It’s fair to say that John Lehman is the most influential Navy Secretary of the last half century. Under President Ronald Reagan, Lehman “had an almost revolutionary impact on the Navy,” according to naval expert Norm Polmar. Lehman drove hard and pushed to build what has become known as the 600-ship Navy. Lehman knows how a… Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: The Republican congressman who oversees the Navy actually likes Barack Obama’s 2016 defense budget — except for one small thing: It isn’t really a budget. “It would be almost a misnomer to call this a budget. It’s [just] numbers,” Rep. Randy Forbes told me this morning, in advance of tomorrow’s budget hearing. “If you… Keep reading →
ARLINGTON: No one knows what the 2016 budget is really going to be. In fact, no one can even plan properly for what it might be, the highest-ranking budgeteer in Army uniformmade clear this morning. The uncertainty is coming at the Pentagon from two sides at the same time. On the demand side, there’s… Keep reading →
“We’re long past the point of doing more with less,” said the blunt-spoken Under Secretary of the Navy, Robert Work. “We are going to be doing less with less in the future.”
But with a continuing resolution, sequestration in three weeks, and to-be-determined defense cuts a likely part of any “grand bargain” to avert the fiscal cliff, how much less is maddeningly unclear. So it’s impossible to make intelligent plans or choices. Keep reading →
This November, the Defense Logistics Agency will require companies selling microcircuits to the military to stamp their products with an unlikely seal of authenticity: plant DNA.
It’s an innovative initiative in the fight against counterfeit computer chips, which has been a major concern in the Senate, but it’s only one piece of the answer. DLA plans to put out a formal Request For Information sometime this month to ask industry to offer other, complementary authenticity-checking technologies, and Congress is watching closely. Keep reading →
Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House intelligence committee, slammed the administration’s cybersecurity approach Thursday but expressed guarded optimism that his own stalled legislation — which the White House has threatened to veto — might be revived when Congress reconvenes after the election.
“There was a very good meeting with some members of the Senate,” Rogers told the audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s cybersecurity conference this afternoon, speaking immediately after NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander. (The Chamber has campaigned, successfully, against some cybersecurity legislation but endorsed Roger’s Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA). Keep reading →
The United States is “losing the cyber espionage war” against China, Russia and other countries, but even in the face of such a grave threat the country cannot agree on how to protect its precious intellectual seed capital from these predations, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says.
“We are running out of time on this,” Rep. Mike Rogers, respected for working closely with his ranking member, said in a speech at today’s Intelligence and National Security Alliance‘s (INSA) cyber conference here. Keep reading →
The nation needs cyber-security legislation to authorize sharing of threat data between industry and government in real time, said Gen. Keith Alexander, chief of both the National Security Agency and the US Cyber Command, and it can be done without any danger to individual privacy.
“This cyber legislation that’s coming up is going to be absolutely vital to the future of our country,” said Gen. Alexander. Keep reading →
Washington: The outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pulled no punches during his last week on the job, saying today that the across-the-board defense cuts under the so-called “doomsday” scenario will break the military.
For the first time, Adm. Mike Mullen said this afternoon that if the Super Committee set up by the White House is forced to cut any more from national security coffers, the military simply would not survive. Keep reading →