Defense

Two decades into the 21st century, far too much of the U.S. military consists of systems that were designed and initially produced at the end of the last century, and in many cases back to the late Cold War. While the United States and its allies face growing threats from China and Russia, much of the U.S. military force structure has been worn out by the […]

When the Cold War ended 30 years ago, the United States was unrivaled in virtually all of the technologies thought to define the future of civilization. In the intervening years, however, there has been a steady decline in U.S. technological leadership and, in turn, a deterioration of the country’s economic performance. For the geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) industry, economic consequences have given way to real national security […]

WASHINGTON — A geospatial imagery and analytics provider to the intelligence community is going public following an expected $1.5 billion merger with an investment group, the company announced. BlackSky Holdings Inc., which regularly provides imagery and analytics to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and other government organizations via its fleet of imagery satellites, said Feb. 18 it will merge with Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp., a special purpose […]

WASHINGTON ― U.S. antitrust regulators have extended their probe into Lockheed Martin’s proposed $4.4 billion purchase of rocket manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne so that the two companies can provide more information to the government, the companies announced Friday. The customary 60-day antitrust review process for the deal, announced in December, was supposed to end at midnight Thursday, but it will be extended 30 days beyond when the […]

COLOGNE, Germany – Military cyber-response teams from 18 European nations went through a live-fire exercise this week designed to test the bloc’s ability to bundle its forces in the event of a cyber attack. The event, organized by the European Defence Agency, is the opening salvo in a campaign that will stretch through the summer and include training sessions and conferences. The idea is to enhance […]

The advent of a new presidential administration typically marks a transition period and adjustment of focus across the government. This sentiment is especially pronounced in 2021 with changes in IT, threat activity and the Defense Department’s focus on defining its “new normal” work environment as COVID-19 vaccine distribution becomes widespread and public health concerns slowly abate. The COVID-19 pandemic showcased government offices’ critical need to plan […]

JERUSALEM — Israel and the United States have begun developing the Arrow-4 missile defense system that includes next-generation interceptors and will replace the Arrow-2 over the next decades, according to a statement from Israel’s Defense Ministry. “The Arrow weapon system, which was one of the first in the world to intercept ballistic missiles, will be upgraded with a significant capability, produced by Israel Aerospace Industries, in […]

LONDON – Lockheed Martin UK executives responsible for modernizing the British Army’s Warrior infantry fighting vehicle have admitted the program is at risk of being axed or reduced in size in an upcoming government review. The company’s Warrior Capability Sustainment Program (WCSP) director, Keren Wilkins, told reporters during an Feb. 18 online briefing that the project was under threat even though the British Army still saw the vehicle as a key requirement. “We are vulnerable. I’m concerned,” […]

WASHINGTON — The Air Force could be in the market for a brand-new, advanced fourth generation fighter as it looks to replace its oldest F-16s, the service’s top general said Wednesday. The Air Force has started a study that will describe its preferred mix of fighters and other tactical aircraft that will be used to help build the fiscal year 2023 budget. That result could include […]

WASHINGTON ― It’s time for the United States to be “crystal clear” it will not allow China to invade Taiwan and will end its longstanding “strategic ambiguity” about whether it would come to Taiwan’s defense if the island is invaded, said Sen. Tom Cotton, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Speaking at a Reagan Institute event to unveil his economic strategy against China, […]

WASHINGTON — To stay ahead of rapidly moving threats in the information space, 1st Special Forces Command is building an Information Warfare Center that will specialize in “influence artillery rounds.” Critical to Special Forces’ role is deploying to remote locations while still being able to effectively message portions of a population. The center, to be based at Fort Bragg, will consolidate the command’s psychological operations capabilities […]

WASHINGTON — The Space and Missile Systems Center completed three virtual tests of a new anti-jamming capability for satellite communications in the final months of 2020, the center announced Feb. 17. The mitigation and anti-jam enhancement program will provide advanced anti-jamming support for Wideband Global SATCOM, which provides satellite communications to American war fighters around the world. Once operational, the capability will allow the WGS constellation […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday began the process of retiring the B-1 Lancer, as the “Bone” bomber flew to the Air Force’s boneyard where divested aircraft are kept in storage. The Air Force plans to retire 17 of its 62 B-1s, as authorized by Congress in the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill. The service said divesting its most battered and difficult-to-maintain B-1s would […]

