When you add up the defense budget shortfalls for the next few years, it quickly becomes clear Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR) looks to become just what he did not want: actions he will have to implement instead of a menu of options. Pentagon leaders must now consider most if… Keep reading →

[Updated 4:30 pm] WASHINGTON: The US Navy has decided to scrap the fire-ravaged USS Miami, whose repair bill from arson had soared to $700 million from $450 million. It’s the first time the Navy has written off a damaged sub since the USS Bonefish burned in 1988, and it brings the attack submarine force down to 54… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Just when the Navy’s surface fleet had started pulling itself out of a 10-year, $2 billion hole, budget dysfunction may kick it right back in. We’ve written a great deal about the damage done to all four armed services by the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. But what is happening to the… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Syria and sequestration dominated today’s Senate Appropriations Committee’s mark-up of the $594 billion defense spending bill for fiscal year 2014, but there was little actual progress on either. Appropriators are historically the most hard-nosed legislators; they’re the committees that have to match congressional rhetoric with actual money. But today, the appropriators approved a… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: In a grim presentation before the press corps, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel outlined deep cuts to the Army, Air Force and Navy he may have to make to cope with the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. Reaction was swift on Capitol HIll and the think tanks that inform so much of what senior… Keep reading →

One of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate blamed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for Washington’s inability to fix the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. “They assume sequester is the new normal,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, chair of the almost all-powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, sitting in on a meeting of SAC’s defense subcommittee… Keep reading →

By voting to raise troops’ pay at almost twice the rate the Pentagon has requested, the House of Representatives risks suffocating other defense priorities, from combat training to much-needed weapons programs like the Army’s flagship Ground Combat Vehicle, Chief of the Staff of the Army Gen. Ray Odierno said today. “We made a recommendation this… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Navy has 10 fewer ships worldwide compared to just a few months ago. It has no warships at all off South America to help combat the drug trade. And training cutbacks will force many units to specialize in a sub-set of their assigned missions instead of getting ready for the full range of… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The House Armed Services Committee has scheduled its first hearing on what is arguably the Pentagon’s most important shift since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the strategic shift of US forces and focus to the Pacific. So far the witness list for the Wednesday morning hearing doesn’t boast a list of… Keep reading →

Today, the US Air Force announced that squadrons grounded since April, from combat units to the famous Thunderbirds, had the funding to fly again – for now. Congress had given the service permission to move some $423 million from other programs into the training budget, enough to keep planes flying until October 1st, when the… Keep reading →