“If it’s a hurricane, [at the Defense Department], they’ve got the mission assignments. They know, ‘OK, we’ve got to send people to fill sandbags,'” DHS’s Jeanette Manfra explained. For cyber responses, she said, “that part is not mature enough.”

Severe instability in the national security establishment raises questions not about the president’s policy judgements, but about the government’s ability to plan for and implement those decisions.

An Israeli expert said that the critical question is, where will the Turks deploy the Russian system. “If it is deployed near the border with Syria it may endanger air forces that will attack Iranian controlled militias in Iraq,” the Israeli source says.

WASHINGTON: The entire US government — not just the Pentagon — needs to wake up to the intertwined threats of cyber warfare and political subversion, Army and National Security Agency officials say. It’ll take a major cultural change to get the whole of government to compete effectively in the grey zone between peace and war.… Keep reading →

Half of all private-sector divestments lose value, and many of the most common risks of carve-outs in the private sector also apply to the military. Here are ways to avoid those pitfalls.

“For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity,” a statement from the White House said. Moscow has refused to admit that it has for years been “covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad.”

Shanahan spent much of his first formal (albeit off-camera) Pentagon pressroom briefing as SecDef emphasizing continuity with his ousted predecessor, Gen. Jim Mattis. He made a point of praising Mattis’s National Defense Strategy, America’s allies, and even the press – not exactly favorites of President Donald Trump.

For insights about how the US military currently views the realities of space war, it’s helpful to consider the recently concluded annual Schriever War Game.

Fast doesn’t meant out of control. Brig. Gen. Grynkewich took pains to emphasize that civilian oversight remains intact and the Pentagon’s role will be rigorously defined under the new National Security Presidential Memorandum NSPM-13.

The Trump Administration is putting the final touches on a plan to speed up arms sales to allies, and play catchup to China and Israel in selling armed drones.