Overhead imagery of an airfield in Xi’an-Yanliang, China shows four Y-20s with the shadows of refueling pods on their outer wings, indicating these are Y-20U tankers. (Courtesy of Planet Labs) MELBOURNE, Australia — Satellite imagery appears to indicate China has begun serial production of a tanker aircraft based on its indigenous Xi’an Y-20 airlifter, filling a notable gap in the power projection capabilities of its air […]

Which Middle Eastern countries have a quantitative edge? Data provided by the International Institute for Strategic Studies as part of its Military Balance+ project compares select nations and… Source link

The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report on weapon system sustainment last fall (GAO-21-101SP). It is a redacted version of an earlier report because the Department of Defense “deemed some of the information in our August report to be sensitive,” GAO wrote. This should have been adequate warning of a serious problem, but election activities buried the news along with the DoD’s willingness to avoid […]

WASHINGTON — New electronic warfare capabilities show how the Army is extending beyond its traditional ground targets, with plans for a long-distance tool that spans oceans and is a key contribution to the joint service fight. With advanced adversaries forcing the Army to operate across against greater distances, the service recently unveiled its proposal for the electronic warfare tool, dubbed the Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade. […]

COLOGNE, Germany — Top Swedish defense officials have thrown their weight behind Saab’s bid for the multibillion-dollar HX fighter competition in Finland, arguing the Gripen aircraft would enable unprecedented cooperation between the two countries in thwarting a hypothetical attack by Russia. The Finnish race is one of two big-ticket aircraft competitions in Europe — Switzerland being the other — where major vendors from both sides of […]

WASHINGTON — Spencer Boyer, a former intelligence and U.S. State Department official, has been tapped to be the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy, Defense News has learned. While the official announcement has yet to be made, Boyer is expected to fill the job, which serves as something of a point person for NATO nations. He is expected to take office […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s joint warfighting effort, known as JADC2, depends on the ability to transfer data between disparate systems. To help build out those capabilities, service leaders have kicked off a new round of discussions about common data standards and how to encourage contractors to follow those guidelines. Tom Sasala, the Navy’s chief data officer, said Feb. 17 during C4ISRNET’s “Removing Stovepipes” series that […]

WASHINGTON — Space Operations Command awarded a nearly decade-long $200 million contract for advisory and assistance services to LinQuest, the Department of Defense announced Feb. 16. Established in October 2020, Space Operations Command is the first of three field commands being created under the U.S. Space Force. SpOC oversees the operations of the Space Force’s satellites, including ones for GPS, the Space-Based Infrared System and various […]

DUBAI — Swedish company Saab is to unveil its first product developed in the United Arab Emirates at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference, taking place Feb. 21-25. The Rugged Camera Module-Infrared, or RCAM-IR, is a “rugged camera platform, designed to withstand the harshest environments,” according to Anna-Karin Rosén, a managing director at Saab. She added that the real-time camera was specifically built for driver’s vision […]

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy is collecting proposals for a new autonomous glider drone that can collect data — such as water temperatures over time — as a way to improve how it hunts for enemy submarines. The system will be the next generation of the current Littoral Battlespace Sensing Glider, which generally deploys from one of the Navy’s five oceanographic survey ships. That glider became […]

WASHINGTON ― Raytheon Technologies plans to challenge Lockheed Martin’s proposed $4.4 billion takeover of Aerojet Rocketdyne with the U.S. government, CEO Greg Hayes said Wednesday. “They [Aerojet Rocketdyne] are a huge supplier to us, and if that merger actually happens, you don’t have an independent supplier on the solid-rocket-motor side. And also, I think it gives us pause as we think about the competitive landscape going […]

WASHINGTON — In January 2017, one of the government’s newest weather satellites picked up the most bizarre signal: a wildfire moving at breakneck speeds across the Atlantic Ocean. Now, wildfires don’t spread across the ocean, and they certainly don’t move at the pace being reported. What was going on? It turns out the satellite ― one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-R series — […]

By Nicola “Niki” Johnson Vice President for Government Affairs, Strategic Communications and Marketing General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. On Feb. 4, President Biden delivered his first major foreign policy address, calling for a renewal of U.S. leadership on the world stage. Rebuilding relationships with partners and allies is a core goal of the new U.S. administration. A robust program of foreign military sales (FMS) and direct […]

