Thursday, April 25, 2024
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than two decades -- including stints with Defense News and Armed Forces Journal -- he has covered the Pentagon, defense industry, the military budget, weapon system acquisition and defense policy formulation as well as reporting on technology, business, and global arms trade. Jason has traveled to more than 40 countries, studied medieval history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and lives in Brooklyn.
Congress this week will take up legislation to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including the establishment of an anti-proliferation czar in the White House, a commission to recommend options for improving defenses against weapons of mass destruction and the reinforcement of existing Pentagon nonproliferation programs.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker is stepping down and Gen. George Casey, head of military forces in Iraq, is the Bush administration's pick to lead the service, the Pentagon announced today.
A senior State Department official with a key role in shaping military policy and operations is stepping down.
The Defense Department is awaiting a massive budget boost from the White House that will pay for a substantial increase in the total size of the U.S. military, swelling the ranks of its ground forces and outfitting them with new equipment, according to Pentagon officials.
The Defense Department last month formally established the new office of assistant secretary for global security affairs, a position that is central to the sweeping reorganization of the Office of the Secretary of Defense's policy shop that was kicked off last fall.
Top military officials are scheduled to convene tomorrow to review a new concept for irregular warfare designed to guide improvements to the military's ability to fight unconventional campaigns.
In a bid to retain the longstanding tradition of a unified, bipartisan staff, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has pledged to provide Republicans significantly more billets for professional staff than were allotted to Democrats while they were the minority party for the last 12 years.
The White House must spearhead an effort to "substantially increase" the permanent size of U.S. ground forces, according to a new report that calls for the immediate deployment of seven Army brigades and Marine regiments to Baghdad to tamp down the rising violence as part of a last-ditch effort to avoid defeat in Iraq.
The Air Force is in the early stages of establishing a new office that will focus on identifying and utilizing "disruptive technologies," which the service hopes will improve its capabilities through the use of new inventions as well as the employment of existing capabilities in innovative ways.
Pentagon leaders are poised to approve the requirements for the Air Force's new aerial refueling tanker, a set of performance guidelines that will have a huge effect on the high-stakes competition to build 179 aircraft in a deal expected to be worth tens of billions of dollars.
Senior U.S. and U.K. defense officials today signed an agreement to move forward on the Joint Strike Fighter program, resolving a longstanding dispute over the transfer of sensitive technologies that threatened to disrupt armaments cooperation efforts between the two allies.
Senior U.S. and U.K. defense officials will gather early Tuesday morning in a meeting that could determine whether Britain will continue its involvement in the Joint Strike Fighter program or bolt from the project, possibly triggering a rift in transatlantic armaments cooperation between the two allies.
The Air Force, citing unspecified "administrative reasons," this morning announced that an update to the draft request for proposals for a new aerial refueling tanker will delayed until "late next week," according to a service spokesman.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave the U.S. military a decidedly mediocre grade for its execution to date of one of his marquee objectives -- transforming fighting forces and the defense bureaucracy.
The Pentagon's highest-level requirements body is pushing the Air Force to pay attention to the need -- articulated this spring by combatant commanders -- for its future aerial refueling tankers to carry cargo and passengers, as well as gas.
NEW YORK -- Kenneth Krieg, the Pentagon's acquisition executive, told Wall Street analysts here that he welcomes further consolidation of the defense industry so long as the proposed deals encourage innovation, deliver products at lower cost, and bring new capabilities to the military faster.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is set to issue -- as soon as tomorrow -- the results of a yearlong review of the U.S. military that began with strong bipartisan support but is now not expected to carry the name of a single Democrat.
The Army should consider developing a self-contained nuclear power plant that could deploy with forces to provide energy for its garrisons and allow the service to significantly scale back its logistics operations -- including its reliance on foreign oil -- required to sustain troops around the world.
The Pentagon may tap the principal architect of CIA efforts to drive the Soviet army from Afghanistan in the 1980s to oversee the Defense Department's special operations policy and conventional military transformation efforts, according to defense officials.
The Air Force has nearly doubled its supplemental spending request for fiscal year 2007 by identifying $16 billion in new requirements the service says are linked to counterterrorism missions beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an Air Force spokeswoman.