CORRECTED: Fixed Effective Dates of Stevens’ Retirement WASHINGTON: The man at the helm of the world’s biggest company, Bob Stevens, resigned today from his post as CEO and was smoothly replaced by Chris Kubasik, the company’s chief operating officer. His resignation is effective January first. Stevens will remain chairman through 2014, to ensure a smooth… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The House Armed Services Committee will authorize — though not require — the Navy to buy 10 Virginia-class attack submarines and 10 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers over five years, instead of the nine of each type requested in the President’s budget. While the Navy was open to buying 10 DDGs, the HASC language constitutes… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON MALL: The earliest tendrils of dawn were just stretching over the Washington Monument when we arrived here at 5:30 this morning. Why, you are doubtless wondering, were my wife, myself and a friend standing in front of the Korean War Memorial at that hour? My wife is Australian. So’s the friend. And I’m pretty… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The US Army is traditionally the most low-tech of the four armed services, but the quest for lighter, stronger armor for troops and vehicles alike puts them on the cutting edge of materials science, from advanced ceramics to carbon nanotubes. That’s the reason the Army made an award worth up to $90 million over… Keep reading →

Reported cybersecurity incidents at federal agencies have risen 680 percent in six years, the Government Accountability Organization testified today — and note that key word “reported,” which means that’s just the ones we know about. Nor is the current threat merely the malicious “script kiddies” of yesterday: It’s increasingly hardened criminals and even nation-states, including… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Anyone who’s attended a hearing on the F-35 since Bob Gates first put the plane in his sights, with costs spinning upwards and schedule bulging outwards, knows that the Pentagon senior leadership is pushing hard to contain costs of the largest conventional acquisition program in U.S. history. That push may have led to a… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: With the Taliban reeling, it is the Afghan government’s own corruption that is the biggest threat to US goals and the biggest reason to keep US advisors in place through 2014 and beyond. That’s the verdict of Marine Maj. Gen. John Toolan, who just finished a year commanding the international force called Regional Command… Keep reading →

ON A TRAIN SOMEWHERE ON THE EAST COAST: Imagine a soldier, wearing mufti, traveling through Syria in a rattletrap taxi. He’s a spy, dressed in a suit, going to meet an agent who says he can offer rebels the Syrian government’s order of battle. The soldier, an Army intelligence officer fluent in Syrian and Iraqi… Keep reading →

Everyone’s scared of sequestration. But the US Navy and its shipbuilders are particularly upset by the prospect, because both the large-scale nature of naval construction and a historic quirk of the appropriations process leave warships particularly vulnerable. That’s why the Navy League of the United States, one of the nation’s oldest and most influential advocacy… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: After a two-year delay, the Pentagon and State department finally released a report on how they would change satellite exports, which have been crippled by legislation and strict State Department controls, and recommended that Congress generally cede control of satellite exports to the White House. As numerous studies have documented over the last… Keep reading →