CORRECTS: Attribution to Col. Joe UPDATED: 432 Wing Commander Wants GBU-54 Next CREECH AIR FORCE BASE: The Air Force has added the Joint Direct Attack Munition (GBU-38) a GPS-guided bomb, to the Reaper drone force, dropping the first one in a combat strike in Operation Inherent Resolve on Thursday. Lt. Col. David, director of […]
WASHINGTON: There’s a lot we don’t know about MOAB, the bomb originally designed to terrify and obliterate Iraqi troops and used in combat for the first time today in Afghanistan. We know that it is guided by GPS. We know that it’s very big — 27,100 pounds or so — and works well against caves […]
WASHINGTON: Airstrikes against the Islamic State have dropped 30 percent since June, because Islamic State retreats and Turkish advances have made it much harder to find targets, three experts told us. The administration’s self-imposed limits and negotiations with Russia — of which the military is very wary — restrict airstrikes as well. The ground war in Iraq […]
FORT BRAGG, NC: The US is not practicing traditional counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare in Iraq and Syria. Instead, the US is providing high-tech firepower, cyber power, and other “enablers” to local allies who don’t have them, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said here today. That approach, which ranges from stealth fighters to “cyber bombs,” has a lot in common with […]
CORRECTED strikes per day figure WASHINGTON: The air war against the Islamic State is not “anemic,” a Central Command spokesman told Breaking Defense, rebutting a critique of the campaign we published last week. To say the rate of airstrikes in Syria and Iraq is less than against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, Serbia and Kosovo in […]
As Pentagon enthusiasm grows for robotic weapons, and drones proliferate to militaries and terrorists around the world, it’s worth remembering some basic questions of ethics, law, and strategy remain unsettled. For insight, we turn to Rachel Stohl, the director of the Conventional Defense program at the Stimson Center and the primary author of the recently […]