A government advisory panel, convened by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, recommended today that Japan make major changes to its defense policy. Prompted by recent tensions with China and North Korea, the panel recommended a reinterpretation of the national Constitution allowing Japan to exercise its right to collective self defense. Read More
Navy SEALs train at Virginia Beach, Va. in 2012. U.S. Navy Photo
The following is the May 8, 2014 Congressional Research Service report, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress. Read More
A 1994 test launch of a U.S. Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. U.S. Air Force Photo
The following is the May 5, 2014 Congressional Research Service report, Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues. Read More
USS George Washington (CVN-73) and its strike group in 2013. The House voted to refuel the carrier rather than decommission the ship early Thursday morning. US Navy Photo
House defense lawmakers soundly rejected proposed Pentagon cuts to a number of big-ticket weapons programs in their version of the department’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget blueprint. Read More
Landing craft air cushion (LCAC) vehicles from Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 approach the well deck of the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD-5) on April 28, 2014. US Navy Photo
From the April 7, 2014 Joint Concept for Entry Operations: The Joint Concept for Entry Operations describes in broad terms my vision for how joint forces will enter onto foreign territory and immediately employ capabilities to accomplish assigned missions. This includes conducting entry in the presence of armed opposition characterized by increasingly advanced area denial systems as well as where the environment and infrastructure may be degraded or austere. Read More
Philippine and U.S. Marines participating as part of Exercise Balikatan 2013. US Marine Corps Photo
Days after Washington and Manila struck a new defense pact to increase U.S. military presence in the Philippines, thousands of American troops are streaming into the southern part of the country for a new round of large-scale military exercises. Read More
US Navy Photo
The following is the April 29, 2014 Congressional Research Service report on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. Read More
U.S. Navy and Philippine military officials during the humanitarian aid and disaster relief operation in Tacloban in 2013. US Navy Photo
Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg signed a historic accord on Monday and signaled a return of American forces to the island nation. Read More
An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator sits on an aircraft elevator of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on May 6.
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) seeks to put on hold the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft program and directs the Pentagon to fund a study for a future carrier-borne unmanned strike aircraft, according to language in the HASC’s Seapower and Projections Forces Committee’s mark of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Bill. Read More
The following is the mark of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces committee’s mark on the Fiscal Year 2015 Naitional Defense Authorization Bill, released on April 29, 2014. Read More