BEIRUT — Who would’ve anticipated a live, non-virtual defense show to take place during the coronavirus pandemic? Yet the International Defence Exhibition and Conference is opening its doors to trade exhibitors and visitors Feb. 21-25, with more than 1,300 vendors as well as five countries participating for the first time. In its 15th edition, IDEX and its sister event NAVDEX (the Naval Defence and Maritime Security […]

President Joe Biden’s creation of a task force to assess existing policies regarding China and develop recommendations for addressing the “pacing threat” the country poses could mark a change in direction for the United States. The task force could also risk falling into the same pattern of past blue-ribbon panels: provide cover for elected officials to back unpopular policy recommendations that will end up fulfilling the […]

WASHINGTON — Under a recent contract award with a $30 million ceiling, Lockheed Martin will begin integrating and formally testing its open-architecture processor designed to control the U.S. Army’s future combat vehicle protection system, the company announced Feb. 16. The Army is determining the specific plans and schedules for integration and testing of Lockheed’s base kit for its Modular Active Protection System, or MAPS, that ties […]

JERUSALEM — With relationships between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries on the mend, more than 40 Israeli companies planned to showcase their military systems at this year’s International Defence Exhibition and Conference in the United Arab Emirates for the first time. But the participation by Israeli companies and officials was thrown into question after Israel extended a closure of its Ben-Gurion International Airport, essentially banning […]

Updated 2/16/21 at 5:00 pm EST with comment from NATO spokesperson. WASHINGTON — As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attends his first NATO ministerial this week, he will carry a message seeking a “revitalized” relationship between America and its European allies — but will not back down on pushing for greater military spending, two senior defense officials said Monday. Virtual though it may be, the ministerial is […]

WASHINGTON — Air Force Special Operations Command plans to conduct flying demonstrations of multiple armed overwatch aircraft this year, paving the way for procurement to start in fiscal 2022, its top general said Tuesday. Speaking at a discussion hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. James Slife said that the forthcoming demonstration could help furnish lawmakers — who opposed funding the […]

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s procurement agency has commissioned a local company to develop critical technologies for an engine that the government hopes will power its first indigenous fighter jet. A contract was signed Feb. 14 between two state-controlled companies for the development program. Under the deal, TRMotor, an engine maker, will develop an auxiliary power unit and an air turbine start system for what Turkey hopes […]

WASHINGTON ― New power-sharing rules for Senate Democrats are shaking up the Senate Armed Services Committee, with some junior authorizers taking prized subcommittee chairmanships. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine., ceded the Airland gavel to Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., ceded the Emerging Threats and Capabilities gavel to new Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., passed King the gavel for Strategic Forces, […]

WARSAW, Poland, and MELBOURNE, Australia — Securing the first Asian customer for its latest product, Czech aircraft maker Aero Vodochody has signed a contract to sell 12 L-39NG jet trainers to Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defence. Deliveries are scheduled for the years 2023 to 2024, and Czech arms exporter Omnipol is acting as an intermediary for the deal. “We are proud to announce this crucial and […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense is forging ahead with IT projects despite the absence of a Senate-confirmed chief information officer, grappling with cybersecurity after a government hack and a cloud infrastructure with an uncertain future. Leading the efforts in an acting capacity until President Joe Biden settles on the next CIO is John Sherman, the principal deputy under former DoD CIO Dana Deasy. He […]

TEHRAN, Iran — The Iranian and Russian militaries have kicked off a joint naval drill in the Indian Ocean aimed at boosting security of maritime trade in the region, Iran’s state TV reported on Tuesday. The TV said units from Iran’s Navy and the powerful Revolutionary Guard’s maritime force will take part in the exercise dubbed “Iran-Russia Maritime Security Belt 2021” in the northern part of […]

America’s enemies learned from the Gulf and Iraq wars that they could not allow the U.S. and its allies geographic access to a combat zone, and have therefore developed denial techniques. It is here that hypersonic weapons become extremely important. Denying an enemy access to a combat zone requires enough long-range missiles to hold U.S. forces out of their missiles’ effective range. Two methods exist to […]

WASHINGTON — A few years ago, Marines had to patrol a remote side of Air Station Miramar in Southern California to watch for teens sneaking in to party in old buildings or for cyclists who wandered onto the property. Today, that area still doesn’t have cell phone service, and unexploded ordinances remain from its time as a World War II mortar range, according Lt. Col. Gregory […]

