France and Germany solidified a future partnership in defense strategy focused on jointly building a fighter aircraft to replace Germany's Eurofighters and France's Rafale aircraft. On June 19, the two European nations signed an agreement to produce a superfighter that will be available to enter...
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The US Navy's F-35C has been scheduled to reach initial operational capability (IOC) in 2018 since at least 2013. The odds of that happening appear increasingly low. In order for the Navy to officially say that the F-35C is ready for combat missions, it must...
Read all of "US Navy's F-35C 'at risk' of missing 2018 IOC declaration" »
Sometime in the not-so-distant future the most expensive weapons program in US history, the fifth-generation F-35 aircraft, will not require a human pilot, a US lawmaker said Tuesday. Speaking to Axios on Tuesday, Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) quoted a military general as saying: "the F-35...
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Defense sector analysts see a growing market for warplanes among Middle East nations over the next five years despite slumping oil prices in recent years. During the Dubai Airshow, which runs from November 12 to November 16, plenty of aircraft manufacturers will be angling to...
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Sometimes the boffins of bad ideas at our weapons labs are occasionally compelled to admit the atrocious quality of the things they come up with preclude them ever being implemented. And news of this was brought to us this week courtesy of Steve Aftergood at...
Bombing Paupers Incorporated, drone business, is already deployed in the US. But there's a new vigorous push on, and it's all about the money. With the taxpayer already shelling out about the same for unmanned bombing and spying as it does for the FDA, defense...
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Competing for top ranking in this year's long list of fatuous end-of-year news pieces notable only for their talent at bleak unintentional hilarity: Overstretched U.S. drone pilots face stress risk. In this holiday season of mass unemployment and homeless protesters being shoveled out of the...
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The fan of 80 buck a bottle Kistler white wine, celebrity natsec expert Richard Clarke, officially joins the world of 9/11 conspiracy theory today....
Read all of "Crawling back for the limelight of 9/11 anniversary" »
As the debate over the United States' estimated $14.3 trillion debt has come to a head, the question as to whether or not cuts would be made to the Department of Defense (DoD) has evolved to one of how deep those cuts will go. The...
The Obama administration is expected to request Congressional approval for the sale of $60 billion of military aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Stephen Kurczy writing in the Christian Science Monitor reports that the largest weapon sale in history is unlikely to invoke much criticism given U.S....
Many senior members of the U.S. military, defense officials, members of Congress, and analysts have long-warned of the growing fighter gap facing the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps and its implications for U.S. national security. A fighter gap is essentially a deficit between...
The U.S. Senate appropriations committee recently approved its version of the fiscal year (FY) 2010 defense spending bill, and the legislation now awaits floor time in the full Senate. Section 8056 of the bill includes authorization for the U.S. Air Force to use appropriated funds...
Read all of "The F-22 is Not Dead Yet: Congress Should Support the Development of an Allied Variant" »
Congress is back in session and completing work on the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization and appropriations bills. The Senate defense appropriations bill will be marked up this week. While few expect any tough votes if the defense appropriations bill arrives on the Senate floor...
U.S. military primacy built nearly a generation ago has guaranteed freedom of the seas and threat-free skies for U.S. ground forces in current operations. These tremendous capabilities are being taken for granted as investment in maintaining superior and technologically-advanced equipment in sufficient quantities is...
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