The devastatingly destructive potential of cyber attacks has become the security challenge of our age, said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “Cyber is one of those quiet, deadly, insidious unknowns you can’t see,” said Hagel while speaking to about 200 service members at JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii on May 30 on the opening leg of his official trip to Singapore. “It’s in the ether—it’s not one big navy sailing into a port, or one big army crossing a border, or squadrons of fighter planes. . . . This is a very difficult, but real and dangerous, threat. There is no higher priority for our country than this issue,” he added. Hagel noted that cyber is “one of the very few items” pegged to receive a boost in funding in the Pentagon’s Fiscal 2014 budget request. (AFPS report by Karen Parrish)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.