Services Committee paused to add just one amendment to the otherwise unmodified bill: a provision by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter demanding that the Navy ‘fess up to Congress on problems with… Keep reading →