Thursday, December 4, 2025
Key Issues Stryker downsizing CAML Cape Cod GBR
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than three 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.
Transnational criminal organizations operating across Latin America and the Caribbean amassed a "staggering" $358 billion in revenue last year -- six times the combined defense budgets of all nations in the region including Mexico -- posing a growing strategic challenge to the United States, according to a senior official.
The Pentagon is renaming its next-generation domestic air defense modernization initiative -- a project that is poised to potentially double missile defense spending -- only four weeks after the White House launched the project, a major brand stumble right out of the gate for the Trump administration's marquee project.
The U.S. military is increasingly concerned that the Caribbean could become an "offensive island chain" for China as Beijing expands its footprint in the region in a way that could increase combat access and potential force projection, jeopardizing the United States' strategic positioning in its own hemisphere.
The Pentagon is ramping up efforts to counter the growing threat of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) with an expanded demonstration of cutting-edge drone defense technologies scheduled for August 2025.
The likelihood of direct military conflict between the U.S. and its top adversaries is growing, fueled by deepening strategic cooperation between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, according to the head of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command.
The Army successfully completed a key production qualification test for its next-generation, long-range strike missile, marking an important advance in the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 1 effort, the first part of a planned $8.4 billion acquisition.
U.S. military space sensors could be stitched together within a year to create a "single-sensing grid" to improve domestic airspace domain awareness in support of a next-generation missile defense system, the top U.S. military official responsible for protecting North America told lawmakers today.
The Space Development Agency is calling on industry to help shape the blueprint of a proposed national missile defense system as outlined in the recent "Iron Dome for America" executive order, announcing plans to issue 60-day studies to flesh out potential new dimensions of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).
A retired senior official took aim at the $19.5 billion missile defense investment proposal advanced by Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), warning the bill risks creating an ineffective missile defense system without first establishing a coherent operational framework.
The Army's next-generation air and missile defense radar successfully demonstrated its ability to counter cruise missile threats using a legacy interceptor during a flight test last week at White Sands Missile Range, NM, marking an important step forward in the program's development and march toward a production review.
The former head of the Missile Defense Agency who two decades ago oversaw the launch of the current system that provides limited national missile defense against North Korean and Iranian threats says the United States must embrace a space-based missile defense system to keep pace with evolving threats from Russia and China.
The Pentagon's top weapons tester is raising alarms over gaps in critical modeling and simulation (M&S) tools needed to assess the effectiveness of new missile defense systems -- including the Next Generation Interceptor and Glide Phase Interceptor -- against evolving threats.
Republican lawmakers are proposing a $19.5 billion down payment in fiscal year 2026 on a new domestic air defense capability that would mark a massive expansion of national missile defense capabilities, including a sweeping new array of radars, increased guided interceptor inventory and explore new capabilities such as autonomous agents to intercept missiles.
The Defense Department has awarded Lockheed Martin a potential $2.8 billion, 10-year-long contract to continue adding advanced capabilities to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, including development of the next iteration of improvements -- THAAD System Build 6.0 -- slated for completion in 2027 as well as yet-to-be-defined follow-on enhancements.
The Defense Department has formally advanced the acquisition plan for the next life extension of the Trident II D5 missile, awarding Lockheed Martin a $383 million contract for design and development of a modernized variant of the submarine-launched, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile that aims to extend operational service of the sea leg of the nuclear triad through 2084.
The Pentagon is accelerating plans for a next-generation missile defense system designed to counter "any foreign aerial attack" on the United States.
Navy leadership has tasked the service to accept recommendations of an influential advisory panel to rapidly accelerate adoption of uncrewed systems as part of the fiscal year 2027 planning cycle, including providing $100 million to support "commercial tech scouting and delivery to the fleet."
The long-standing Pentagon practice of generating massive spending wish lists that target projects for funding above and beyond the formal Defense Department budget proposal proffered by the president should be targeted for elimination by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency -- to harvest about $30 billion annually, according to a senator.
President Trump has declared the need for a new national defense system to control domestic airspace and defend the U.S. against missile and drone attack -- a move that carries seismic budget, policy and organizational implications to say nothing of technical feasibility questions and the politically fraught matter of exactly what to protect and leave undefended.
Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby pushed back against skepticism about the relevance of aircraft carriers in future warfare, emphasizing the need for pragmatic evaluation over sweeping changes.