Ideas

Trump Signs Omnibus and COVID Relief Bill, Averting a Shutdown

After days of bluster and veto threats, the president signed the $1.4 trillion bill into law.

Policy

Trump Vetoes Defense Authorization Bill

For the Confederacy, conservative speech, and the desire to bring troops home, Trump rejected the $700 billion NDAA at the last minute before Washington breaks for Christmas.

Exclusive Policy

White House Shipbuilding Plan Would Shrink Ford Carrier Class Over Navy Objections

Critics say the bulked-up fleet plan would cut dangerously into Army, Air Force budgets — if Congress and the Biden administration followed it.

Exclusive Policy

EXCLUSIVE: Details Revealed in Trump’s Lame-Duck Pentagon Budget Draft

Some of the numbers are “fabricated,” says one official. But they shed light on GOP lines of attack awaiting Biden.

Ideas

What Would a Climate-Focused DoD Budget Look Like?

It’d be less about what we spend and more about how we spend the money we already have.

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.

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.