WASHINGTON -- Though the National Defense Strategy has shifted U.S. focus to China and Russia as near-peer competitors, North Korea and Iran as “rogue state actors,” and has also placed emphasis on counterterrorism as a priority, the Middle East is still going to be getting U.S. attention, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the [...]
WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department’s organic laboratories develop weapons, medical technology and other equipment. Hundreds had exhibit booths set up in the Pentagon courtyard as part of its biennial DOD Lab Day today. First and foremost, DOD’s labs develop emerging technologies that make warfighters a more lethal and protected force, the under secretary of defense [...]
WASHINGTON -- Adversaries shouldn’t already have read the manual on a new U.S. gun before the first soldier has had a chance to fire one, the Defense Security Service’s director of counterintelligence said here today. “We are in a very highly contested environment, with our opponents quite successfully taking our stuff,” William Stephens said at [...]
WASHINGTON -- Allies and partners around the world should and do take comfort in the fact that the U.S. has both the will and the means to use its nuclear weapons, if necessary, to protect them from aggression, the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy said here today. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, [...]
WASHINGTON -- Updates to the Defense Department’s transgender policy take effect today, and defense officials stressed the policy is anchored in the core value of treating all service members with dignity and respect. Anthony Kurta, performing the duties of the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told Pentagon reporters that all those most [...]
WASHINGTON -- Readiness was a top priority for both the National Guard and the services’ Reserve components when planning budgets for fiscal year 2020, their leaders told Congress yesterday. During a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, the chiefs of all four service reserve components and the National Guard Bureau briefed lawmakers on [...]
WASHINGTON -- A United States Space Force would build on and accelerate the advantage the U.S. Air Force has given the American military in space, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan told the Senate Armed Services Committee today. Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Air Force Secretary Heather [...]
WASHINGTON -- The fiscal year 2020 defense budget request is a “strategy-driven budget,” the Defense Department’s comptroller said yesterday during a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. The budget fully supports the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which points to the “erosion of our competitive edge against China and Russia continues to be DOD’s central problem,” [...]
WASHINGTON -- Wars have been fought on land, on the sea and in the air. But the next conflict may be a war in the immediate area above the breathable atmosphere, amid the satellites now circling Earth, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan said today. Shanahan spoke during the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, [...]
WASHINGTON -- Site visits to military housing by defense officials to hear firsthand accounts of problems there are just one step being taken to ensure military families have safe places to live. Robert H. McMahon, the assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, told lawmakers on April 4 that the military services are aware of problems [...]