WASHINGTON — By the time the crews of the aircraft carrier Nimitz and its escort ships step on the pier in Bremerton, Washington, they will have been away from home for almost a year, most of which will have been spent floating around in the Middle East. Until the last decade, the U.S. Navy tried to limit deployments to six months to give crew members ample […]

STUTTGART, Germany — As the NATO alliance looks to the next decade, it must commit to developing new disruptive and emerging technologies while avoiding any “technological gap between allies,” its leader said Feb. 15. The 30-nation-strong military alliance places “great importance” in cutting-edge technologies, and welcomes that members are boosting investments in those areas, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in a virtual press conference before meeting with […]

Proceeding with the IDEX and NAVDEX 2021 defense trade exhibitions despite the coronavirus pandemic underlines the defense-industrial intent of the United Arab Emirates. The CEO of Abu Dhabi-based technology and defense group Edge, Faisal Al Bannai, suggested these shows will be used to portray the Emirates’ “consolidated sovereign capability” with an expectation to exhibit newly developed equipment including several UAVs. The government of the UAE for […]

COLOGNE, Germany – NATO’s top general in Europe has declared initial operational capability of the alliance’s five-strong fleet of surveillance drones stationed in Sicily, Italy. The unmanned aircraft and associated ground equipment make up the NATO Allied Ground Surveillance program. Started nine years ago, its goal is to provide all member countries with an aerial picture of worldwide threats, especially in locations close to alliance borders. […]

Are algorithms destroying society, or are they merely revealing the schism which always existed? The increased granularity of highly detailed datasets combined with increasingly accurate microtargeted advertising make the question largely unanswerable but nonetheless, pose an unaddressed threat to the armed forces and a national security vulnerability. Most military strategists only consider center of gravity as that area where the greatest concentration of enemy troops can […]

WASHINGTON — America’s recent freeze on the sale of approved munitions to Saudi Arabia, along with a new policy curtailing U.S. involvement in the conflict in Yemen, is setting up an early test of the relationship between Riyadh and President Joe Biden. The policy, announced Feb. 4, comes amid a wide-ranging review of the Trump administration’s arms sales, which is expected to focus particularly on sales […]

ANKARA, Turkey — If Turkey’s hostile relationship with some Gulf countries is beginning to thaw, the new dynamics could bring a boost in defense and aerospace exports, particularly to Saudi and Emirati markets, Turkish officials and industry sources told Defense News. Although a new understanding between the countries — which is being negotiated through both official and unofficial channels — looks premature, it could accelerate in […]

WASHINGTON — Plans for where, how and when the U.S. Army’s two new Iron Dome air defense batteries could deploy are being finalized, according to Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, the lead on the service’s air and missile defense modernization effort. Lawmakers have demanded the service come up with a plan to deploy Iron Dome systems, which were procured as an interim solution to fill a cruise […]

As the Biden administration and 117th Congress begin ranking their priorities on U.S. nuclear modernization and arms control, the United States stands at a critical juncture where decisions made now will affect the U.S. nuclear force well into the 2070s and 2080s — the expected service lives of several nuclear delivery systems in development. The Biden administration could follow the Obama administration’s model and pursue further […]

ROME — First there was the video from Libya of a Turkish drone destroying a Russian Pantsir missile defense system. Next came the veteran S-300 air defense system — also Russian — being taken out in Nagorno-Karabakh by an Israeli-built Harop loitering munition. In the conflicts in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh last year, unmanned platforms often made short work of the ground-based systems designed to neutralize them, […]

WASHINGTON – The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., took delivery late last year of a new Xerox 3D metal printer that the school hopes will advance what’s possible to manufacture at sea, easing the burden the Navy’s supply chain. The military has been keenly interested in additive manufacturing (3D printing) as a means of reducing the cost of producing parts and giving operators in remote […]

WASHINGTON — The F-35 joint strike fighter program is grappling with a shortage of the jet’s Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, and it could be months before the situation starts to improve, a defense official said Friday. The problem, according to the F-35 joint program office, is twofold. First, the F135 Heavy Maintenance Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., has not been able to process […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and allies are using a new forum started by the Pentagon’s top artificial intelligence office to work toward developing AI systems that can connect in the future to help them fight better together. The Partnership for Defense, started by the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center last September, is laying the groundwork for future AI-enabled joint war-fighting capabilities that will need to connect to […]

