WASHINGTON: The Navy needs a vastly larger fleet — 414 warships — to win a great-power war, well above today’s 274 ships or even the Navy’s unfunded plan for 355, the think-tank MITRE calculates in a congressionally-chartered study. That ideal fleet would include: 14 aircraft carriers instead of today’s 11; 160 cruisers and destroyers instead… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: The Army needs new weapons to fight for the air, the airwaves and cyberspace against a high-end adversary such as Russia or China, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said today. While the Army’s near-term readiness to “fight tonight” remains Milley’s top priority, there’s enough progress on readiness — and enough potential for a budget… Keep reading →

President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on December 22 to say “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” He later called MSNBC TV host Mika Brzezinski and reportedly said, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: More than any other service, the Army’s future is uncertain under Trump. On the upside, the President-Elect has promised to boost the Army‘s budget and grow its ranks by almost 15 percent. On the downside, Trump seems deeply skeptical of what has become the service’s driving mission: deterring Russian aggression in Europe. [We rolled… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: No thank you, Donald Trump. While the President-Elect wants to boost Marine Corps combat units by 50 percent — with 12 new battalions of infantry and one of tanks — the Commandant of the Marine Corps respectfully suggested that there are other additions the Marines need more. Don’t think good old-fashioned grunts: Think warrior… Keep reading →

UPDATED with Brig. Gen. Turner remarks on the report WASHINGTON: Marines are famously aggressive, but a new battle plan from a leading thinktank makes Iwo Jima look low-risk. The Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments’ proposed concept of operations is imaginative, exciting and more than a little scary: In a future war, rather than stay far… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: The US Army isn’t counting on airpower in the next war. Without that cover, there won’t be supply drops, recon drones or medevac helicopters picking up your casualties — and you will have casualties. “Land-based forces now are going to have to penetrate denied areas to facilitate air and naval forces. This is the exact… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: Harry Harris has to be the Army’s favorite admiral. The chief of Pacific Command has called for Army-owned anti-ship missiles. He has enthused over the Army’s new warfare concept, and now he is planning a major inter-service exercise to work out what that Multi-Domain Battle concept means in practice. “We are starting to put… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Can the Pentagon afford its Third Offset Strategy? From anti-ship missiles to artificial intelligence, the military is experimenting with a host of high-tech systems  to counter increasingly sophisticated Russian and Chinese forces. That effort is essential, said the Defense Department’s procurement chief, but there’s one problem: If we want to go beyond experiments and… Keep reading →

UPDATED with William Roper comments WASHINGTON: The Army’s long-range artillery rocket, ATACMS, will get upgraded to strike moving targets on land and at sea, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced today. After at least two years of pressure from Congress and vague promises from Pentagon leaders, and for the first time since the Coastal Artillery Corps was… Keep reading →