(Photo: U.S. Air Force) UPDATED WASHINGTON: Defense giant Boeing may have to prove in person their case to Congress on why they opted to shutter their Kansas facilities last week. “There are still a lot of outstanding questions” on Boeing’s decision to shut down their assembly plant in Wichita, KS and move those operations to… Keep reading →

UPDATED WASHINGTON: It’s been a good couple of weeks for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s international program. Turkish military officials this week approved a deal with JSF prime contractor Lockheed Martin to buy two new A-model F-35s, according to recent news reports.Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed off on the deal late yesterday. Deliveries… Keep reading →

Elections, as President Barack Obama knows, are a time of big ideas. So it would seem fitting that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will roll out a new Pentagon national defense strategy just a few days into a make-or-break election year for the White House. [Panetta is expected to formally unveil the new strategy tomorrow and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: American allies in the the Middle East won’t be rushing to flood their arsenals with U.S. military hardware as a result of Iran’s recent aggressiveness in the region, according to defense experts. Tehran set off a seemingly dangerous game of one-upmanship with Washington and its allies this week when it threatened to take control… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon appears to be moving beyond watching and reporting results from the Joint Strike Fighter program to standing in the room and telling Lockheed Martin when they think the company isn’t doing the right thing. This comes from an August briefing by the program’s director of engineering about the most expensive conventional weapons… Keep reading →

Just before the New Year, the U.S. Air Force finally selected a new Light Air Support plane for ground attack in counterinsurgency, picking the Brazilian Super Tucano over the American AT-6– whose manufacturer, Wichita, Kan.-based Hawker Beechcraft, is filing suit over the decision [update: leading the Air Force to issue a stop-work order on the… Keep reading →

In the new year, America’s power projection forces must be restructured and we must pursue a ruthless retirement of old weapons in favor of the new. Much of this can be paid for and modernized because of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, which costs $2 billion a week. Logistics costs in Afghanistan alone have diverted money… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Boeing’s big win to supply Saudi Arabia with F-15 fighters could set up a larger, more lucrative deal to revamp the country’s naval forces, according to company officials. Washington and Riyadh inked a $29.4 billion deal to provide 84 new Boeing-built F-15E fighters for the Royal Saudi Air Force. Boeing and the Air Force… Keep reading →

My vote in the 2012 presidential election will go to the candidate who most resists pandering to the American electorate. I say “most resist,” as all candidates pander, but hopefully at least one of the presidential candidates will believe and act as if there should be a limit. Given the campaigns so far, perhaps there… Keep reading →

The problem with military planners is that all they know is military stuff. The Pentagon may harbor some of the best strategists who ever gazed at a globe, but they seldom have much grasp of economics or demographics or cultural trends. So when a new threat arises, their natural inclination is to figure out how… Keep reading →