At the height of the Cold War in 1983, President Ronald Reagan proposed a space-based missile defense program called the Strategic Defense Initiative. He said it would protect the entire US from a nuclear attack, eventually making nuclear weapons obsolete. The plan was quickly dubbed “Star Wars” because it sounded like something out of a […]
Amidst the flurry of executive orders and appointments in the past week, a Ukraine-shaped elephant has lurked in the corner of the Oval Office. President Trump has long expressed doubt over US support for Ukraine, repeatedly saying he would end the war in a matter of days. So far, he’s failed to do so—but is […]
Pete Hegseth was sworn in as Secretary of Defense Friday, bringing an end to a months-long confirmation saga that featured everything from strip clubs to claims of alcohol abuse to allegations of sexual assault. The final senate vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host split the Senate 50-50, mostly along party lines (Republicans […]
Amidst the hustle and bustle of the days leading up to Trump’s inauguration, the Pentagon quietly released a long-awaited piece of news: the implementation plan for PPBE reform. For those lucky enough not to know, PPBE stands for the DoD’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process—essentially, the way the Pentagon buys stuff. Bureaucratic bungle: Critics across […]
In the waning days of the Biden Administration, it seems like everyone is talking about defense innovation. On Monday, the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) released the results of two studies on the US defense industry at its winter board meeting—“Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation” and “A Pathway to Scaling Unmanned Weapons Systems”—and it looks like Anduril […]
