Friday, May 10, 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.
U.S. intelligence analysts -- in a new unclassified assessment prepared over the last year to support a new presidential administration -- predict the "risk of conflict, including inter-state conflict, will increase" during the next two decades and argue a few trends are likely to change the character of conflict over the next 20 years, predictions that carry implications for the U.S. military.
The Missile Defense Agency said it demonstrated a significant expansion of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System during a Feb. 4 flight test over the Pacific Ocean, pairing the first shipboard use of the latest Lockheed Martin-built Aegis Combat System with Raytheon's new guided-missile interceptor, the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA, to shoot down a land-launched ballistic missile target.
The Navy -- eyeing a potential budget increase in fiscal year 2017 -- is moving to roll back cuts to the P-8A maritime patrol aircraft program imposed during a spending squeeze three years ago by proposing funding to restore six aircraft to the program of record, according to a service document.
The Air Force has delayed until August plans to begin initial operational testing of the latest phase of a $1.5 billion project to give the F-22A Raptor a ground-attack capability, shifting the evaluation milestone for an F-22 Increment 3.2B modernization program previously slated to commence during the third quarter of fiscal year 2017 to the summer, according to a service spokesman.
The United States and Japan plan as soon as Feb. 4 to conduct the first-ever intercept attempt of a ballistic missile target with a jointly developed guided missile nearly a decade in the making -- the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA -- in a flight test over the Pacific Ocean, according to sources familiar with the plan.
The Defense Department is soliciting industry for ideas on how to improve Israeli missile defense capabilities, announcing plans for missile defense architecture studies and integration as part of a program to ensure the Middle Eastern state is prepared to deal with ballistic missile threats.
The Defense Science Board, in a new report on the U.S. military's research and development enterprise, calls on government laboratories to assert a more active role in helping define new weapon systems and -- more broadly -- shepherding the Defense Department through global technology shifts by working to anticipate combat application of new scientific and technological advances.
The Pentagon should immediately take the lead in formulating a new government-wide strategic framework to deal with "gray zone" challenges -- where adversaries advance objectives but stay below thresholds that trigger armed conflict -- and embrace a new conflict paradigm that utilizes open-source information, cooperation with allies and a whole-of-government approach.
The Air Force has codified the acquisition plan for the B-2 Defensive Management System Modernization program -- a $2.7 billion project led by Northrop Grumman to resolve obsolescence issues with the stealth bomber fleet -- providing Congress a report outlining schedule and cost targets established last year after commencing engineering and manufacturing development.
The Missile Defense Agency wants to establish Alaska as the new home for testing elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System -- the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot systems -- currently evaluated at military ranges in Hawaii. (UPDATED)
The Army has granted full materiel release to the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System Alternative Warhead, signifying the service has completed testing and evaluation and determined the long-range, precision-fire weapon item is completely safe, operationally suitable and logistically supportable for use by troops.
Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) proposed blueprint to hike U.S. military spending boosts the Navy's budget by $94 billion between fiscal years 2018 and 2022 compared to the Defense Department's current forecast, including $58 billion to increase the size of the Navy and Marine Corps and buy new ships and weapons.
Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) proposed blueprint to hike U.S. military spending would boost the Army's budget by $100 billion between fiscal years 2018 and 2022 compared to the Defense Department's current forecast, including $67 billion to increase the size of the service and buy additional weapon systems. (UPDATED)
Sen. John McCain's proposed Pentagon blueprint to hike the U.S. military budget would boost Air Force modernization spending by $55 billion between fiscal years 2018 and 2022 compared to the Defense Department's current forecast, including $11 billion for accelerated Joint Strike Fighter procurement and an additional $7.6 billion for a new penetrating counter-air capability.
J. Michael Gilmore, in what is likely one of his last acts as the Pentagon's top weapons tester, trained his formidable analytic prowess not on a faulty weapon system but on what he calls the "fatally flawed" findings of a high-level Defense Department advisory board whose report on the military's test and evaluation business are "unsuitable for decision making."
In today's digest: the F-35, Trump and jobs; senior Pentagon posts during the transition; and more from DOD's top weapons tester's report.
The operational testing schedule for the Air Force's KC-46A is “aggressive and unlikely to be executed as planned,” the Pentagon's top weapons tester asserts in a new report that reveals select findings of an extensive operational assessment that concluded in 2016.
The Air Force is moving forward with a fourth round of upgrades to Boeing's Massive Ordnance Penetrator -- a 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb designed to hit targets such as deeply buried clandestine nuclear-weapons development sites -- after a variant of the GBU-57 with a third round of classified upgrades passed muster with the Pentagon's top weapons tester.
The Defense Science Board in a new report has recommended the Navy expand its competitive advantage under the sea by adopting a fleet of low-cost, commercially developed undersea systems to experiment with a handful of new missions that could both create new capabilities and significantly challenge potential adversaries.
Mounting difficulties in developing the Joint Strike Fighter program threaten to delay the start of initial operational testing for the stealthy combat jet well beyond the newly established 2018 target, potentially forcing the Pentagon to wait until early 2020 to commence the all-important evaluation of Lockheed Martin's F-35, according to the U.S. military's top weapons tester.