Friday, May 16, 2025
Key Issues Army UAS focus Project Convergence FTUAS cancellation
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.
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.
Peter Flory, the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, is stepping down in the next few weeks, vacating another key Pentagon policy post, according to Defense Department officials.
A computer attack against the Naval War College last week prompted military cyber-defense officials to disconnect the entire New England campus from the Internet, disrupting e-mail communications and access to academic databases for nearly 1,000 students, faculty and staff at the Newport, RI, school.
Prodded in part by recent high oil prices, the Pentagon is poised to launch a pilot program requiring three new weapon system programs -- including the Air Force's new bomber -- to consider energy efficiency, a step that could set the stage for economic fuel consumption to play an increasingly central role in the design of future combat systems.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has determined the Navy shortchanged its next-generation destroyer program in its fiscal year 2008 budget submission and is instructing the sea service to redirect $385 million from other parts of its spending plan to fully fund the DDG-1000 warship account, according to a Pentagon document.
Senate proponents of a key Air Force and Marine Corps aircraft program are pressing Pentagon leaders to extend procurement plans for the C-130J and KC-130J aircraft beyond 2008.
The Marine Corps wants to reverse course on a Joint Strike Fighter funding cut it proposed over the summer, according to a senior Marine.
U.S. and Dutch defense officials have inked an agreement covering the production, sustainment and follow-on development of the Joint Strike Fighter, a pact Pentagon officials hope to replicate with additional international partners in the coming weeks.