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The Army Has It Worst 2.0: Readiness Shortchanged $13.7 Billion
PENTAGON: “Army Has Biggest Problem.” That’s it. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale’s official briefing slides for today’s big budget roll-out couldn’t be blunter. Hale has made this point before, but in...
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Navy Budget Share Grows, Boosted By Pacific Strategy Shift
PENTAGON: The Navy would get the largest budget share among the three military services in the 2014 budget submitted Wednesday, but would still see a drop in total funding from what Congress provided...
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BRAC Is Back & Sequester’s Here To Stay: Understanding Hagel & HASC
WASHINGTON: Congress seems increasingly resigned to sequestration cuts and base closures, ideas which once met fierce rejection on Capitol Hill. That’s the counterintuitive takeaway from Chuck Hagel’s...
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Gen. Amos: Marines Can’t Fight Major War If Sequestered; Navy Short Carriers Too
CAPITOL HILL: The commandant of the Marines told Congress today that his service could not handle even one major war if Congress doesn’t undo the $500 billion, 10-year cut to defense spending known as...
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Apache Helicopter: Congress Asks Army Why It’s Accepting Unfinished AH-64Es
CAPITOL HILL: Congress has asked the Army to explain why it has officially taken delivery of at least seven AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters that don’t have transmissions installed yet, Breaking...
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Hagel’s Budget: Where’s The Beef In Reform Efforts, Weapons Buys?
In a town full of hot air, speeches are a dime a dozen. But money still talks. So let’s compare the new Secretary of Defense’s policy agenda to his first proposed budget. While Leon Panetta, his...
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Navy’s Ray Mabus: ‘Sequestration Looms Over Everything’ On Shipbuilding
CAPITOL HILL: Sequestration is not the Navy’s only shipbuilding problem. In the near term, the automatic cuts to the 2013 budget are bedeviling efforts to save money by buying ships in bulk....
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Navy Can’t Calculate Littoral Combat Ship’s Operating Costs, Says GAO Draft
The two Littoral Combat Ship variants, LCS-1 Freedom and LCS-2 Independence. CAPITOL HILL: The Navy is 90 percent sure its current estimated cost to operate and maintain the controversial Littoral...
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Gen. Odierno: Budget Crunch Will Render Army Unready For Syria & Hybrid War
Army exercises like this one at the National Training Center are being cancelled due to budget cuts. WASHINGTON: While the Army can keep troops headed for Afghanistan trained up and ready to go, the...
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Sen. McCain Slams $2.5B Carrier Cost Increase; Navy Struggles To Fund SSBN-X,...
The $13 billion supercarrier USS Ford under construction in Newport News, Va. CAPITOL HILL: It’s been a rough 48 hours for the US Navy. Yesterday, the Littoral Combat Ship was battered by House...
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Rep. Forbes Pledges Tougher Oversight; Carrier Costs, LCS Mission, Size of Fleet
The nuclear carrier USS Ford (CVN-78) under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding. CAPITOL HILL: Yes, the defense budget is a mess. Continued uncertainty about whether sequestration will go away or...
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HASC Seapower OKs New Carrier $, Boosts Oversight; CNO Replies
[updated with Adm. Greenert comment] House Armed Services seapower chairman Randy Forbes promised a “rebirth” of oversight in my interview with him last week, and he makes a down payment on that in...
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HASC Finds $5 Billion Fix For Sequester Damage, But It Won’t Matter
CAPITOL HILL: Like water rushing downhill, flowing over or around or through every obstacle in its path, money in Washington will find a way. Today’s example is the newly released House Armed Services...
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HASC Rejects Base Closure, F-35 Restrictions During NDAA Markup
Amendments stack up on the desks of House Armed Services Committee members at their markup of the 2014 defense bill. [updated with final results] CAPITOL HILL: Bipartisan majorities in the House Armed...
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Will Sequester Scuttle DoD’s Energy Efficiency Efforts?
An Air Force Special Operations tanker refuels a helicopter searching for survivors of 2005′s Hurricane Rita. WASHINGTON: The Defense Department is the largest single consumer of energy in the United...
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Hagel, Dempsey Beg Appropriators For Sequestration Wiggle Room
CAPITOL HILL: Even amidst the furor over sexual assault and NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the budget cuts known as the sequester dominated this morning’s discussion before the Senate Appropriations...
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US Faces ‘Excessive’ Strategic Risks As Sequester Bites: DepSecDef Carter
WASHINGTON: The Defense Department will create at least five defense budgets this year as a result of the Strategic Choices and Management Review, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today, and...
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Army Killed New Carbine Because It Wasn’t Twice As Reliable As Current M4
The Army has half a million M4 carbines, the lightweight version of the Vietnam-vintage M16. So if the service was going to invest in a replacement, it wanted a “leap ahead” that would, among other...
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Sen. Sessions: GOP Might Ease Initial Sequestration Cuts
CAPITOL HILL: On issues from nuclear weapons to the spending cuts known as sequestration, political common ground has turned into a war-torn no-man’s-land where both sides fear to tread. That...
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Grounded Air Force Jets Take Off Again – But Training Budget Still Up In The Air
An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt fires its massive 30 mm cannon in training. Today, the US Air Force announced that squadrons grounded since April, from combat units to the famous Thunderbirds, had the...
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