WASHINGTON — The Space Force is getting its first cyber warriors, transferring cyber personnel from the Air Force into its ranks to protect sensitive systems and missions. “Why it’s so important for us to have those cyber professionals on the Space Force team — organic to our team — is that they will be part of our crew force. They will understand the cyber terrain of […]

WASHINGTON― Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester will chair the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, handing new clout over the defense budget to a state with strong nuclear weapons interests. Tester, a political moderate and chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, has served in the Senate since 2007. The move, announced Friday, gives Tester a powerful new platform to advocate for Montana’s military installations, including at Malmstrom […]

WASHINGTON — The Army recently announced a new tranche of National Guard units to staff a critical and ongoing task force for U.S. Cyber Command. Members of the 123rd Cyber Protection Battalion — made up of guardsmen from Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia and Wisconsin – relieved the 15-month deployment of the 124th Cyber Protection Battalion for Task Force Echo, an Army announcement said. The task force was […]

Eyeing Iran and its terrorist proxies in Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s Cabinet approved on Feb. 7 an Israeli Air Force request to use U.S. foreign military financing and loans to fund approximately $9 billion worth of U.S. military aircraft and weapons. Jerusalem’s decision initiates a process intended to culminate in the Air Force’s acquisition of new American fighter aircraft, air refuelers and helicopters. These purchases would […]

WASHINGTON ― California Republican Rep. Ken Calvert is willing to meet Democratic lawmakers partway in their reported plans to trim the defense budget: cut back on civilian employees, not equipment and modernization. “Like everything else in government, personnel is your biggest cost, and the civilian-to-uniform ratio … is at an all-time high,” Calvert, the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel, said in an […]

WASHINGTON — The Navy is searching for solutions from industry that can fill needed gaps in cyber warfare capabilities to secure weapon systems and exploit cyberspace. The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command Cyber Warfare Detachment is looking for white papers for research and development efforts on resilient cyber warfare capabilities, according to a Feb. 11 posting to a government contracting website. The proposals should offer advancements […]

WASHINGTON — It started as a dare. When Will Roper, then the Air Force’s top acquisition official, visited Beale Air Force Base in California last fall, he issued a challenge to the U-2 Federal Laboratory, a five-person organization founded in October 2019. The team was established to create advanced technologies for the venerable Lockheed Martin U-2 spyplane, and Roper wanted to push the team further. “He […]

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has approved three Foreign Military Sales requests for Jordan, Chile and a NATO agency, with a combined potential price tag of over $200 million. The approvals mark the first FMS cases moved since President Joe Biden took office. The last FMS cases approved by the State Department came in late December; the Biden team has since announced a pause and review […]

The Dutch service is also receiving electro-optical commander sights as part of the contract, set to take place over a period of four and a half years, Elbit said in a news release. Yuval Karakookly, the vice president of survivability for Elbit’s land systems division, said the deal could lead to further work with the CV90 and potential business in other European markets. BAE is upgrading […]

Cognitive security is old and new. The concept is old in terms of Sun Tzu’s famous saying, “All warfare is based on deception,” with cognitive security essential to not being deceived. It is new through the exponential expansion of the internet, which has boosted our productivity to incredible heights, but also has opened avenues for wrongdoers to try to influence us and imperil our cognitive security […]

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced at the Pentagon a new review of how the U.S. military is postured to deter China in the Pacific. Biden, who was joined for his first department visit since taking office by Vice President Kamala Harris, said the review will help “chart a strong path forward on China related matters.” “It will require a whole of government efforts, […]

MELBOURNE, Australia — A Japanese submarine is damaged after colliding with a commercial ship in international waters off Japan on Monday, resulting in slight injuries to three crew members. According to Japan’s Ministry of Defense, the diesel-electric submarine JS Soryu hit the commercial bulk carrier Ocean Artemis as it was surfacing in waters south of Cape Ashizuri in Kochi prefecture on the Japanese island of Shikoku […]

MELBOURNE, Australia — The Philippine government has cleared the way for its Air Force to acquire more Polish-built Black Hawk helicopters amid efforts to replace the aging fleet of Vietnam War-era Huey helicopters. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte approved the acquisition of the helicopters in early February, according to an announcement by Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles on Thursday, with the government saying the purchase would “slowly address […]

