Senior Pentagon and service officials observed the last day of the ground-breaking ABMS exercise and the Air Force engaged Northern Command to create and manage the scenario.
By Theresa HitchensPENTAGON: The Air Force has eked out a victory in the Pentagon’s latest proposal for a Space Force. While many in the Air Force would prefer to keep their current preeminent role in space operations and not create a new service at all, the current plan — to be submitted by year’s end for inclusion…
By Paul McLearyTrump certainly fell in and out of love fast with the last outspoken warrior-intellectual he hired, short-lived National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Roman senator Cato the Elder ended every single one of his senate speeches with the declaration that “Carthage must be destroyed.” Eventually, Carthage was. Rep. Walter B. Jones is just as relentless in his pursuit of increased official recognition of the Marine Corps. If he can just outlast fellow Republican Sen. John McCain in…
By Richard WhittleTYSON’S CORNER: Dear Senator McCain, we need to talk — sincerely, Frank Kendall. The Pentagon’s top buyer made clear today that he doesn’t know nearly enough about McCain’s ambitious acquisition reform plan, and some of what he does know makes him nervous. In particular, Undersecretary Kendall said, he doesn’t want the four service chiefs — the Army…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.CAPITOL HILL: Sen. Carl Levin made very clear to his colleagues just what is at stake in the inevitable shout-fest over benefits and compensation. It is the $31 billion saved in the proposed budget in reductions to the rate of pay growth, boosted Tricare payments, and consolidations in the healthcare program, the 5 percent reduction…
By Colin ClarkCAPITOL HILL: Even the cameras stopped clicking in a hushed Armed Services hearing room today as Rep. Jim Cooper told the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his colleagues on the biggest committee in Congress today that America’s lawmakers had failed the country. “You gentlemen make life and death decisions in the Tank almost every day,”…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: The military is in for another eight years of tight budgets, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos predicted today. The good news is that the relationship between the four Joint Chiefs who craft their budgets and their chairman is “better than it ever has been.” In his public remarks, the commandant hammered home the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Washington: The Pentagon faces a lot of threats, but according to the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the national deficit isn’t the biggest one. White House nominee Gen. Martin Dempsey told members of Senate Armed Services Committee today that the growing fiscal hole in the nation’s economy was not the biggest national security threat…
By Carlo MunozWashington: With Gen. Martin Dempsey the Pentagon may have gotten just who it wanted for its new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but he may not be the man who is really needed right now. The four-star general is set to go before the Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow morning to make his case to…
By Carlo Munoz