Monday, May 12, 2025
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 greatest long-term threat to U.S. national security is not terrorists wielding a nuclear or biological weapon, but the erosion of America's place as a world leader in science and technology, according to the Pentagon's No. 2 official.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England yesterday summoned top Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps officials, as well as senior Pentagon budget experts, to review the status of the Pentagon's largest weapon system development program -- the Joint Strike Fighter -- and plan for a high-level follow-on meeting next month.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has directed a $7 billion increase to the Army's fiscal year 2008 budget, $17.8 billion short of the amount Army leaders say is required to execute its part of the current military strategy, according to Pentagon officials.
Senior Army officials say the service is taking several steps to improve its ability to conduct irregular warfare, fulfilling a central objective of the Quadrennial Defense Review.
A group of senior Pentagon officials who play key roles in deciding which weapon systems the U.S. military develops and buys began an 11-day trip this week to meet with senior commanders around the world, holding discussions designed to ensure the Defense Department is buying the right equipment for tomorrow's force.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker hinted today that he does not expect to receive the full $23 billion increase to his service's fiscal year 2008 budget that is the focus of a highly unusual round of spending negotiations between Pentagon leaders and the White House.
Army weapon system acquisition accounts may be raided to finance a $2 billion shortfall in other critical accounts in 2007, with money needed for soldiers' paychecks, retention bonuses, health care services and other ballooning personnel costs, according to service officials.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has approved a new battle plan to better equip the military for the war of ideas in the fight against terrorists.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has directed the creation of a new Pentagon post to oversee the U.S. military's biometric programs and better coordinate the development and fielding of technologies used to identify both friendly forces and adversaries using fingerprints, DNA samples, palm prints, voice sounds and iris patterns.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England last week took the final step in disbanding the Office of Transformation, directing that elements of the shop -- which championed both new concepts of war and novel approaches for new weapons -- be folded into other parts of the Pentagon.
An influential Pentagon advisory board is reviewing the efficacy of export control policies that industry experts say are debilitating a key part of the U.S. space industrial base -- second- and third-tier suppliers.
An influential Pentagon advisory board is establishing a task force to examine opportunities for equipping the military with a new generation of weapons that use directed energy to hit targets with unprecedented precision.
The Defense Department has notified Congress of plans to sell Iraq aircraft and radar systems worth more than $1 billion to modernize the country's air defenses and provide a new fleet of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance planes to survey its skies and monitor its borders.
A Pentagon task force examining U.S. military efforts to adopt alternative fuels and explore new energy sources has created a collaborative tool to expand cooperation on energy programs and policies across the defense bureaucracy.
The Defense Department may have to divert as much as $27.8 billion away from programs Pentagon leaders deem essential to transforming the military in order to pay for "earmarks" added by lawmakers to the fiscal year 2007 budget, according to a DOD assessment.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service estimates that the total price tag for U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as counterterrorism activities around the world, will significantly exceed the half-trillion-dollar mark over the next fiscal year.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has tapped Navy Rear Adm. Paul Stanley for a third star and a key Pentagon post -- the Joint Staff director of force structure, resources and assessment (J-8).
The Defense Department has conducted the first-ever autonomous midair refueling operation, a development that analysts say could unlock the potential of unmanned aircraft to conduct persistent missions lasting as long as 100 hours.
The Defense Department has launched a sweeping review of its logistics operations that could change the composition and location of massive stocks of combat gear and equipment stored on ships and in warehouses around the world.
U.S. fighter aircraft and military bomb and dog teams are deployed to the New York City area to support security of world leaders meeting at the United Nations, according to a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command.