David Gregory and John McCain on Sunday’s Meet the Press. NBC
Sen. John McCain told NBC’s Meet the Press that former Republican senator and nominee for the Secretary of Defense position will likely be confirmed by Congress, reported The Hill Tube blog. Read More
Members of the visit, board, search and seizure team from the guided-missile frigate USS Vandergrift (FFG 48) prepare to board the Royal Cambodian Navy patrol craft PC 1142 in October, 2012. U.S. Navy Photo
China and the United States are competing for influence throughout Southeast Asia and Cambodia appears to be the latest battleground. In January, China stepped up its defense cooperation with Cambodia in a development that several regional analysts saw as an attempt to supplant the United States. One writer, for example, likened China’s initiative to a “tug-of-war” with the United States.
Read More
Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter testifies to the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Feb. 14. DoD Photo
Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter reiterated to Congress the need for legislative action to stop the looming March deadline for the mandatory sequestration cuts to the military, in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thursday.
The new Distinguished Warfare Medal annouced yesterday at the Pentagon. DoD Photo
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta unveiled a new decoration that recognizes efforts of troops that effect combat even if they are outside a battle zone, Wednesday.
“This award recognizes the reality of the kind of technological warfare that we are engaged in, in the 21st century,” Panetta said in a Penatgon briefing Wednesday.
Read More
Afghan President Hamid Karzi onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2008. US Navy Photo
Hamid Karzai welcomes the withdrawal of 34,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in the next year, the Afghan president said in a statement released Wednesday.
Read More
Aegis-class destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) launches a standard missile (SM) 3 Blk IA during a 2009 exercise. US Navy Photo
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency successfully conducted the first live test Wednesday of a satellite missile tracking system designed to provide ship and shore-based batteries greater range to destroy rogue missiles, MDA officials told USNI News Wednesday.
At 4:10 a.m. EST, a missile from USS Lake Erie (CG-70) successfully intercepted a “medium-range ballistic missile target,” launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, on Kauai, Hawaii using Space Tracking and Surveillance System-Demonstrators (STSS-D) with a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IA guided missile, MDA spokesperson Rick Lehner said.
Read More
Facial reconstruction of the two unknown sailors from USS Monitor from a March,6 2012 ceremony in Washington D.C. U.S. Navy Photo
Two of the U.S. Navy’s oldest unknown sailors from the Civil War ship USS Monitor will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery in March, announced Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus on Tuesday.
The decision comes after more than a decade of work to by the Joint Prisoner of War Missing in Action Command to identify the remains, Navy spokesperson Lt. Lauryn Dempsey told USNI News on Wednesday. Read More
File photo of Adm. Mark Ferguson. US Navy Photo
Department of the Navy officials testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday on the devastating effects the ongoing Continuing Resolution and looming sequestration would have on the services.
By allowing sequestration—the across-the-board cuts—to take effect 1 March and hamstringing the Pentagon and the services as to what they can do under a Continuing Resolution through 27 March, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said, “We just put the federal government . . . in a position of owing the military a lot of money” to repair the damage caused by deferred maintenance and canceling contracts.
Read More
All Hands Magazine Photo Illustration. US Navy
U.S. Fleet Forces Commander, Adm. Bill Gortney sent a message to commanders outlining potential impacts on forces, the Navy announced on Monday.
Gortney addressed the Navy’s announcement it would postpone the Middle East deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and outlined the current contingency plan.
Read More
A new report from IHS Jane’s estimates that India will outpace the United Kingdom, Japan and France to become the fourth largest defense spender in the world in less than ten years.
By 2020 the Indian defense budget is expected to grow to $65.4 billion. That level of spending will be behind only the U.S., China and Russia.
An Indian Air Force SU-Mk30 during an U.S. Air Force exercise. U.S. Air Force Photo
“We anticipate that India’s defense spend will overtake France in 2016, the UK in 2018, and Japan in 2020. By the end of the decade, India is expected to be spending up to USD 17.4 billion on the procurement of defense equipment each year,” Craig Caffrey, senior Asia Pacific analyst, IHS Jane’s Defence Budgets on Friday.
Read More
