WASHINGTON: The seas are shrinking. As missiles grow longer-ranged and more precise, as sensors grow ever sharper, there are ever fewer places for a ship to hide. “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” goes an old naval adage, because a land base can carry more ammunition and armor than anything that floats. Admirals…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Enterprise-wide training: the Army’s $3.5B program for multi-service combat readiness
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
WASHINGTON: One of America’s most respected strategists is calling for a comprehensive review of the military’s roles and missions to prepare the way for revision of the basic law undergirding the modern force, Goldwater-Nichols. The combination of an excellent quartet of lawmakers leading the armed services committees; the markedly complex and global set of threats…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: After two decades of procurement disasters, the Army is finally overhauling how it buys new weapons. The service is starting with a difficult test indeed: the new light armored vehicle to provide mobile protected firepower to the 82nd Airborne and other light infantry forces — a role unfilled since the temperamental M551 Sheridan retired in…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: Where do ground forces fit in the Pentagon’s new offset strategy? The answer may be an intriguing mix of old-fashioned armored forces, mobile missile launchers, and lasers on trucks. While Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s remarks formally launching “offset” were frustratingly vague, we’ve heard plenty from other officials and outside thinkers about how the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
This is James Kitfield’s first piece for Breaking Defense since his departure from his award-winning tenure at National Journal. As one of the best defense reporters around, Kitfield’s specialty has always been spotting the big strategic trend first and writing clearly, simply and persuasively about it. Following is a classic example of his work, which…
By James KitfieldWASHINGTON: Transformation is back! Sort of. The pursuit of transformation, affiliated with the concept known as a Revolution in Military Affairs, became associated with the failed tenure of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and was publicly dropped as a central organizing concept of the military for that reason. The decade-long pursuit of counter-insurgency warfare didn’t…
By Colin Clark
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
A new approach to speed, scale and efficiency for the industrial base
Radars, EW, EO/IR, space imagery, and microelectronics are brought under one roof for a streamlined approach to common people and factories.
WASHINGTON: “We in the United States are a bit arrogant in thinking [that] we own the technology high ground,” the civilian told the assembled generals. “Technology doesn’t necessarily belong to us and where it goes is not necessarily in our hands.” For six decades, the United States could count on being the planet’s preeminent economic…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.UPDATED: Krepinevich Says Marines Boast Lots Of Good Senior Leaders The Marine Corps, which always prides itself on being the leanest of the U.S. armed services and having the lowest officer-to-enlisted ratio, now has five four-star generals, the nation’s highest military rank. That is quite a load of brass for a service that never had…
By Otto Kreisher[updated with quote from Army source] WASHINGTON: The battle over the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle isn’t only about one war machine and what it may weigh (80-plus tons) or cost ($13 some million). It’s just one front in a larger war over the Army’s armored heart and its role in the nation’s strategy. As budgets…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Nixon, Ford, and Carter aren’t anyone’s three favorite presidents. But defense policymakers today could learn something from how they handled the hard times of the 1970s: They shifted costly security burdens to foreign partners while pulling US forces out, and they cut defense budgets generally while protecting long-term investments in “seed corn” technologies that…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: How much will it really cost to shut down the Army’s ill-fated Future Combat Systems program? Up to $1.5 billion, potentially three times the “special termination cost” reported by Inside Defense on Friday. Three years after then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates cancelled the sprawling FCS program — the Army’s ambitious attempt to build a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Since 911, the U.S. military has invested huge amounts of money in protecting troops, buying add-on armor kits for everything from the humble Humvee to the massive M1 tank. But the spread of smart weapons to Third World forces, both rogue states and guerrillas, may be outpacing the Pentagon’s ability to counter them, warns a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
