UPDATED: Includes Link To NDAA Language Filed Late Tuesday; SASC Weapons Summary  CAPITOL HILL: If you want to get some idea just how hard it will be to reduce the yearly increases in pay and benefits that have marked the last 13 years, look at the new defense policy bill out today. The senior leadership of the… Keep reading →

“There’re a lot of chiselers out there,” Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek sighed. Congressional angst over counterfeit parts has understandably focused on ersatz electronics, many of them from much-mistrusted China, but as head of the Defense Logistics Agency, Harnitchek has found fakes in everything from air filters to rubber tubing. “There’re folks that counterfeit those, believe it or… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: This is a story of ifs. If the GOP wins the Senate. If the GOP wins they still have to woo six Democrats to get important legislation passed. If the Obama administration decides to play hardball after the election. It’s a lot of ifs. But as of now, the New York Times electoral… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The allied air strikes against ISIL that brought together the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Jordan “are a watershed moment” in the fight to solve terrorism, “the major security issue of our time,” one of the most rational defense lawmakers in Congress said today. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the strikes offered… Keep reading →

THE CAPITOL: “We do emphasize readiness,” Sen. Carl Levin told me. “I for one would rather have a smaller force that is ready than a bigger force that is less ready.” With those words — his parting shot as I hounded him through the Capitol’s marble halls after his official press conference yesterday on the… Keep reading →

COLORADO SPRINGS: SpaceX does not look likely to get what it most wants from Capitol Hill in its battle against the United Launch Alliance and the Air Force: more launches sooner. Support for competition between the two companies remains vibrant, with Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jim Clapper, director… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Sen. Carl Levin made very clear to his colleagues just what is at stake in the inevitable  shout-fest over benefits and compensation. It is the $31 billion saved in the proposed budget in reductions to the rate of pay growth, boosted Tricare payments, and consolidations in the healthcare program, the 5 percent reduction… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: On the day that China’s president took personal charge of his country’s new cyber body, pledging to make the People’s Republic of China a “cyber power,” the outgoing head of America’s Cyber Command laid out a clear red line that, if crossed, could lead to war. “If it destroys government or other networks,… Keep reading →

Bill Greenwalt played a major role in crafting the defense policy bill — the National Defense Authorization Act — each year for almost a decade, helping to squire the bill through the personalities and politics of the ever-fractious Senate. Now the muzzle is off — he’s a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute —… Keep reading →

Less than three weeks from today, a four-star-studded convoy of Obama administration appointees will head west to the modern GOP’s most hallowed ground, the Ronald Reagan Library – and burial site – in Simi Valley, Calif. The one-day conference is a rare attempt to build a national consensus on defense both between the parties and,… Keep reading →