Paris wants to partner with the US, but a top French defense official says an unpredictable White House is forcing Europe to strike out on its own.

Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan took it on the chin from a series of lawmakers Thursday, leaving the Capitol with a direct order to produce border wall details by the end of the day.

Two top congressmen joined Virginia’s Sen. Kaine in rejecting the Pentagon’s proposal to retire the USS Truman two decades early.

PENTAGON: More troops are heading to the US border with Mexico, Pentagon officials said on Friday. That brings the number deployed from the current 5,000 to about 6,000, even as the Pentagon considers transferring close to $4 billion to support the Border Patrol and build infrastructure. About 2,100 of the troops deployed currently are National… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON The massive and troubled $10 billion cloud contract the Pentagon has been pursuing has run into another snag. DoD revealed Tuesday it has obtained “new information” pointing to potential of conflicts of interest in the competition, already widely criticized for favoring Amazon Web Services. Pentagon spokesperson Elissa Smith confirmed to Breaking Defense that “new… Keep reading →

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.

President Trump is breaking with the past. He’s arguing that Washington must cut its losses, withdraw its forces, climb out of the Middle Eastern and Afghan money pits, and acknowledge that Seoul (with U.S. backing) won the war on the Korean Peninsula. Washington hates him for doing these things, but most Americans and future generations of Americans will love him for it.

UPDATED: Trump Announces Government Reopens For 3 Weeks WASHINGTON: The Pentagon won’t be able to release its fiscal year 2020 budget on Feb. 4 as previously planned because it has been caught up in the melee caused down by the 35-day government shutdown. The budget release could be delayed at least one month. The missed… Keep reading →

Just back from a unsuccessful round of discussions with her Russian counterparts in Geneva to discuss the Cold war-era accord, Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson told reporters today she’s not hopeful of saving the INF Treaty before Feb. 2, when time runs out on the 60 days the Trump administration have given Moscow to acknowledge it had violated the treaty.

  PENTAGON The Navy is refitting its decades-old China Lake weapons testing and research site in the Mojave Desert to begin hosting hypersonic weapons testing from a variety of platforms, including undersea launchers. A notice posted on a government contracting Website Tuesday night offered the first concrete evidence that the Pentagon is moving ahead on… Keep reading →