Mattis & Dunford On The Long, Uncertain Road To Space Force

Mattis & Dunford On The Long, Uncertain Road To Space Force
Mattis & Dunford On The Long, Uncertain Road To Space Force

There’s no timeline, no cost estimate, and no certainty Trump’s proposed Space Force will even happen. Even the interim step of creating a Space Command is being dialed down, a significant policy shift.

White House Industrial Base Study Focuses On Near-Term Fixes

White House Industrial Base Study Focuses On Near-Term Fixes
White House Industrial Base Study Focuses On Near-Term Fixes

These single points of failure already limit military modernization and potentially could disrupt operations in a crisis. That’s especially true if production needed to ramp up urgently for a major war, a subject the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, has publicly angsted about.

Trump Orders New Space Service; Will Congress Agree?

Trump Orders New Space Service; Will Congress Agree?
Trump Orders New Space Service; Will Congress Agree?

We’ve already got soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and Coasties. If President Trump gets what he wants, we may now have spacemen — but the Senate may say no.

Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine

Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine
Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine

  China and Russia are outmaneuvering the US, using aggressive actions that fall short of war, a group of generals and admirals have concluded. To counter them, the US needs new ways to use its military without shooting, concludes a newly released report on the Quantico conclave. The US military will need new legal authorities…

Mattis, Dunford Defend Strategy: Afghan Force Smaller But Better

Mattis, Dunford Defend Strategy: Afghan Force Smaller But Better
Mattis, Dunford Defend Strategy: Afghan Force Smaller But Better

WASHINGTON: Yes, Afghan forces are shrinking even as violence grows, but that smaller force is better trained, better advised, and better at taking the offensive against the Taliban, the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs told the Senate. The ongoing increase in US and other NATO advisors is crucial to this turnaround,…

Marine Corps Braces For 2020 Budget Cuts: Gen. Neller

Marine Corps Braces For 2020 Budget Cuts: Gen. Neller
Marine Corps Braces For 2020 Budget Cuts: Gen. Neller

The Marines are plenty happy about getting more money in 2018 and 2019, but are nervously eyeing the potential return of sequestration in 2020. And it’s influencing how the Corps is spending that money today.

National Defense Strategy Drives 2019 Budget: DepSecDef Shanahan

National Defense Strategy Drives 2019 Budget: DepSecDef Shanahan
National Defense Strategy Drives 2019 Budget: DepSecDef Shanahan

SAN DIEGO: The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy has shaped the 2019 budget request due out this month, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said here. The strategy, he said, will lead swiftly to major reforms in everything from cybersecurity to how the military deploys forces around the world, “Tomorrow morning about nine o’clock eastern standard…

What Really Mattered In 2017 (Our Top 10 List)

What Really Mattered In 2017 (Our Top 10 List)
What Really Mattered In 2017 (Our Top 10 List)

This is a list of the most important stories and opinion pieces we ran at Breaking Defense in 2017. It’s a bit like our coverage: freewheeling, often unexpected and, hopefully, poking at the spots where policymakers in the US, NATO, Australia, Japan, South Korea and our other treaty allies and partners need to look. We…

SecNav Spencer Seeks Goldwater-Nichols Changes After Deadly Collisions

SecNav Spencer Seeks Goldwater-Nichols Changes After Deadly Collisions
SecNav Spencer Seeks Goldwater-Nichols Changes After Deadly Collisions

PENTAGON: Navy Secretary Richard Spencer wants to change the law that’s governed the armed forces since 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, to restore more autonomy to the services. Only by letting the Navy say “no” to joint combatant commanders’ insatiable demands for deployments can the fleet get adequate training, ship maintenance, and crew rest, argues the…

Industrial Base Too ‘Brittle’ For Big War: Dunford

Industrial Base Too ‘Brittle’ For Big War: Dunford
Industrial Base Too ‘Brittle’ For Big War: Dunford

CAPITOL HILL: Is the arsenal of democracy out of business? Probably not, but America’s “increasingly brittle industrial base” may not be able to sustain our forces in a protracted war, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Dunford, warned the Senate in a written statement this morning. It’s a problem a lot of people…

Dunford Says White House Nixes Refueling For New Air Force One

Dunford Says White House Nixes Refueling For New Air Force One
Dunford Says White House Nixes Refueling For New Air Force One

WASHINGTON: Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the White House had decided not to include aerial refueling as a capability for the next Air Force One fleet. Why? To save money. President Donald Trump has apparently made the decision, reflected by this decision and the…

No Safe Place In Next War: The Army’s Expanded Battlefield

No Safe Place In Next War: The Army’s Expanded Battlefield
No Safe Place In Next War: The Army’s Expanded Battlefield

What if the next war starts, not with a gunshot, but with a tweet? As tensions rise, US troops discover their families’ names, faces, and home addresses have been posted on social media as they prepare to deploy, along with exhortations to kill the fascists/imperialists/infidels (pick one). Trolls call them late at night with death…

Nuclear Weapons ‘Socializing’ North Korea? Time To Pressure Russia

Nuclear Weapons ‘Socializing’ North Korea? Time To Pressure Russia
Nuclear Weapons ‘Socializing’ North Korea? Time To Pressure Russia

WASHINGTON: As the Japanese reacted vigorously today to North Korea’s firing of a missile over the northern island of Hokkaido, the head of the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College argued in an article that the possession of nuclear weapons is actually helping to restrain Kim Jong-un’ s actions. In his article, James Forsyth, dean…

Countering Terrorists & Great Powers On The Cheap: Dunford’s 2-Front War

Countering Terrorists & Great Powers On The Cheap: Dunford’s 2-Front War
Countering Terrorists & Great Powers On The Cheap: Dunford’s 2-Front War

WASHINGTON: The American military faces a two-front war it can’t afford to fight on current budgets, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today. On the one hand, the US must keep the pressure on not only the Islamic State but its inevitable successors in a “long term” — even “generational” — conflict, Gen. Joseph…