America’s defense industry is deep in economic pessimism but the rest of the world isn’t defined by sequestration and the Afghan drawdown, and that will be very clear at next week’s Paris Air Show. This year’s show will probably be defined by commercial aviation, especially the twin aisle jet market. Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner will return… Keep reading →

America likes the idea that we have made a solemn promise to generously compensate our military service members. After all, the argument goes, how can we ever fully repay them for risking their lives for us? Providing  benefits like low-cost premium health care, comfortable pensions, housing allowances, grocery discounts, tuition assistance, tax breaks and much… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Defense Department will create at least five defense budgets this year as a result of the Strategic Choices and Management Review, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today, and some of those alternative plans “could entail significant risk.” Carter appeared to engage in something we have begun seeing from a range of senior uniformed… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Instead of trying to cram a $500 billion force into a $450 billion budget and hoping Congress passes sequester relief, the Defense Department needs to go back to the drawing board. That’s the consensus of two top defense experts from either side of the government-industry gap — former Obama and Clinton appointee Michele Flournoy… Keep reading →

Deloitte LLP’s 2013 “Global Defense Outlook,” released today, is basically all bad news. Even the silver linings turned to lead when we talked them over this morning with the chief of the defense practice at the giant consulting firm, retired Air Force Gen. Charles Wald. As US defense spending staggers, there are some other places… Keep reading →

The House of Representatives will vote on the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act later this week. Sequestration will be the giant hiding behind the door as the House Armed Services Committee has marked its bill to the Obama budget request, which means that the effects of sequestration are ignored by the bill (as they are… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Defense Department is the largest single consumer of energy in the United States. It consumes 1 percent of America’s massive demand, burning billions of gallons of fuel a year. Indeed, as Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in a recent speech, DoD is “the largest single consumer of fossil fuels on the face of the earth.” … Keep reading →

  WASHINGTON: Some of Chuck Hagel’s best friends in the defense world offered him a compelling report on how to save almost as much as the $500 billion that the Budget Control Act will force him and his successors to cut over the next decade. The wonderful title of the report, “The Seven Deadly Sins… Keep reading →

[updated with Democratic comment] CAPITOL HILL: Lobbyists and journalists focus on the big numbers in the defense budget when they look at the annual National Defense Authorization Act. But in the political theater that is the House Armed Services Committee’s markup of the NDAA, sometimes it’s the small dramas that are most telling. So it… Keep reading →

By Trey Obering and Rebeccah Heinrichs Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced in March that the administration would deploy more Ground-based Interceptors or “GBIs” to better defend American cities from North Korean ballistic missiles. He also said it would begin studying sites on the East Coast in the event the administration decided to build a third… Keep reading →