WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is painfully aware the world is changing. What the military’s clearly still struggling with is how we should change to cope. That’s the less-than-reassuring implication of the new National Military Strategy, released a week ago by the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. (I discuss the strategy and its… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The presumptive Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the most pressing areas of concern for the US military are its cyber and space capabilities; modernizing its nuclear weapons and their delivery systems; and assuring that American forces can penetrate any set of defenses anywhere in the world. He also… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Submariners come under a lot of pressure — up to 100,000 pounds per square inch, to be exact. Now sub program managers ashore are under intense pressure too, as the Navy tries to squeeze three major sub initiatives — including the enormously expensive Ohio-class replacement (ORP) — into a tightening budget. That’s the challenge career… Keep reading →

When the story broke about the Joint Strike Fighter’s shortcomings as a dogfighter, the reaction among JSF advocates was swift and predictable. Most objected that the F-35’s poor performance is perfectly acceptable and even expected because that jet was never supposed to do air-to-air combat anyway. That claim does not hold up well to scrutiny and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Is the US Navy really so short of warships that Marines must catch a ride on foreign vessels, like heavily armed hitchhikers? The answer is, well, sort of. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire — the Marines definitely could use more amphibious warfare ships — but on this story, politicians, lobbyists, and some of… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy says it won’t have an aircraft carrier in the Middle East for a couple of months this fall. That news has caused a lot of anxiety — but we may be worried about the wrong thing. The real problem may not be the gap itself but the price the Navy pays to close… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Take my mission — please. The armed services are notorious for overselling their capabilities and grabbing turf to justify budgets. But when it comes to ballistic missile defense, the Navy feels so overburdened that it is talking up land-based alternatives as superior to its vaunted Aegis ships. [Click here for Part I of this… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Do dogfights matter in the age of tactical stealth? If an F-16 can outmaneuver an F-35 in a dogfight, does it matter? Does it matter if the earliest generation F-35 can’t outmaneuver an advanced model of the F-16 in an early test? So many questions. We’ll try to answer them because the folks at… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: Seven weeks ago, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter nominated a blunt-talking “soldier’s soldier” to be Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley. Today, he announced a Marine’s Marine to be Commandant, Lt. Gen. Robert Neller. Bob Neller is celebrated for his direct, even blunt manner — but he’s also a military innovator on the cutting… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sometimes success is its own punishment. Shooting down ballistic missiles is one of the Navy’s most high-tech, high-profile capabilities — and it’s one of the most popular with Congress as well. But as demand for missile defense increases at what the Chief of Naval Operations has called an “unsustainable” pace, it’s an ever-greater burden… Keep reading →