So how hard is the federal shutdown hitting the US military? “Walking around the building, I would say we’re probably at about a third of our staff right now,” said one military officer. (About half the Defense Department’s civil servants have been furloughed, but military personnel are still on duty). Of 26 people in her… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The head of the Air Force’s Quadrennial Defense Review office made very clear today that the service will do all it can to protect the F-35 for a pretty compelling reason: “We must be able to project power in contested environments (A2/AD) and the Joint Strike Fighter is that machine.” Kwast told reporters after his public… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Transformation is back! Sort of. The pursuit of transformation, affiliated with the concept known as a Revolution in Military Affairs, became associated with the failed tenure of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and was publicly dropped as a central organizing concept of the military for that reason. The decade-long pursuit of counter-insurgency warfare didn’t… Keep reading →

UPDATED: It’s Official. Hagel Orders Strategy Review Done By May 31. Will Underpin QDR WASHINGTON: A meeting last Wednesday between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his five colleagues from the services and the National Guard, followed by a Thursday meeting between CJCS Gen. Martin Dempsey and the new defense secretary, Chuck Hagel. They… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: Even the name is cumbersome. The congresionally-mandated strategic exercise known as the Quadrennial Defense Review has a reputation, hardly undeserved, for being ponderous, bureaucratic, and irrelevant — to the point that some policymakers want to kill the QDR altogether. But the QDR chief for the smallest of the services, Marine Maj. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie,… Keep reading →

[updated Tuesday 1/29 with Rep. Forbes’ recommendations & McKeon selections for QDR independent panel] WASHINGTON: It’s that time again. Though delayed by the still-unsettled strife over sequestration and the continuing resolution, deep inside the Pentagon the ponderous machinery of the Quadrennial Defense Review is gearing up. But this may be the QDR’s last chance. With… Keep reading →

Our 2013 forecast series continues with a call for new strategic thinking from the first man to serve as Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, Lt. Gen. (ret.) David Deptula. Whatever happens with sequestration, Pentagon planners are now struggling to fit the services’ myriad programs under a reduced budget topline.… Keep reading →

The Air Force gets new #QDR director. Maj. Gen. Steven L. Kwast moves fm director of requirements @ ACC , to QDR director in A-Vice’s office colinclarkaol