WASHINGTON: The future of Special Operations Forces may look less like Zero Dark Thirty and more like Lawrence of Arabia or Rudyard Kipling’s Kim – with just a dash of 007. It’s a future that builds on the last ten years of raids and advisor missions, then adds solo operators in foreign lands, proxy wars… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: What homemade roadside bombs could do to Army and Marine ground vehicles was the ugly surprise of the last decade. What sophisticated long-range missiles could do to Navy aircraft carriers could be the ugly surprise of the next. “I think it would almost follow like the night to the day,” Rep. Randy Forbes told… Keep reading →

America’s Army has developed a bit of a split personality of late. On the one hand, the top brass has very publicly embraced the administration’s January 2012 strategic guidance that emphasizes “innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches” and “building partner capacity” in lieu of large ground force deployments. Leaders from Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As House Speaker John Boehner went to the White House for fruitless talks on sequestration, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon convened reporters to tell both the President and his own party leadership, “we are done cutting our defense.” But the very fact that McKeon had to send this message via the media… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: With the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration set to start taking effect March 1st, we’re going to see a lot of interesting last-minute plays to stop them. It’s almost certain none of them will work. But Rep. Randy Forbes’s bill introduced this morning, H.R. 773, at least offers the virtue of simplicity: At… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Tomorrow morning, overshadowed by sequestration, the House Armed Services Committee will hold a rare full-committee hearing on a topic that would normally be high-profile, even explosive: whether to give the Defense Department, and especially its elite special operators, broader legal authority to work with foreign forces worldwide, from Colombia to Mali to the Philippines.… Keep reading →

[UPDATED and CORRECTED Jan. 31 at 3:45 pm Shipbuilders’ Council Says Job Loss Numbers Are Estimates And Not Official Council Numbers] WASHINGTON: For anyone who believed those who have claimed that defense cuts don’t affect “real” jobs or the economy, today appears to be a sobering day. At Tuesday’s general meeting of the Shipbuilders’ Council… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: While the House has voted to extend the debt limit to May, the automatic federal spending cuts called sequestration still loom $90 billion large, half that bill for the Pentagon alone. Yet, as fourth quarter earnings calls begin, the defense industry and its stock values remain remarkably resilient. What gives? Or rather, what isn’t… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: A year ago, the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration looked like the nightmare scenario. Today, amidst deepening gridlock and the threat of the first federal default in US history, they’re starting to look like the lesser evil. “The debt ceiling is clearly the priority,” said the city’s leading independent budget analyst, Todd Harrison… Keep reading →

[UPDATED 3:30 pm on 1/8/2013 with revised CSBA estimates] WASHINGTON: The battle of the fiscal cliff is over, but the war to stop sequestration rages on – and President Obama’s decision that his new Secretary of Defense should be former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Republican other Republicans love to hate, makes it even harder to… Keep reading →