WASHINGTON: While the Army can keep troops headed for Afghanistan trained up and ready to go, the ongoing budget gridlock threatens its ability to prepare for crises around the world — from North Korea to Syria – conflicts that would require a very different kind of training than the counterinsurgency tactics the force has focused on… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Army’s problem with its new Apache helicopters isn’t as bad as we thought when we first wrote about it last week. It’s worse. We knew that Northstar Aerospace, the subcontractor making the transmissions for lead contractor Boeing, had fallen behind on building that crucial component. We knew at least seven of the latest… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The commandant of the Marines told Congress today that his service could not handle even one major war if Congress doesn’t undo the $500 billion, 10-year cut to defense spending known as sequestration. The Navy, for its part, would have only one aircraft carrier ready to “surge” in a crisis instead of two… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: “Army Has Biggest Problem.” That’s it. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale’s official briefing slides for today’s big budget roll-out couldn’t be blunter. Hale has made this point before, but in case anyone imagined Congress rescued the Army when it passed a belated 2013 spending bill last month, the budget presentation today made clear the biggest… Keep reading →

With all the services reining in spending to cope with the current budget crisis, the second and third-order effects of cutbacks will ripple through the force for years. While the Army “has it worst” by the Pentagon comptroller’s own assessment, the most complicated impacts are on the Navy, whose carefully planned maintenance schedule is falling… Keep reading →

[updated Tuesday, March 6 with Gen. Mattis’s remarks to the House Armed Services Committee] CAPITOL HILL: The US should keep 13,600 troops in Afghanistan to advise and assist the Afghan forces after American combat brigades withdraw in 2014, about a quarter of the current troop level, said Central Command chief Gen. James Mattis, giving his personal recommendation — not the Administration’s final decision — after prodding from the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. Rumored figures have been significantly lower. “We have to send a message of commitment,” declared Mattis, who will soon retire. But with the Navy halving its aircraft carrier presence in the Gulf and all the services cutting corners in expectation of a continued budget crunch, it’s getting harder to project resolve.

“A perceived lack of an enduring US commitment” is the biggest danger to American interests in the Central Command region, which sprawls from Egypt to Pakistan, Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. While the drawdown in Afghanistan unnerves some allies, he said, “our budget ambiguity right now is probably the single greatest factor. I’m asked about it everywhere I go in the region.”

“Already, sequestration is having an operational impact in the CENTCOM area” with the indefinite postponement of the aircraft carrier USS Truman’s deployment to keep an eye on Iran, lamented SASC’s chairman, Carl Levin. Facing a funding shortfall from both the automatic cuts known as sequestration and the Continuing Resolution now funding the federal government I the absence of proper 2013 appropriations, Navy will keep Truman stateside, albeit ready for rapid deployment in a crisis.

WASHINGTON: “We still even today hold out hope that there will be a solution, that Congress can solve this.” That’s the word, as startling as it is, from the Navy’s senior spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, on the day before the automatic cuts called sequestration are scheduled to kick in. But as Kirby, the Chief… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: With the arbitrary and automatic cuts called sequestration to take effect on Friday, the Army is scrambling to figure out exactly how budget shortfalls will screw up everything from barracks repairs to combat training. “As recently as yesterday,” the Army’s budget director, Maj. Gen. Karen Dyson, told reporters this morning, “the Army senior leaders… Keep reading →

FORT LAUDERDALE: When war comes down to boots on the ground, the Army’s greatest asset is its people. But in fiscal terms people are also its greatest liability. And now some procedural peculiarities of the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, set to start on Friday, will make personnel costs much harder to handle in… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds NAVAIR Letter And JSF JPO, Lockheed Statements AFA Winter, Orlando: What happens when all the top brass of the Air Force are attending a top conference on a Friday afternoon? Their biggest program, the Joint Strike Fighter, gets its entire fleet grounded because of a crack in a turbine blade. Details began trickling… Keep reading →