Through the last year the defense industries and their supporters in Congress worked overtime to ensure the federal government kept the armed forces in a perpetual procurement cycle. Inside the Pentagon, the generals and admirals who lead thedefense bureaucracies worked to minimize procurement costs. This was not altruistic behavior. It’s the only way to protect… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: A blockbuster deal to sell the Air Force’s advanced Global Hawk aerial drone to South Korea has been put on ice for now, according to government sources in Seoul. Military leaders from the Asian nation scuttled the nearly $400 to $800 million deal for four Global Hawk aircraft when negotiators from Washington and Seoul… Keep reading →

At a meeting in Beijing in December, Chinese president Hu Jintao had a powerful message for officials from the People’s Liberation Army Navy. “Prepare for war,” Hu said, using a Mandarin term — junshi douzheng — that means “conflict in general.” Amplified and misrepresented by the foreign media, Hu’s words echoed across Asia and the… Keep reading →

In this exclusive article for Breaking Defense, President of Monitor National Security Ajay Patel and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and Senior Advisor Ben Wachendorf claim the impact of looming defense budget will be much worse than expected. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned Congress about the potentially catastrophic impact of the $500 billion in… Keep reading →

The Department of Defense is on the defensive nowadays, with everybody braced for cuts. The Army already has marching orders to reduce its manpower from the current 565,000 active-duty personnel to 520,000, and no one expects it to stop there. But some Army leaders are looking past the lean years and planning how to build… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: A day after locking in Japan as the next the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partner nation, Defense giant Lockheed Martin is setting its sights on South Korea. The fifth-generation fighter “can meet [all] the requirements” laid out by the South Korean military for its FX-III fighter competition, Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed’s vice president of program… Keep reading →

The threat of a $500 billion defense sequestration looms as a result of the Super Committee failure – a prospect that Secretary Panetta has called “potentially ruinous.” Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon and some of his Senate colleagues have promised to introduce legislation to reverse the cuts. Meanwhile, the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Russia is pressing ahead with a new nuclear missile which Moscow claims is a part of a renewed effort to bolster the country’s missile defense systems. This new intercontinental ballistic missile, nicknamed “Satan” by Western analysts, will sport a 100-ton warhead and replace the Voevoda-class missile in the Russian nuclear arsenal, according to recent… Keep reading →

In an article penned exclusively for Breaking Defense, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett weighs in on what needs to be done to maintain U.S. national security goals in light of the economic difficulties facing the country. There are those who argue that with our current national strategy, additional deep cuts to our military, as would occur under… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Speculation on how Iran was able to capture the Pentagon’s stealthy RQ-170 unmanned aircraft has consumed defense and intelligence insiders for weeks. But recent reports based on sources in Tehran claim the highly-classified drone was brought down by an Iranian cyberattack. Iranian engineers were allegedly able to hack into the unmanned aircraft’s control systems… Keep reading →