PENTAGON: Despite a year of offering bonuses, trying to bring back former pilots and talking up the glories of being an Air Force pilot, the service’s most precious resource continues to dwindle. At the end of fiscal 2016, the service needed 1,500 pilots. On Oct. 31 of this year, that number had swollen to about… Keep reading →

ANNAPOLIS: The Navy’s new plan to put mine-hunting gear on a wider range of warships could finally break mine warfare out of its ghetto — or it could keep mine-hunting the same redheaded stepchild but spread it across more decks. The Navy has experimented with integrating Mine Counter-Measures (MCM) onto ships that weren’t minesweepers before,… Keep reading →

CRYSTAL CITY: Ash Carter created the Defense Innovation Advisory Board so the military could tap the expertise of a panel of civilian luminaries, from Google’s Eric Schmidt to pop astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. But the board is less interested in being oracular than in embracing and adopting enthusiastic young innovators. To paraphrase several participants at… Keep reading →

AFA: The senior leadership of the Air Force will decide at the late October Corona meeting at the Air Force Academy whether to take the cyber force from Air Force Space Command and merge it with Air Combat Command‘s ISR force. Why, you ask, would they combine the 24th Air Force with the 25th Air… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Congress’s repeated budget malpractice and the Navy’s flawed policies combined to cause the accidents that killed 17 sailors, the Navy and the GAO say. Legislative dysfunction means budget cuts, caps, and delays have chronically shortchanged training and maintenance across the fleet, forcing sailors to work 100-plus hours a week to try to catch… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: In his first interview, the man overseeing the Air Force’s attempt to build the first truly global command and control system says it will demand major changes to the US military. Multi-Domain Command & Control will demand changes to how America commands its troops around the world, to acquisition, to Air Force culture and… Keep reading →

Eric Prince, the former CEO of Blackwater, argues for expanded use of contractors in Afghanistan. Some of his proposals deserve attention. The idea apparently resonated with the White House (though not with Secretary of Defense Mattis) and has continued to get attention. Prince is widely regarded as the spawn of Satan because of the many… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy wants the Army’s help win a future Multi-Domain Battle with China, a senior defense official told me last week, but to get it, the two services have to connect through a simple, robust network using small and rapidly-launched satellites. We don’t need massive bandwidth to handle video teleconferences, full motion video from drones,… Keep reading →

UPDATED w/ Sen. McCain’s “optimism,” Cdr. Clark’s analysis WASHINGTON: At 1:10 pm today, the Navy issued its official wishlist for its future frigate and set a 45-day deadline for shipbuilders to respond. As acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley had promised, today’s Request For Information (RFI) opens the door wide to both US and foreign designs. It… Keep reading →

Imagine battles unfolding faster than the human mind can handle, with artificial intelligences choosing their tactics and targets largely on their own. The former four-star commander in Afghanistan, John Allen, and an artificial intelligence entrepreneur, Amir Husain, have teamed up to develop a concept for what they call “hyperwar,” rolled out in the July issue… Keep reading →