UPDATED: Adds House Letter To White House CAPITOL HILL: Defense officials acknowledged today that the US has not directly challenged the sovereignty of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea for at least three years. US aircraft have not flown over the artificial islets. Nor have US ships sailed within 12 nautical miles of one… Keep reading →

AFA CONFERENCE: One of the rules that goes with a Continuing Resolution is that no new weapon programs can be started — unless Congress comes up with money and provides a waiver. And it looks as if Congress is likely to adopt a CR at the end of the month unless we all get very lucky.… Keep reading →

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: Yesterday, Sen. John McCain erupted over a proposed Pentagon regulation that would, the senator said, hamstring efforts to buy commercial items without excessive bureaucracy. This morning, the Pentagon’s procurement chief, Frank Kendall, replied to the Senate Armed Services chairman’s concerns. Kendall’s answer in a nutshell: It’s just a draft rule which we’re… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The day before Defense Secretary Ash Carter heads to St. Louis to promote outreach to the high tech communities, Sen. John Mccain blasted a proposed new DoD rule that “would have the unfortunate effect of undermining many of the key objectives” of Carter’s efforts to entice Silicon Valley to do much more business with the Pentagon.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a letter obtained by Breaking Defense, senators John McCain and Jack Reed slam a key component of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship as unreliable and urge the Pentagon to explore alternatives to the Remote Mine-Hunting System. In their Aug. 31 letter to the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, Frank Kendall, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and outgoing Chief… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a sign that this town is slowly coming back to life after a laconic August, the Senate Armed Services Committee has written Defense Secretary Ash Carter about mistakes made about the price of the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) in two reports to Congress and raised questions about the latest delays to Boeing’s problem-plagued KC-46… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ash Carter — for now — is resisting congressional calls to uninvite China from the biggest naval exercise in the world, known as RIMPAC. In a July 16 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, Carter goes to some lengths to avoid offending China, on the one hand, and, on the… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: American ingenuity can absolutely build a rocket engine to replace the Russian-made RD-180, the Pentagon’s top buyer said today. The wide-open questions are: how soon can they do it; and how much will the Pentagon have to pay. “The big problem isn’t the technology, it’s the time,” Frank Kendall told reporters at the… Keep reading →

When Defense Secretary Bob Gates put the F-35B on “probation” and Sen. John McCain became his powerful echo chamber, we responded on the pages of Breaking Defense that these actions were misguided. We had spent many hours with the pilots, maintainers, builders, designers, and testers of the aircraft, and came to a very different conclusion: “The F-35B… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Adm. John Richardson sailed through his Senate confirmation hearing this morning. But two ominous issues breached the surface, hinting at growing conflict between the administration and Hill Republicans over how to handle China. Richardson, an experienced submariner nominated for Chief of Naval Operations, deftly dodged the difficult questions from Senate Armed Services Committee: Does US-China… Keep reading →