Business
Would Biden WH, GOP Senate Prevent Defense-Spending Dip?
As the nation waits for election results, some analysts are looking ahead.
Policy
Trump’s Border Wall Is Costing Taxpayers Billions More Than Initial Contracts
Federal spending data shows modifications to contracts have increased the price of the border wall by billions, costing about five times more per mile than it did under previous administrations.
Ideas
What Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Article May Mean for the Defense Budget
Her approach, more rebalancing rather than modernizing, avoids a simple zero-sum frame of defense vs. non-defense spending.
Ideas
Will Commanders Trust Their New AI Weapons and Tools?
A study of DOD’s artificial-intelligence efforts reveals a key gap.
Ideas
Esper’s Fantasy Fleet
The SecDef’s 500-ship plan is an exercise in wishful thinking that avoids hard choices.
Ideas
Esper’s Reforms: An Interim Report Card
What progress has the defense secretary made on his ambitious goals to reorient the Defense Department?
Ideas
Esper's Convenient Lie
The defense secretary's claim that the two decades of countering violent extremism left the U.S. under-prepared for a near-peer fight doesn’t hold water.
Business
Air Force General Defends Plans for Mixed F-35, F-15 Fleet
Top Air Force generals are expected to discuss the service’s future fighter force in upcoming meetings.
Business
Here’s What Might Not Survive COVID Budget Cuts
Like baby antelope at the watering hole, military weapons and vehicles still in early development might be the first to go.
Ideas
The Navy Needs More Ships — and Vision, Too
From shipyards to sea, the Navy needs to show more passionate leadership articulating what its future must be, and why.
Business
Raytheon CEO Projects Three-Year Coronavirus Downturn
It’s ‘a hell of a lot worse than what we originally projected,’ says the head of the new company formed by the United Technologies-Raytheon merger earlier this year.
Ideas
This Is Not Your Parents' Military. We Can’t Fund It the Same Way
The price of arms and personnel has risen far faster than inflation.
Business
Progressives Mount Assault on Defense Spending Ahead of Stimulus Package, Election
During a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, one Democrat questioned defense firms access to coronavirus stimulus money.
Ideas
OCO Must Go
Lawmakers should rally behind House appropriators' effort to eliminate a funding vehicle that allows the Pentagon to evade budget caps.
Business
We Need $10B to Pay Contractors’ Coronavirus Expenses, Pentagon Tells Congress
It’s the first time a defense official has put a specific price tag on DoD’s COVID relief efforts.
Ideas
Democrats, Be Bold on National Security
Even before the pandemic, it was clear that more money didn’t mean more real security.
Ideas
Does the Pentagon Understand What a Navy Is For?
Fleet-force planning has been seized by a Joint Staff and Defense Secretary who put budget-slicing before strategy.
Ideas
The NDAA Should Prompt a Rethinking of Costly U.S. Foreign Policy
The annual defense authorization bill offers a chance to end wars and programs that are not worth their price.
Policy
We Don’t Have Enough Cash to Build New Nuclear Weapons, Says Air Force Chief
Nukes or conventional weapons, “the current budget does not allow you to do both,” says Gen. Dave Goldfein, suggesting Congress create a separate account.
Ideas