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 Pentagon is poised to spend $100 million on programs it has framed working with the State Department to enhance the counterterrorism capabilities of foreign militaries in 14 nations across Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to a senior Defense Department official.
U.S. and British defense officials have inked a new agreement on the transfer of sensitive technologies for the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, removing an irritant in the close relationship between the two allies that has rankled both sides for months.
Personnel bills continue to squeeze Army modernization accounts, prompting the Defense Department to seek congressional permission to raid ammunition, tactical vehicles and armor programs to cover paychecks in the final months of the fiscal year.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is asking Congress to roll back changes to the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill made by lawmakers earlier this year, including provisions that would restrict the Pentagon's ability to retire aging weapon systems, reduce missile defense spending, and limit options to purchase equipment from foreign suppliers.
The Defense Department yesterday submitted to Congress a request to shift funds between procurement accounts in order to increase by a single aircraft the number of F-22 fighters it buys this fiscal year to 23, according to Pentagon officials.
The Defense Department is seeking congressional permission to expand its fledgling anti-satellite capability by shifting funds this summer to rapidly acquire a pair of Counter Communications Systems, designed to disrupt enemy communications without permanently damaging the satellite relaying an adversary's telephone calls or data exchange.
The Defense Department has told Congress that Saudi Arabia is interested in purchasing a sweeping package of weapons -- including helicopters, armored vehicles, communications gear and small arms -- in a set of deals that could be worth more than $6 billion.
The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday cut the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 budget request by $9.1 billion to $453.5 billion.
The Defense Department is enlisting commercial air cargo carriers to deliver military goods into Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a new effort to save money, reduce the demand for C-130s flown by reservists and, in some cases, deliver supplies more quickly.
The U.S. military has at its disposal a powerful and underutilized weapon that must be effectively employed to prevail in the global war against Islamic extremists -- a lexicon stripped of terms that lend legitimacy to religious claims of groups that espouse, and carry out, violence.
The Defense Department is weighing changes to the crown jewel of its higher-education system by recasting the National Defense University as a National Security University, a shift that could alter the curriculum and diversify the student body in an effort to better prepare graduates to deal with new and complex threats facing the nation.
The Defense Department should increase its investment in non-lethal weapons by more than 60 percent, to more than $1 billion over six years, in order to field new capabilities increasingly required by U.S. troops conducting stability operations, counter-insurgency missions and homeland defense assignments, according to a new Defense Department investment plan.
The Defense Department wants to equip select National Guard units with new non-lethal weapons to ensure troops under the command of state governors responsible for large population centers, as well as areas along the border with Mexico, finance hubs and territories at risk of damage from massive hurricanes, are equipped with capabilities beyond traditional firearms.
The Defense Department is seeking permission from Congress to shift $4.4 billion between dozens of accounts in order to prevent paychecks from bouncing during the final months of the fiscal year and to launch a few new-start weapons programs, including an effort to prevent B-2 bombers from crashing.
The Bush administration has proposed a long-awaited set of significant enhancements to Pakistan's air force in a potential $5.1 billion deal that includes three dozen new F-16 fighter aircraft, new weapons and upgrades to the South Asian country's existing fighter fleet.
The Defense Department is seeking $8.6 billion to buy new weapon systems needed to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan during the first part of fiscal year 2007, a sum well above what lawmakers so far have authorized and appropriated.
The Defense Department is preparing to seek permission from lawmakers to shift hundreds of millions of dollars from low-priority projects to higher-need programs that reflect unforeseen military requirements in the final months of fiscal year 2006, according to Pentagon officials.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has set forth a collection of priorities intended to guide the Pentagon for the remainder of the Bush administration's second term, a list that calls for "significantly improving military intelligence capabilities" and meeting the challenge of roadside bombs, a scourge of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Defense Department is preparing to present Congress its formal proposal for how to spend $50 billion in supplemental funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Senate this afternoon passed an amendment to the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill permitting the Air Force to enter into a multiyear procurement contract to purchase F-22A fighter aircraft, opening the door for prime contractor Lockheed Martin and the Air Force to possibly extend production beyond the current planned buy of 183 aircraft.