“Palau is indispensable to our national security and funding the compact is key to our strategic presence in the region.” That’s what the Defense Department’s 2018 budget request says — but the House Armed Services Committee disagrees, defunding a $123.9 million payment that gains us access to the islands. Why is Palau indispensable? Look at…
By Colin ClarkHow to ensure readiness of next-generation defense technology: Solving the issue of massive heat.
High-performance systems generate tremendous amounts of heat that can compromise missions and make high-tech systems less effective in tactical environments. But there is a solution to this modern-age challenge.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has shaken this staid capital city by making policy pronouncements over Twitter. Far from the social media spotlight, however, Trump’s National Security Council, led by warrior-intellectual H.R. McMaster, is coordinating a comprehensive series of policy reviews that are deliberative, collegial and strategic, NSC staffer Christopher Ford said today. The new North…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
ARMY WAR COLLEGE: If you want to know what the Army Chief of Staff is thinking, don’t just ask around the Pentagon. Drive a couple hours north through rural Pennsylvania — passing the Gettysburg battlefield on the way — to the Army War College here in quiet Carlisle. An institution whose influence has waxed and…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The deployment of improved US missile defenses to Korea, THAAD, comes at a time of growing disorder across the region. There is one constant in this equation but three major unknowns. The constant is the THAAD system itself, whose capabilities — almost six times the maximum range of current Patriot missile defenses and roughly five…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The United States — preoccupied with the wars of the Middle East and a pivot to Asia — has largely left the global playing field to Russian President Putin and must now lead NATO by forging a new consensus on the Russian threat and investing in new weapons. The correlation of forces in the European theater has arguably…
By Eric Edelman and Whitney McNamara
WASHINGTON: In 2016, the Defense Department flew aircraft or steamed ships through territories claimed by Albania, Brazil, Italy, Japan, Malta, and, well, China, according to the Pentagon’s annual report released today. So should Beijing be relieved it was not the sole focus of American Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) or should it feel slighted that it…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Millennium Space Systems is delivering on critical missile tracking constellation
With programs like MTC, Millennium Space Systems is redefining what it means to be an operational prime – rapidly delivering operational small sat constellations on rapid timelines.
A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives is urging Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to budget $1.5 billion a year to reinforce US forces in the Pacific to better support Asian allies, stiffening their spines against Chinese intimidation. Known as the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative and endorsed by the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, it’s a proposal…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CLARIFIED: What MG Harris Really Meant CAPITOL HILL: The Air Force’s first operational squadron of F-35s will head to the Pacific, in addition to the European deployment recently departed Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James discussed in December. The news came in the form of one sentence today in the written testimony today of Maj. Gen. Jerry Harris, deputy…
By Colin Clark
America’s Asian allies have been unnerved by President Donald Trump’s dismissive rhetoric about alliances based on cost/benefit grounds, and his decision to dump the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. That’s part of the reason Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traveled in Asia to calm nerves in Tokyo and Seoul. America’s European allies are also deeply unsettled by Trump’s…
By Michael Krepon
Why is newly confirmed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis making his first overseas trip to the Western Pacific to confer with two of America’s key allies, Japan and South Korea? After all, both Mattis and Gen. Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have declared Russia poses the greatest danger to the United States. But…
By Andrew Krepinevich
WASHINGTON: With one eye on China and another on North Korea, US Army Pacific is injecting cyber warfare and new joint tactics into every wargame it can. At least 30 forthcoming exercises — culminating in the massive RIMPAC 2018 — will train troops on aspects of Multi-Domain Battle, the land Army’s effort to extend its reach…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CORRECTED: Bilden is least experienced, not 2nd to last WASHINGTON: Trump’s pick for Navy Secretary, Philip Bilden, has less relevant experience than any of his predecessors since 1980, Breaking Defense has found. To be precise, every Navy Secretary for 36 years has had significant prior experience in either government or the defense industry or both: Bilden…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership just two days ago, but this morning, multiple experts and one four-star general agreed that America’s Pacific alliances — except perhaps the Philippines — would survive and even thrive. A few hours later, aptly enough, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary James Mattis, the new administration’s most outspoken…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is paying his first visit to Asia this week. Just before he left, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton told reporters the Trump Administration “will have its own formulation” of the Pacific pivot, or the rebalance to Asia declared by the Obama Administration. “Pivot, rebalance, etcetera — that was a word that was…
By Maj. Paul Smith