Last week, almost unnoticed amidst the coverage of Typhoon Haiyan, House Armed Services Committee leaders met quietly with the ambassadors of six Pacific nations — including the Philippines — an unprecedented gathering of top diplomats on Capitol Hill. HASC Seapower subcommittee chairman and occasional BreakingDefense contributor Randy Forbes (R-Va.) made clear in an interview that… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The recent death of Bill Young, longtime power on the House Appropriations Committee, opened the door to a new chairman of the defense subcommittee. Today New Jersey’s Rep.  Rodney Frelinghuysen stepped through that door. Frelinghuysen has served on the defense subcommittee since 1999. He was its vice-chairman. The most likely winner from the veteran… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: “That’s a real softball question, so I’ll try to knock it out of the park,” the witness told the senator. There’s a scripted quality to many legislative hearings, but it’s rare to hear the actors break character and admit they’re in a play. The exchange above actually happened, between Rockford, Ill. mayor Larry… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: We’ve had nearly two years of hearings about how hard the automatic budget cuts called sequestration would hit the Department of Defense. Yesterday, we saw something new. For the first time, the uniformed chiefs of all four services publicly told Congress that they have big problems with their civilian bosses’ plan to cope… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a broad exercise of the senatorial privilege of temporarily stopping a nomination, known as a “hold,” Sen. Lindsey Graham announced this morning that he will not allow any Obama administration nominations to proceed.until he is told the names of those he calls the “Benghazi survivors.” RT @GrahamBlog: Where are the #Benghazi survivors? I’m… Keep reading →

UPDATE: Odierno Clarifies. It May Be Three Brigades WASHINGTON: The Army has had to cancel so much training that only two of its 42 combat brigades are ready for combat, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told reporters at the Association of the US Army conference here today. It’ll take until June to get a… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: With half a million soldiers on active duty, you’d think the Army would be hard to overlook. When the House Armed Services Committee organized a hearing on the hot interservice concept known as “Air-Sea Battle,” though, they kind of forgot to invite the Army. But the largest service elbowed its way onto the… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: President Obama’s nominee to be Navy Undersecretary, Jo Ann Rooney, faced a stormy reception this morning, getting a bipartisan hammering by Senators John McCain and Kirsten Gillibrand. In her formal written responses to SASC’s pre-hearing questions, Rooney had demurred on whether the Navy Department could meet the statutory deadline of September 2014 to… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Senate Clears Stopgap Death Benefits Bill By Unanimous Consent at 12:48 PM Oct. 10. WASHINGTON: Every member of Congress should hang his or her head in shame this afternoon. The Fisher House Foundation has stepped into the breach of the federal government shutdown and agreed to pay the families of Americans who die fighting… Keep reading →

So how hard is the federal shutdown hitting the US military? “Walking around the building, I would say we’re probably at about a third of our staff right now,” said one military officer. (About half the Defense Department’s civil servants have been furloughed, but military personnel are still on duty). Of 26 people in her… Keep reading →