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is making his first visit to the Pentagon as commander in chief, taking stock of a military as it pivots from the turmoil of the Trump years and focuses to an unusual degree on domestic and internal issues. Biden planned to meet Wednesday afternoon with senior civilian and military leaders and address the Pentagon workforce. As defense leaders await direction from […]

Defense priorities are shifting toward emerging technologies at an unprecedented pace, but still not fast enough to keep America ahead of potential adversaries. We need to hit the accelerator by drastically increasing the tech savviness of defense leaders. The defense establishment is better at this than it used to be. We’ve seen a rapid expansion of new authorities and programs to drive tech innovation since Pentagon […]

WASHINGTON — Worried about a “disjointed” response to what some experts say could be the biggest hack in American history, two congressional leaders urged the government to name a person to head the cleanup. In a Feb. 9 letter, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Marco Rubio, R-Florida ― the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, respectively — expressed their concern with the federal […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army will have delivered — in just over 200 days — the first hypersonic weapon capability to a unit, but the service has already begun delivering equipment needed to that unit as it prepares for a rigorous training program, according to Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood, director of the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO). While the Army has been […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has chosen California-based drone manufacturer Skydio to continue in a final prototyping phase, which should lead to the company supplying the service’s first tranche of short-range reconnaissance unmanned aircraft systems. The Short-Range Reconnaissance system is a platoon-level, small quadcopter unmanned aircraft that will provide enhanced situational awareness, a spin-off from the Army’s earlier efforts to develop a rucksack-portable UAS. The Skydio […]

WASHINGTON ― The drive to rapidly develop defense technologies will spur more industry mergers and acquisition activity over the next two decades, as well as new entrants in the realm of cyber and artificial intelligence, Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said Tuesday. “As a result I believe the industry will look different in terms of its composition. There’ll be more consolidation,” Warden said in a wide-ranging […]

If successful, the new unmanned aerial vehicle — called LongShot — could allow high-value manned aircraft like fighters and bombers to hang back at standoff distances while LongShot moves forward and strikes multiple targets using its own air-launched weapons. DARPA announced Feb. 8 that it had awarded contracts to General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for the first phase of the program, where the companies […]

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps is developing an intelligence tool to analyze online public information about threats and asked industry to help pinpoint the right technology for these increasingly important open source reviews. The Corps seeks to identify companies that provide the capability and discover if existing contacts or partnerships could streamline delivery of a system, according to a “sources sought” notice on a federal contracting […]

Imagine that, for years, the U.S. intelligence community warns about a specific national security threat that could come to pass. One day, it finally does. International observers sound the alarm. The press picks up the scent. Within two weeks, the threat breaches U.S. defenses, and two weeks after that, Americans begin to die. But it takes six months for the U.S. Army to agree to fill […]

WASHINGTON ― The Senate confirmed Kathleen Hicks as deputy defense secretary on Monday evening, making her the first woman to be confirmed by the Senate to the position. Hicks, who led President Joe Biden’s transition team at the Pentagon, was a deputy undersecretary of defense under the Obama administration. More recently, she led international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Senate […]

Two major initiatives of the new defense secretary are advancing as the Pentagon head steers the department in his effort to tackle major personnel problems — extremism in the ranks and sexual harassment. Speaking with reporters Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s memo to the services calling for 60-day stand down to address extremism was not designed to be a panacea. […]

LONDON – Viasat is upgrading Skynet satellite communications capabilities to enable the British military to comply with the latest integrated waveform requirement known as IW Phase 2, the company said on Feb. 8. The deal was signed in the second quarter of 2020 but the UK arm of the Carlsbad, California-based communications company has only now been able to announce that it is undertaking the upgrade to ultra-high-frequency satellite communications network control stations in the Skynet system. The upgrade is one in a spate of military-related space announcements in the last few days, […]

Russia and Iran inked an agreement last month on information security, a term that in Russian strategic doctrine encompasses not only cyber but information and communications technology (ICT) more broadly. Such cooperation will help these authoritarian regimes to continue suppressing internal dissent and to expand joint efforts to counter the Western goal of preserving an open and free internet. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, […]

WASHINGTON ― Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, who has served as the top Republican on defense appropriations committees and helped determine how the Pentagon spent hundreds of billions of dollars in funding, will not seek reelection next year. “For everything, there is a season,” Shelby said in a statement. “I am grateful to the people of Alabama who have put their trust in me for more than […]