The following is from the executive summary of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, released on March, 4 2014.
The United States faces a rapidly changing security environment. We are repositioning to focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities that will define our future: new technologies, new centers of power, and a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States. Read More
Fort Worth (LCS-3) conducts builders trials in 2011. Lockheed Martin Photo
The following is the Feb. 25, 2014 update on the Littoral Combat Ship program from the Congressional Research Service.
On February 24, 2014, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that the Department of Defense (DOD) intends to truncate the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program to 32 ships— a reduction of 20 ships from the previously planned total of 52 LCSs. Through FY2014, a total of 20 LCSs have been funded. Under the Navy’s FY2014 budget submission, LCSs 21 through 24 were scheduled to be requested for procurement in FY2015. Read More
Coast Guard rendering of the planned Offshore Patrol Cutter. The service plans to announce the final three designs later this year. US Coast Guard Photo
Huntington Ingalls Industries and VT Halter Marine have filed a protest over the design contract awards for the Coast Guard’s planned Offshore Patrol Cutter, according to Tuesday filings with the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Read More
The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG-105) US Navy Photo
Coast Guard Icebreakers Polar Star (WAGB-10) and Polar Sea (WAGB-11) moored in an undated photo.
The Coast Guard will likely need help from other government agencies to fund its proposed new $1 billion heavy icebreaker the service says it needs to operate in the Arctic and Antarctic, outgoing USCG commandant Adm. Robert Papp told reporters Wednesday following his final State of the Coast Guard address in Washington, D.C. Read More
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is expected to place a hold on the nominations for Bob Work and Christine Wormuth for the positions of deputy secretary of defense and under secretary of defense for policy respectively. Read More
Robert Work at the Pentagon. US Navy Photo
The Senate Armed Services Committee held a confirmation hearing for incoming deputy secretary of defense Bob Work on Tuesday. Read More
An A-10 returning from a training mission on Jan. 11, 2014. US Air Force Photo
The U.S. Air Force will retire the Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog and the Lockheed Martin U-2 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, but the service also hopes to invest in new technologies in the fiscal year 2015 budget proposal. Read More
USS Lake Erie (CG-70) operates with other cruisers off the coast of Hawaii on Jan. 27, 2014. US Navy Photo
“Half of the Navy’s cruiser fleet— or 11 ships —will be ‘laid up’ and placed in reduced operating status while they are modernized, and eventually returned to service with greater capability and a longer lifespan,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon on Monday.
“This approach enables us over the long-term to sustain and modernize our fleet of cruisers.” Read More
USS Freedom (LCS-1), left, and USS Independence (LCS-2) in 2012. US Navy Photo
The Pentagon will cut the final number of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) by 20 — from 52 to 32 — and shortly begin a study on a new frigate for the service, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told reporters at a Fiscal Year 2015 Defense Department budget preview on Monday afternoon. Read More
