Author: Defenceline Webdesk

WASHINGTON — A memo signed out by Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg this week is the latest in the Pentagon’s attempt to streamline defense acquisition, but also serves as a corrective to a previous declaration that had concerned industry, analysts tell Breaking Defense. Tuesday’s memo, titled “Fostering One Strong Industrial Base,” primarily targets the Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) used across government, encouraging them to be replaced instead with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) used in the commercial sector.   “We will accept GAAP-based accounting across all contracts to the maximum extent the law permits,” Feinberg writes. “Transparency and…

Nokia Defense and C3IA will expedite digital transformation across UK defence operations. Credit: Robson90/Shutterstock.com. Nokia Defense and UK-based C3IA have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to jointly advance digital communications capabilities for the UK defence sector. The MoU was signed during the 2026 Defence Vehicle Dynamics (DVD), the UK’s biennial event focused on land warfare and defence equipment. Discover B2B Marketing That Performs Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms. Find out more Under the agreement, Nokia’s portfolio in fixed and mobile connectivity will be integrated with C3IA’s strengths in systems…

WASHINGTON — The US State Department has cleared the potential sale of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to Saudi Arabia, fulfilling a commitment of President Donald Trump despite security concerns over transferring the highly advanced stealth jet to the Gulf kingdom.  In a notice published today, the State Department said Riyadh has been approved to buy up to 48 F-35As — the conventional takeoff and landing variant of the fighter — along with 49 F135 engines in a deal valued at up to $24.3 billion. The potential sale would include support equipment and training, among other items.  The F-35 is manufactured…

WASHINGTON — The Army’s lead for the Drone Dominance program said today that the Defense Department’s gauntlet-style competitions have, in part, helped get enough drones for every squad, but now the service needs more trained personnel to operate them, especially when operating in a contested electromagnetic spectrum.  “We do have the volume to do that. A lot of that has been facilitated by [the Pentagon’s] Drone Dominance program,” Col. Gregory Merkl, the Army’s Drone Dominance director, said. “Where we still have some work to do, candidly, is getting everybody trained at the appropriate level. “I think if you look across…

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman wants to expand its market share as a supplier to munitions providers, with ongoing discussions about increasing its work on eight different weapons programs, its chief executive said today. “We are taking this opportunity to work with partners we have not worked with before, show them the products we have, and define what our path is to gaining share on those weapons,” Northrop CEO Kathy Warden told investors at the Morgan Stanley conference today. “There are 10 agreements — about eight weapons — that we are in active discussions with various primes on.” Warden added that…

On July 2, Lobga Rangzen, a Tibetan man who had taken the word meaning “independence and freedom” as his name, set himself on fire outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. His act came one day after China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law took effect. In a video posted before his death, he denounced the law as an erasure of Tibetan identity and called on Tibetans-in-exile to take up their responsibility.  He chose the spot deliberately, too. Tibetans have looked to the U.N. for redress since 1950, when Tibet’s appeal first went to the new global body. The…

WASHINGTON — The Army has awarded Lockheed Martin’s helicopter subsidiary Sikorsky an additional $234 million in an undefined contract action (UCA) for an initial 16 Black Hawk UH-60 helicopters, the service and the company announced today.  The total contact value is now worth $356 million. The news comes as Sikorsky’s 10th multiyear deal, awarded in 2022 by the Army, is set to conclude by the end of 2027. The company plans to start delivering the 16 aircraft to the Army when the current multiyear deal ends, Rich Benton, Sikorsky’s vice president and general manager told reporters ahead of the Army’s…

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—With an eye on the Navy’s progress toward an unmanned aerial tanker, Air Force planners are asking questions about their own future tanker fleet.“Thinking beyond the current KC-46 buy and the program extension. Whatever that next tanker looks like—our advanced tanker system—it’s got to be connected. It’s got to be able to defend itself. But it begs the question: Does it need to be manned? Could it be optionally manned, or could it be autonomous, or is there a family of solutions maybe that would answer that question?” Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, who leads Air Mobility Command, told…

Before the BRICS summit in New Delhi, political analysts had warned that India would have to do a very difficult tightrope walk given the presence of China, Russia, and Iran. It was a foregone conclusion that they would use this platform for U.S. bashing. With India’s current tug-of-war with the Donald Trump administration, the honchos at South Block (India’s foreign ministry headquarters) used nuanced vocabulary and calibrated the final declaration in such a way that the United States was not named, but the declaration explicitly called for an end to unilateral economic sanctions, protectionist trade measures, and arbitrary tariffs. The…

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Space Force modernization efforts could slow if Congress doesn’t pass a full budget at the end of the year, the service’s leaders said. “We’re on this ramp-up, right, consistent with our overall strategy and the recognition that the space domain is a critical domain, in and of itself, but also for the joint force,” Erich Hernandez-Baquero, the Space Force’s top buyer, told reporters Tuesday. “Now we’re going to run into [fiscal year 2027]—and you saw that our budget request was to continue on that—and this [continuing resolution] is definitely going to put the brakes on that for a time…