After five months on the job, the Pentagon’s Acting SecDef is ousted for a new Acting SecDef — keeping the Trump administration’s carousel wheel spinning.
By Paul McLearyWhat’s new in naval radars and missiles: Defending the Pacific
Defending U.S. naval forces in the Pacific, Red Sea, and elsewhere require a range of systems from close-in weapons to anti-ballistic missiles.
A junior GOP congressman will challenge the Democratic House leadership to restore $96 million in funding for intermediate-ranged conventional missiles, cut by the Democratic majority for fear the new weapons would reignite an arms race that ended in 1987.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Despite Democratic chairman Adam Smith’s best efforts, the defense budget is likely to creep back up to the full $750 billion the administration asked for.
By Paul McLeary
The full GAO decision undermines one of ATEC’s arguments to overturn the award to rival GE, technical superiority, but it reinforces another: risk.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Democratic chairman Adam Smith wants to focus on the “cyber fight with Russia and China… that’s really going to happen.”
By Theresa Hitchens
The top HASC Republican outlines some of the amendments he plans to add to the HASC 2020 defense policy bill, previewing coming debates with the Senate.
By Paul McLeary
HASC calls on Pentagon for “near- and long-term plans and options to ensure resilience” of the nuclear command, control and communications network, including requirements for survivability and protection of the supply chain.
By Theresa Hitchens
Gray Eagle is the low-cost, low-risk answer to Army modernization
Gray Eagle STOL and Gray Eagle 25M are the best options for Army aviation as it assesses where to move from its current inflection point.
“I don’t trust the Air Force, on its own, given its existing structure to properly prioritize space,” Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith says.
By Theresa Hitchens
House Democrats release a 2020 defense policy bill that requires the Pentagon to write plenty of reports, but eases away from the HASC Chairman’s earlier remarks on nuclear modernization.
By Paul McLeary
The HASC wants an independent cost estimate on the F-35 and some detail — any detail — on the plan to replace AWACS. It’s also a little curious about robot tanks.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy says the service’s new five-year budget plan will be finished within weeks.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
One of Washington’s leading budget experts explains how bipartisan supporters of Pentagon funding will steamroll the Budget Control Act.
By Mark Cancian
The senators’ draft of the annual defense bill puts a new emphasis on technological competition, including industrial policy moves to strengthen US companies.
By Theresa Hitchens
House Appropriators add millions of dollars to the National Institute of Standards & Technology’s work on AI, cybersecurity, quantum computing, 3D printing, and 5G telecommunications.
By Theresa Hitchens
