Trump campaigned on more money for the Pentagon, but his budget director appears to have won the fight for sweeping, across the board cuts to all federal agencies, including the Pentagon.

As the Pentagon wrestles with how to ready itself for competition with China and Russia, the issue of how to move troops, equipment, and supplies around the globe is becoming increasingly important.

Japan and South Korea are getting new generations of sub-hunting and intelligence-gathering aircraft as China, North Korea, and Russia continue to push more assets into the waters of the Pacific.

As Jon Kyl, the new senator who brings a long track record of spending on missile defense and nukes returns to the Hill, Democrats in the House might have other ideas.

WASHINGTON: A long-time State Department official who oversees critical security assistance programs is heading to the Pentagon, a move that may usher in another big change in the reworking of the acquisition and arms exports programs at the Defense Department. The unexpected announcement was made by Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment,… Keep reading →

A new report on “Strategic Surprise” is slated to help inform the Pentagon’s efforts to reset spending and development to meet peer challenges in the coming years.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday he was open to the possibility of sitting down for talks with his Russian counterparts.
“I am considering meeting with my counterpart, but there’s been no decision,” Mattis told reporters at a small, off-camera talk here.

Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, told a small group of reporters here Friday morning that her office is trying to put rules in place to protect against buying “software that has Russian or Chinese provenance, for instance, and quite often that’s difficult to tell at first glance because of holding companies,” that move the software through the open market.

WASHINGTON The Navy says it is running short of critical submarine-detecting sonobuoys, thanks to stepped-up submarine activity by Russia in the Mediterranean and around Europe. As a result, the service has asked Congress to reprogram $20 million to buy more of the detection devices in an Omnibus funding package the Pentagon sent to Congress earlier… Keep reading →

The relationship between India and the U.S. is one both sides want to nurture, but Russian military sales, the demands both sides are making over production, and and other tough issues remain to be ironed out.