Two years have passed since Le Bourget hosted the last Euronaval show, two years during which the maritime world has become increasingly multipolar. For example, just in the submarine business, more than 40 countries are nowadays involved. In the meantime, Russia added 28 new ships to its fleet in 2018 alone, while China, with a… Keep reading →

The 12-hull, $128 billion Columbia class program is the Navy’s cornerstone project not only for a new class of submarines, but also for the United States’ nuclear triad, which relies on a mix of air, land, and sea-launched nuclear missiles.

A British defense official talked up the good news about British defense spending in DC this week — including on many US-built weapons — but some dark clouds hang over the ambitious plan.

WASHINGTON: President Trump has just issued orders to cut the defense budget, and hasn’t tweeted for a while about his campaign pledge to build a bigger Navy, but the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to get a 355-ship fleet back on the agenda. Jim Inhofe — who’s likely to retain the SASC chairmanship… Keep reading →

“One of the things that we did early in my tenure was we changed (it to) Polar Security Cutter as we were trying to get the funds from the Congress, from our own department, the administration,” Coast Guard Commandant Karl Schultz told Breaking Defense.

Trump’s plan would undercut the more expansive National Defense Strategy for “great power competition” that embattled Defense Secretary Jim Mattis rolled out just nine months ago.

Trump campaigned on more money for the Pentagon, but his budget director appears to have won the fight for sweeping, across the board cuts to all federal agencies, including the Pentagon.

The shipyard building the Coast Guard’s biggest program, the $10 billion Offshore Patrol Cutter program, has been leveled by Hurricane Michael.

France and Australia must resolve major differences over the Aussies’ new submarine program before a new Australian government is elected next year, and the most obvious alternative is Japan.

Congress and China have emerged as the primary culprits for the weakening the US defense industrial base. Those are the most striking findings of a new White House report that takes a deep-dive into the state of defense manufacturing in the United States, sounding alarm bells over the decline in capability and the rise of China’s industrial might.