THE WATERGATE: United we stand, Great Britain’s ambassador to the US insisted today. Despite all the strains on the Atlantic alliance — post-Snowden backlash against American spying, rising anti-EU sentiment in Britain, German dependence on Russian energy — the US, the UK, and their continental European allies stand together against what he called Russian “hybrid…
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.
WASHINGTON: High-ranking officials and blue-ribbon commissions have spent decades trying to reform how the Defense Department develops new technologies, buys them, sustains them, and controls their export abroad. Almost everyone has failed. Why? Ben Fitzgerald says they’re thinking too small. “Hey guys, this is actually a strategic issue. It’s not just an acquisition issue or…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Missile defense is notoriously technically challenging, but sometimes the biggest problem isn’t tech, but trust. Even the most advanced systems can’t stop Iranian or North Korean missiles if America’s allies can’t cooperate to integrate those systems into a regional defense, because ballistic missiles can move too fast and far for a single country to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Bill Greenwalt worked for almost a decade as the professional aide in charge of arms export policies at the Senate Armed Services Committee. Under the Bush administration he took the lead on industrial base issues as deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial policy. Now Bill has moved to a gig where he can speak a bit…
By Bill Greenwalt
WASHINGTON: You just met me, and this is crazy, but my address is Ashton.Carter@sd.mil, so email me maybe. That, in essence, was Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter‘s response this morning when asked how US defense firms could get Pentagon help exporting weapons and related products to the notoriously opaque and bureaucratic Indian government, which…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The U.S. aerospace industry got an early Christmas present this week, when House and Senate conferees approved defense authorization legislation that gives the President discretion to determine export jurisdiction for satellites. The legislation next will be voted on by the full Congress, and signed by the President. That process will conclude a necessary-but-not-sufficient, long-awaited first…
By Joan Johnson-Freese
What’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.
[Updated Friday 12/21] CAPITOL HILL: It looks like the country’s getting a defense bill for Christmas, with provisions on everything from boosting cybersecurity to sanctioning Iran to loosening export controls on satellites. In what passes for high efficiency in Congress these days, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees completed their conference on the National…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.GILLIAM COUNTY, OREGON: This isolated test site in rural Oregon is where Boeing subsidiary Insitu takes its drones “to torture them,” said site manager Jerry McWithey. Temperates soar to 110 degrees in summer and plummet to 10 degrees — with 50-knot winds — in winter. The hot-and-cold ordeal the drones go through is a microcosm…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The ambitious arms export reforms proposed and largely prepared by the Obama administration may founder if the White House changes hands. The State, Commerce and Defense departments have completed “for all intents and purposes” the drafts of the major reforms after a week of all-day meetings. The administration has built a new…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: US foreign military sales are growing so fast the Pentagon can’t keep its PowerPoint slides updated — and they may well grow still more if a Defense Department policy easing exports of unmanned aircraft to 66 countries gets interagency and Congressional approval. When Defense Security Cooperation Agency staff put together a briefing for DSCA…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.It is long past time for Congress to reform the current laws governing the export of commercial satellites – an outmoded and counterproductive system intended to enhance national security while inadvertently undermining America’s domestic space industry, a recent Defense Department report makes clear. Whatever Congress’s good intentions when it passed this law in 1998, the…
By Marion BlakeyCAPITOL HILL: After a two-year delay, the Pentagon and State department finally released a report on how they would change satellite exports, which have been crippled by legislation and strict State Department controls, and recommended that Congress generally cede control of satellite exports to the White House. As numerous studies have documented over the last…
By Colin Clark
Marion C. Blakey, a member of the Breaking Defense Board of Contributors, is president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association. The U.S. aerospace and defense industry will be out in full force at this year’s Farnborough International Air Show (July 14-20), demonstrating the aircraft and equipment that is helping our nation and our allies…
By Marion Blakey