The US could develop more than a dozen different land-based weapons for $7 to $12 billion, thinktank CSBA estimates.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The resignation of Trump’s assistant secretary for arms control and verification weakens the State Department’s already shaky bench in arms control talks.
By Theresa HitchensLet a hundred hypersonic flowers bloom, Pentagon officials say, instead of a single cumbersome mega-program.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The Pentagon has quietly asked defense contractors for ways to spot enemy missile launchers — so the US can destroy them before they even fire.
By Paul McLearyFrance’s commitment to a cutting-edge sixth-generation fighter — working in tandem with drones and long-range sensors — is a sign of its commitment to deterring Putin’s Russia.
By Colin ClarkThe Pentagon has almost completed a study of how to shoot down hypersonic missiles. It’s also developing new offensive weapons — conventional, not nuclear — whose deployment will become legal with the end of the INF Treaty.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity,” a statement from the White House said. Moscow has refused to admit that it has for years been “covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad.”
By Paul McLearyThere are times and places in the history of war in which improvements in firepower force anyone in range to take cover instead of advancing, as machineguns and howitzers did a century ago on the infamous Western Front. The fundamental difference today is the width of the killing zone would be measured, not in hundreds or thousands of yards, but in hundreds or thousands of miles.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.After five years of talks and a wall of Russian denials, NATO and Washington call Putin’s bluff and say they’re ready to do something about Russian violations of a 31 year-old arms control treaty. But Europe is worried.
By Paul McLearyREAGAN DEFENSE FORUM: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accused Russia of trying to influence the 2018 midterm elections and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being “duplicitous” in violating international treaties. The secretary’s statements come one day after President Trump chatted on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina with Putin, this after Trump cancelled…
By Paul McLeary“Long-range precision fires… would provide us the capability (to) either, for example, support the Air Force by suppressing enemy air defenses at hundreds upon hundreds of miles or support the Navy by engaging enemy surface ships at great distances as well,” said Army Secretary Mark Esper. But those examples are two distinctly different missions, each most relevant to a different theater of war.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The defense budget may be caught between doves on the left and budget hawks on the right, but so far Army Secretary Mark Esper isn’t ceding any ground.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.INF proponents emphasize the risk of nuclear weapons. But, despite its name, the treaty bans a wide range of conventional weapons as well — and it’s non-nuclear, precision-guided missiles that have changed how war is actually waged.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
In the coming clash between President Trump’s $750 billion defense budget and House Democrats’ desire to cut Pentagon spending, especially on nuclear weapons, there will be tremendous fiscal pressure to shortchange the almost $30 billion annual cost to modernize America’s strategic deterrent. The ideological cover for such penny-wise, pound-foolish cuts is the so-called Global Zero…
By Peter Huessy