WASHINGTON: The annual defense bill authorizes $411 million to upgun the Army’s Stryker vehicles. The compromise goes with the Senate’s higher funding levels: $314 million for modification work and $97 million for R&D. That’s a heady increase from the $0.00 the president’s budget included for the initiative, which emerged mid-year as a response to Russian aggression… Keep reading →

RESTON, VA: US command and control networks take too long to link to allies and respond to Russia’s rapid-fire aggression. In Ukraine, “we’ve had at least two, maybe three of these cycles [already, where] they’ll back off, and there’ll be a long kind of quiet period, and then they’ll spike back up,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges… Keep reading →

AFA CONFERENCE: “The alarming thing,” said the commander of US Air Forces in Europe, is that the Russians are catching up. “They’ve closed the gap.” “The advantage that we had from the air I can honestly say is shrinking,” Gen. Frank Gorenc said, “not only with respect to the aircraft that they’re producing, but the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Alice in Wonderland‘s White Queen could believe in “six impossible things before breakfast.” The Army may not be that nimble but its leaked budget plan for 2017-2021 (first reported by Inside Defense) does make a whole string of assumptions: Budget Control Act cuts won’t happen, despite the lack of encouraging signs of a sequestration deal.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The first F-35A built in Italy for the Italian Air Force took off yesterday for what the Lockheed Martin test pilot said was highly successful first flight. “It was identical to every other airplane we produce at Fort Worth,” pilot Bill Gigliotti told reporters today in what he clearly intended as a compliment to… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The US Army is deploying extra stocks of heavy weapons to Europe to deter Russia’s increasingly naked aggression. These are the most advanced ground weapons America can field — but the tanks and other heavy fighting vehicles in this buildup are the same ones we had the last time the Russians were a danger, back when… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Russia is No. 1 threat, Milley tells Senate; give “defensive” arms to Ukraine CAPITOL HILL: The world has changed, and not for the better. That’s the message Gen. Mark Milley brings to the Senate this morning. The current Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Raymond Odierno, has often said the Army cannot execute the national… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: At a recent wargame in Germany, slow communications between the US and an allied unit meant we would have killed our own allies. We saw “what happens when we don’t get it right”  the Army Vice-Chief of Staff said last week. When an allied unit called for artillery support, Gen. Daniel Allyn said that “by the time that… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: What would World War III look like? Ask a Ukrainian. In their war against Russia, Ukrainian troops have endured artillery bombardments like nothing Americans have seen since World War II. Russian electronic attacks against radio communications are like nothing the US has seen — ever. So even as Washington debates further training — and perhaps arming — the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Is the US Navy really so short of warships that Marines must catch a ride on foreign vessels, like heavily armed hitchhikers? The answer is, well, sort of. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire — the Marines definitely could use more amphibious warfare ships — but on this story, politicians, lobbyists, and some of… Keep reading →