UPDATED with Thornberry response CAPITOL HILL: The $612 billion National Defense Authorization Act for 2016 passed the Senate by a vote of 71 to 25 today. The final version could emerge from a House-Senate conference in “early July,” Senate Armed Services chairman Jon McCain said boldly at a press conference this afternoon. That would be… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Who buys the bandwidth? Today the military has two separate, unequal, and inefficient systems for acquiring communications. But Congress is pushing hard to consolidate — probably at the expense of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). “I have been in situations where we needed to have SATCOM [satellite communications] and we didn’t have… Keep reading →

The geostrategic sky isn’t falling because the US won’t have an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf region for a period this fall. Land-based aircraft will do an excellent job of striking ISIL, analysts say, while smaller ships are better suited to combat Iran in the tight confines of the Gulf. “This is not an example of American… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Between fear of Russia, urgency from the Army, and lobbying from General Dynamics, funding to upgun the Army’s GD-built Stryker armored vehicle has grown 350 percent in three weeks. In mid-May, the House approved a $79.5 million addition to the administration’s budget request. Yesterday, the Senate, not to be outdone, voted $371 million — four… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Frank Kendall, and the head of Air Force acquisition, Bill LaPlante, have just completed a review of the Long Range Strike Bomber program. “We looked at the design to make sure it’s at the level of maturity it’s supposed to be,” Kendall told me in an interview in his… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Roman senator Cato the Elder ended every single one of his senate speeches with the declaration that “Carthage must be destroyed.” Eventually, Carthage was. Rep. Walter B. Jones is just as relentless in his pursuit of increased official recognition of the Marine Corps. If he can just outlast fellow Republican Sen. John McCain in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sen. John McCain wants the four services chiefs to have more power to buy weapons efficiently and cheaply. Frank Kendall and his colleagues who oversee Pentagon acquisition, technology and logistics (ATL) have made it pretty clear they don’t think that’s a good idea. So I asked the chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Senate Armed Services Committee has joined the push to give the Army a much larger role in the Pacific. The hard part, ironically, may be getting the Army to go along. Why should soldiers do more in the Pacific, a theater traditionally dominated by pilots, Marines, and, above all, sailors? The Pacific, obviously, is… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: With new missile threats proliferating worldwide, both the House and Senate versions of the annual defense policy bill push new approaches to missile defense such as laser weapons and “boost phase” defenses that shoot down missiles just after launch. That’s also why one of Washington’s foremost thinktanks has launched a new program on the problem.… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with Congressional reaction] ROSLYN, VA: Ray Mabus likes robots. The Navy Secretary has declared the F-35 will be “the last manned strike fighter” the service ever buys and invested heavily in unmanned aircraft, boats, and submersibles. But Mabus has frustrated drone advocates on one major program: the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft. This morning, Mabus defended… Keep reading →