U.S. modernization of its nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), missile submarines and bombers armed with safe, reliable and effective nuclear weapons, in numbers sufficient to maintain rough parity with at least the Russian nuclear triad, is imperative to the deterrence of world war and survival of the free world. Continue reading
Kalibr missile firing
Kalibr cruise missiles will target Washington, East Coast cities
Russia is deploying long-range, precision cruise missiles to the western Atlantic that American defense officials say will allow Moscow to target Washington and other East Coast cities with conventional or nuclear attacks.
Moscow is adding Kalibr land attack cruise missiles to both warships and missile submarines that Moscow plans to use in Atlantic patrols near the United States, sorties that were once routine during the Cold War. Continue reading
General Mark Milley / Getty Images
DIA Director: Subterranean fighting ‘something we’ll have to contend with’
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Speaking at the Defense One Tech Summit in Washington, D.C., Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said the U.S. military is discussing the elevation of subterranean operations to an official warfighting domain—alongside air, land, maritime, space, and cyber. Continue reading
Chinese People’s Liberation Army personnel attend the opening ceremony of China’s new military base in Djibouti / Getty Images
Incidents near Beijing’s Djibouti military base injured American air crews flying nearby
The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that Chinese nationals fired lasers near a military base in east Africa against U.S. military aircraft in the region, injuring several pilots.
Pentagon Press Secretary Dana White said the U.S. government made diplomatic protests to the Chinese government over several recent incidents of laser firings near China’s first overseas military base at Djibouti. Continue reading
(Photo by: Jacquelyn Martin) John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, told lawmakers that the threat posed by advanced missiles is increasing. (Associated Press/File)
Senior Pentagon and military officials this week outlined the growing array of missile threats facing the United States from China, Russia and other states, including maneuvering hypersonic weapons.
John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, told a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing that the threat posed by advanced missiles is increasing.
“The United States, allies and partners confront a security environment that is more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory,” Mr. Rood told the subcommittee on strategic forces, in a likely preview of the Pentagon’s forthcoming Ballistic Missile Review, a major study that will highlight missile threats and the Trump administration’s plan for a multilayered missile defense network to counter them.
Adversaries including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are expanding their missile forces in three ways, Mr. Rood said. They include increasing the capabilities of current missile forces; adding new and unprecedented types of missiles to their arsenals; and better integrating missiles into foreign states’ use of coercive threats, military exercises and war planning.
Adm. Harry Harris. / AP
Kim Jong-Un has put on a charm offensive at the Winter Games while extracting money from South Korea under the guise of reunification, the leader of U.S. Pacific Command said.
But the North Korean leader’s goal goes beyond preventing regime change, he said. Rather, he is focused on the ultimate goal of a “single, communist system” on the Korean Peninsula.
Adm. Harry Harris told the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 14 that he does not agree with the prevailing view that Kim is building a nuclear arsenal to safeguard his regime only. Continue reading
Artist rendering of Air Force’s new B-21 bomber. (Northrop Gruman)
A once-empty parking lot at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s top secret aircraft plant in Palmdale is now jammed with cars that pour in during the predawn hours.
More than a thousand new employees are working for the time being in rows of temporary trailers, a dozen tan-colored tents and a vast assembly hangar at the desert site near the edge of urban Los Angeles County.
It is here that Northrop is building the Air Force’s new B-21 bomber, a stealthy bat-winged jet that is being designed to slip behind any adversary’s air defense system and deliver devastating airstrikes for decades to come. The Pentagon is aiming to buy 100 of the bombers by the mid-2030s for at least $80 billion, though the exact amount is classified.
A Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in its silo in Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, circa 1980. (Image source: U.S. Department of Defense)
- In 1989, America had 1,000 nuclear missile silos, and a small number of additional bomber and submarine bases and submarines at sea, facing 13,500 Soviet warheads. Today, the U.S. has 450 such silos facing 1,750 Russian warheads. That is a switch from a ratio of 13 Russian warheads to every U.S. missile silo, to a ratio of 4 Russian warheads to every U.S. missile silo. Getting rid of Minuteman ICBMs would reverse that progress and make the ratio even worse, with 175 Russian warheads to every U.S. missile silo. How is that an improvement?
- The U.S. “cannot afford to delay modernization initiatives” while the “American people and our allies are counting on congressional action to fund our nuclear enterprise modernization efforts.” — General Robin Rand, the commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command.
- America’s ability to defend itself is at stake.
In April 2017, the Pentagon launched the U.S. Defense Department’s legislatively mandated quadrennial Nuclear Posture Review to determine American policy, strategy and capabilities. The process now underway involves testimony from experts arguing over how the estimated $27 billion spent annually (growing over the next decade by an additional $10 billion a year) on America’s nuclear arsenal should be allocated. Continue reading
(ANTIMEDIA) Washington, D.C. —There’s currently a push in the halls of Washington D.C., to establish a new branch of the military by 2019, one whose focus would be operations among the stars. Proposed legislation by House representatives would create a “Space Corps” that would serve “as a separate military service within the Department of the Air Force.” It would be the first branch added to the military since 1947 when the Air Force was officially established.
On Tuesday, the top two lawmakers of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Representatives Mike Rogers and Jim Cooper, added the legislation to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The subcommittee oversees military space operations and works within the umbrella of the House Armed Services Committee.
Lockheed debuts C-130J variant for special operations forces
The House Armed Services Committee is currently reviewing a classified report it ordered last year on restarting production of the F-22 Raptor, according to a spokesperson for the committee.
“I can confirm that we received the report and are reviewing it,” HASC spokesman Barron Youngsmith told UPI, declining to comment further due to the classified nature of the review. Continue reading
Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on Monday that he was “shocked” at the poor state of the military’s readiness.
Mattis appeared before the committee to answer questions regarding the proposed budget for the military, CBS reports. He told lawmakers that one of the top problems facing the Pentagon is military readiness, which the retired general said has worsened since he left the Marine Corps in 2013. Continue reading
ISIS fighters / Screenshot from YouTube
Calls for more information sharing across Western nations
Europe serves as a “launching pad” for ISIS jihadists to initiate attacks against the United States due to the absence of a cohesive information-sharing strategy among Western nations, former acting CIA director John McLaughlin said Wednesday.
McLaughlin, a 30-year CIA employee who served as acting director under the George W. Bush administration, warned that the absence of effective coordination between European intelligence agencies exposes the United States to greater risk of attack. Continue reading
WASHINGTON — A group of ten Democratic senators have penned a letter to US President Barack Obama urging him to cancel development of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, in what appears to be the next salvo from nonproliferation advocates on Capitol Hill against the weapon.
At issue is the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) cruise missile, which will replace the Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) program with 1,000 to 1,100 cruise missiles, representing the US Air Force’s standoff nuclear delivery capability. The ALCM program is scheduled to age out in 2030. Continue reading
“I would like some organic means of designing the submarine from the ground up that would seamlessly integrate UUVs,” Rear Adm. Michael Jabaley, the Navy’s program executive officer for submarines told the House Armed Services Committee on July 14. “The dream actually would be if you have ever seen remoras—those are the little fish the suck onto the big fish and go along and not seem to effect the big fish at all, ride in the stream, and then, when it’s time for them to go do something, they do and then come back. So that’s forward thinking.” Continue reading
Earlier this week, representatives of the US Cyber Command (CC) told the Joint Chiefs that the US military won’t be able to fend of a major cyberattack at least until 2019.
Brig. Gen. Charles L. Moore Jr., Joint Chiefs of Staff deputy director for global operations, told the House Armed Services Committee that, “We don’t have the scale or the complexity to truly represent a realistic and relevant threat, the ones that we’re truly trying to train to.”
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