AUSA WINTER, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: Fear is in the air. “The commercial base will disappear,” Boeing executive James Moran believes. It’s not just sequestration, the retired brigadier general said this morning at the Association of the US Army’s winter conference. There is real anxiety among defense contractors that as budgets tighten, the Army will starve private…
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.
ARLINGTON: A candid Vice-Chairman of the Joint Staff delivered some tough messages to the Army yesterday and got in a few swipes at Congress and “the political leadership” in general. Adm. James “Sandy” Winnefeld’s raised the most hackles among the serving and retired officers gathered at the headquarters of the powerful Association of the US Army…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED: NGA RESPONDS WASHINGTON: It’s not a lot of money in the Pentagon’s scheme of things, but the Defense Department’s Inspector General has found that the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) wasted millions because it did not close a rented building and made improvements to a building when it was supposed to leave the facility.…
By Colin Clark
Technicians work on a Pratt & Whitney 2000 engine, used by both commercial and military aircraft. WASHINGTON: Close bases. It’s often good for the local economy. Yes, sequester’s a disaster and the federal government is gridlocked. But as a country, “we’re still kicking ass in a lot of areas,” Brookings Institution expert Michael O’Hanlon told…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
[updated with final results] CAPITOL HILL: Bipartisan majorities in the House Armed Services Committee have steamrollered proposals to slow down the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and to permit the Pentagon to plan for base closures, but reformers at least made a respectable run at the windmill during markup of fiscal year 2014 National Defense Authorization…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.In a town full of hot air, speeches are a dime a dozen. But money still talks. So let’s compare the new Secretary of Defense’s policy agenda to his first proposed budget. While Leon Panetta, his predecessor, mostly built this budget, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel owns it now and has already spent a considerable amount…
By Mackenzie Eaglen
Modernizing our supply chain is a national security imperative
Closing supply chain gaps in innovating technology will reposition the industrial base to be a strategic source of value.
WASHINGTON: Congress seems increasingly resigned to sequestration cuts and base closures, ideas which once met fierce rejection on Capitol Hill. That’s the counterintuitive takeaway from Chuck Hagel’s first hearing as Defense Secretary on the 2014 budget request, one largely overtaken by events. The weary notes that legislators struck on the budget probably had something to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Michael Donley, Air Force Secretary, wrote this second of four op-eds on the future of the Air Force exclusively for Breaking Defense. Today’s piece grapples with just how small the Air Force’s force structure can get while the service can still accomplish its missions.We will run an op-ed early each morning through Friday. The Editor.…
By Michael DonleyThe odds against base closures got a little longer today as a key Senate subcommitee raked Pentagon officials with skeptical questions about the Administration’s request for two more Base Reduction And Closure rounds in 2013 and 2015. Chaired by Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, who has publicly vowed to kill any new BRAC proposal, the Senate…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.There’s a lot going on in the U.S. Air Force, but for the Senators at this morning’s Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the USAF budget, just one mattered: How budget cuts would impact their home states. While such parochialism is as shocking as gambling in Casablanca, it raises a red flag for the full-scale Base Realignment…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.CAPITOL HILL: The Obama administration’s defense budget raises the risks to American security to an “unacceptable” level, if you believe Sen. Joseph Lieberman and a number of Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. If you believe Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the risks are…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: The Army may be in the cross-hairs of the budget cutters, but it’s had a surprisingly good week. While the number of soldiers will drop to 490,000 as long expected, the service is getting a lot of what it wanted to cushion that fall – starting with time. “As important as the 490[,000] number…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Sen. Susan Collins blasted the “highly politicized” nature of Congress, questioning whether lawmakers can resolve any of the major problems facing it, including the threat of sequestration. Collins, one of the few surviving Republican moderates on the Hill, noted the positive results for the Navy in the fiscal 2012 defense appropriations during her speech…
By Otto Kreisher
America’s Two Promises To Troops: A ‘Stark Choice’ Between Weapons And Benefits
America likes the idea that we have made a solemn promise to generously compensate our military service members. After all, the argument goes, how can we ever fully repay them for risking their lives for us? Providing benefits like low-cost premium health care, comfortable pensions, housing allowances, grocery discounts, tuition assistance, tax breaks and much…
By Mackenzie Eaglen