Between “late 2001” and the end of fiscal 2020, the US will have allocated and become obligated to spend approximately $6.4 trillion “in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars,” according to a Nov. 13 estimate from the Costs of War Project, ...
National Security
A recent set of experiments with laser and microwave weapons in Oklahoma is shaping how the Air Force moves forward with its plan to protect bases from drones using directed energy. Five systems participated in the Air Force portion of the Maneuver and Fires Integrated ...
New suppliers have been found for all but a dozen of the 850 parts Turkey is now making for the F-35, and most of the work is going to Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney, company and program officials told a House Armed Services panel ...
Lockheed Martin for the first time demonstrated a high-energy laser weapon’s ability to take out multiple small drones for the Air Force at the Army-hosted Maneuver and Fires Integrated Experiment last month. The Advanced Test High Energy Asset, or ATHENA system, shot down multiple fixed-wing ...
Retirees and survivors will see a slight increase in their benefits for 2020, the Pentagon announced. Most military retirees will receive a 1.6 percent bump to their retired pay starting Jan. 1 to reflect the cost of living increase, based on the Consumer Price Index.
Former Air Force Chief Scientist Mark J. Lewis has been appointed Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization, the Pentagon confirmed. Lewis will oversee the directors of 12 technologies the Defense Department deems its highest priorities, and their implementation roadmaps, ranging from hypersonics to ...
The US and South Korea will hold a scaled-down “flying training event” instead of the large-scale Vigilant Ace exercise again this year. Vigilant Ace, which exercised the pre-position air tasking order that simulates the first few days of conflict on the Korean peninsula, was one ...
Boeing may be bowing out of the competition to build the next intercontinental ballistic missile, but the work it has accomplished so far could get new life under other programs. The defense giant revealed its concerns with the Air Force's Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program over ...
The Air Force aims to split $30 billion in savings from accelerating the retirement of legacy assets in four “bins,” according to Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, who offered the most detailed picture yet of investment initiatives coming in the 2021 budget request. Savings ...

