DOD’s need for battlefield awareness and network-centric warfare has driven a boom over the last decade among contractors that have the ability to join up disparate military computers, communications networks, and sensors. But according to the interim director of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation, costs are getting out of hand and need to be drawn down. “We can no longer live with programs that take decades to develop,” Terry Pudas told a meeting of aerospace and defense industry executives at a Coronado, Calif., conference. He added, or ones that simply are known as being “lucrative.”
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.