CAPITOL HILL: The four service cyber commands want to move personnel and resources from routine network operations — the classic IT jobs — to online attack and defense executed with a “warrior” mentality, their senior officers told Congress yesterday afternoon. Increasingly “these men and women view themselves as warriors,” Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, chief of… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Air Force Secretary Michael Donley warned Congress today that if it blocks cuts to the Air National Guard this year, it will just be “doubling down” on cuts required in 2014 — maybe not to the Guard, but somewhere in the Air Force — even if sequestration is averted. If sequestration does take… Keep reading →

Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard infantry officer who has served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, is a member of Concerned Veterans for America. Is it time for major cuts in U.S. defense spending? According to at least one recent poll, a staggering 76 percent of Americans surveyed believe the answer is “yes.”… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The chairman of the board of the Aerospace Industries Association, Pratt & Whitney President David Hess, expressed guarded optimism today that industry is getting through to Congress about the danger of sequestration. “We’ve been very active — Marion [Blakey, AIA’s CEO], and the AIA staff, and the member companies of AIA — [conveying]… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens and his fellow defense industry executives struggled to stay on their “sequestration kills jobs” message while they dodged repeated questions from Democrats about whether revenue increases were needed to avert the sequester. An exasperated Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, concluded the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON [updated 4:30 pm]: At an Aerospace Industries Association event to roll out a new report estimating that sequestration would cost the country more than two million jobs in 2013 — one million from Defense cuts, as previously reported, plus another million from cuts to non-defense agencies — Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Sen.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: If Republicans don’t agree to a “balanced” deal that raises revenues, Democrats are willing to let sequestration strike on Jan. 2nd — and the Bush tax cuts expire on Dec. 31st — Sen. Patty Murray said this afternoon in a major escalation of Congress’s ongoing game of chicken. “If we can’t get … a… Keep reading →

George Hill is president of Advex Corporation, a company based in Hampton, Virginia and a member of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (ACIBC). Unless Congress acts to change the existing law, sequestration will automatically cut $1.2 trillion from the President’s budget over the next decade-including $492 billion from military spending. These cuts threaten one… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As jetlagged aerospace executives and defense reporters head home from a frankly discouraging Farnborough Air Show, Washington is gearing up for storm of stop-sequestration events this coming week. What it will actually accomplish is an open question. Sequestration has hardly been a quiet topic this past week, with a pointed, partisan, and unproductive exchange… Keep reading →

Washington, DC is echoing with a chorus of “sequester fear.” It is an election year and the cacophony is deafening: sequester is a budgetary Pearl Harbor, a “doomsday machine” that will shred our national security. The Pentagon says it, members of Congress from both parties say it, and the defense industry is jumping up and… Keep reading →