PETERSEN AFB: As he welcomed America’s first female combatant commander, NORTHCOM‘s new leader Gen. Lori Robinson, Defense Secretary Ash Carter detailed publicly some of the cyber attacks against Daesh — what his deputy called “cyber bombs” — that US forces have launched in recent months. “We’re using these tools to deny the ability of ISIL leadership… Keep reading →

BUCKLEY AFB: Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work told reporters today that ISIL is under tremendous pressure from the United States — “from every single direction, the north, the east, the west and the south” — and the terrorist group has lost every engagement with allied forces over the last six months. That apparently includes in cyberspace.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The US is waging an outright cyber war against Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs made clear this morning. While Carter did not say so, we believe this is the first official confirmation by a senior military official that the United States has waged… Keep reading →

Ted Cruz now leads Donald Trump in at least some national polls. So when the senator offered a fairly detailed military blueprint for his presidency on Tuesday, CSIS defense budget analyst Mark Cancan jumped on it. He ran Cruz’s assumptions and numbers through CSIS’ Force Cost Calculator. What did he find? Read on. The Editor. In… Keep reading →

A blizzard slams the East Coast and the lights go out. Then they stay off. Is it an attack? How do we figure out who’s behind it? What do we do in retaliation? These are all questions that need answering since what looks like the first successful cyber attack on an entire nation’s power grid. Ukraine says that… Keep reading →

One of today’s toughest defense problems is drones. But not what the Air Force likes to call Remotely Piloted Aircraft that carry missiles and bombs. The bigger threat – one that worries law enforcement and the Secret Service as much as the Pentagon – is drones like the hundreds of thousands Santa brought to kids… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The problem with secret weapons is that almost nobody knows about them — including people on your own side who might really need to use them. That’s the self-inflicted wound the Pentagon is struggling with as it tries to apply highly classified capabilities in cyber and electronic warfare to the notoriously tough challenge of… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: Pop culture pictures hackers in clean, air-conditioned rooms, working global network magic from a desk. For the Army, though, that’s not enough. If American troops are to prevail against inventive foes in high-tech, close-quarters fights, the hacker elite have to get their boots muddy with the regular grunts. So now the Army’s sending cyber soldiers to… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: “We needed to learn to speak infantry,” said Col. William Hartman, commander of the Army’s first offensive cyber operations brigade. That’s not easy. When one of Hartman’s teams joined a brigade of the 25th Infantry Division for an exercise this spring, the colonel recounted, the 25th’s commanding general told Hartman that his cyber operators… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: This time last year, top Pentagon officials were very publicly touting the Pentagon’s new Third Offset Strategy. Then offset went into stealth mode as people went behind closed doors to wrestle with what it would actually be. So, I asked Deputy Secretary Bob Work yesterday, what’s up with offset? Work’s response made clear the concept… Keep reading →