U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter was visiting Israel Monday as it prepared to receive the first two next-generation F-35 fighter jets that will help preserve the country’s military edge in the volatile Mideast. The F-35 is the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program, with an estimated cost of nearly $400 billion. Israel is among a small…
Pentagon Chief, An Expert on Nukes, Says Little About Them
As defense secretary to a president who famously envisioned “a world without nuclear weapons,” Ash Carter has said remarkably little about them. He has been quiet on a range of nuclear issues, including the Pentagon’s $8 billion effort to correct an array of morale, training, discipline and resource problems in the Air Force nuclear missile…
US Pentagon Chief Proposes Asia-Pacific ‘Security Network’
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is proposing to accelerate and deepen defense cooperation in the Asia-Pacific by expanding a “security network” of countries whose militaries would train together and eventually operate together. Speaking to an international security conference in Singapore on Saturday, Carter said China would be welcomed in this network. But he also cited…
North Korean Nuclear Threats Spotlight U.S. Missile Defense
As North Korea rattles its nuclear saber, threatening to bomb the U.S. at “any moment,” a nerve-jangling question hangs in the air: If Pyongyang did launch a nuclear-armed missile at an American city, could the Pentagon’s missile defenses overcome their spotty test record and shoot it down beyond U.S. shores? America has never faced such…
New Navy Leader: Nukes ‘Foundational to Our Survival’
In his blueprint for a stronger Navy, the sea service’s new top boss, Adm. John M. Richardson, is blunt about what he thinks matters most: nuclear punch. Battling terrorists is today’s problem, but in looking toward a farther horizon, Richardson wants a Navy built to counter unpredictable future threats from other countries. No. 1 on…