This is the second in a series of commentaries defense consultant and author Robbin Laird, a member of the Breaking Defense Board of Contributors, is penning about how the U.S. can and should shape its forces to perform the Asia strategy pivot. As a key part of that, he’ll be looking closely at what he… Keep reading →

A year has passed since Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act-the legislation mandating sequestration. Funding cuts that once seemed politically remote now loom large for leaders increasingly anxious about the impact $1.2 trillion in automatic budget reductions will have upon their respective districts and states. An estimated two million… Keep reading →

Anyone who has served in the military knows there is plenty of fat to be cut in the Pentagon budget. But rather than take a “meat ax” to the budget — as Defense Secretary Panetta famously described sequestration — there are more targeted ways to reduce and reform defense spending. Whether it’s procedural inefficiencies, duplicative… Keep reading →

The Euro crisis is not simply a financial dynamic. It is the end of a period of history, the confluence of several trend lines: the unification of Germany, the end of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the expansion of NATO, the expansion of the European Union, and the creation of the… Keep reading →

On July 10, the U.S. Navy released a request for proposals for the first all-new electronic jammer in over 40 years. It’s about time since the existing ALQ-99 jammer carried on electronic-warfare planes is gradually losing the ability to keep up with joint requirements — not to mention threats. When the ALQ-99 debuted in 1971,… Keep reading →

Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard infantry officer who has served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, is a member of Concerned Veterans for America. Is it time for major cuts in U.S. defense spending? According to at least one recent poll, a staggering 76 percent of Americans surveyed believe the answer is “yes.”… Keep reading →

George Hill is president of Advex Corporation, a company based in Hampton, Virginia and a member of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (ACIBC). Unless Congress acts to change the existing law, sequestration will automatically cut $1.2 trillion from the President’s budget over the next decade-including $492 billion from military spending. These cuts threaten one… Keep reading →

Washington, DC is echoing with a chorus of “sequester fear.” It is an election year and the cacophony is deafening: sequester is a budgetary Pearl Harbor, a “doomsday machine” that will shred our national security. The Pentagon says it, members of Congress from both parties say it, and the defense industry is jumping up and… Keep reading →

In mid-June, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta took a seat in front of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee and warned of the dangers of large, across-the-board reductions in national military spending. Panetta called such cuts “a disaster” that would severely compromise American security. The Secretary is right. Even in times of severe fiscal challenges, the government… Keep reading →

It is long past time for Congress to reform the current laws governing the export of commercial satellites – an outmoded and counterproductive system intended to enhance national security while inadvertently undermining America’s domestic space industry, a recent Defense Department report makes clear. Whatever Congress’s good intentions when it passed this law in 1998, the… Keep reading →