Kurdish Peshmerga are added to next year’s National Defense Authorization Act

Kurdish Peshmerga are added to next year’s National Defense Authorization Act

The Kurdish Peshmerga military forces have been added to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Peshmerga had been left out of an earlier draft, and this had drawn concern from various parties, citing Iraq’s withholding of Kurdish shares in the past. On several occasions, the Iraqi government has withheld U.S. aid from Kurdistan’s military […]

Iraq is finally taking action as protests and public dissent continue to build

Iraq is finally taking action as protests and public dissent continue to build

A lump sum of $15 million is being extracted from the Iraqi government’s emergency budget for crisis containment solutions — specifically regarding the out of control protests and widespread chaos currently engulfing southern Iraq. Iraq’s Council of Ministers, chaired by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, determined that $2.5 million should be earmarked for the port city […]

Pentagon wants to pull funds from ‘low priority’ projects for hypersonic missiles, long range artillery

Pentagon wants to pull funds from ‘low priority’ projects for hypersonic missiles, long range artillery

The Pentagon has submitted a request to Congress to reallocate some $4.7 billion toward higher priority programs aimed at making the American defense apparatus more capable and lethal in the shortest timeline possible. The funds would be drawn from programs deemed “lower priority” by Defense Department officials, and redistributed into programs that could offset growing […]

Russia is bargain hunting their way to becoming a legitimate threat

Russia is bargain hunting their way to becoming a legitimate threat

With Russia so frequently dominating the headlines of the American media, one could be forgiven for believing we’re amid a full scale resurgence of the Cold War. While there are certainly parallels between today’s geopolitical climate and the heyday of American/Soviet staring contests, this new Cold War, if you’re so inclined to call it that, […]

Pentagon says new bomber is progressing on schedule beneath shroud of secrecy

Pentagon says new bomber is progressing on schedule beneath shroud of secrecy

Despite the F-35’s knack for grabbing headlines, an even more expensive aircraft has been steaming toward production to little fanfare: the B-21 Raider. Expected to serve as America’s go-to bomber platform for decades to come, the B-21 borrows from previous stealth platforms while incorporating new (and often not-yet-public) technologies intended to make it the premier […]

Lockheed Martin awarded $928 million to help US catch up in hypersonic missile race

Lockheed Martin awarded $928 million to help US catch up in hypersonic missile race

Every so often, a new kind of weapon comes along that fundamentally shifts the way humans conduct warfare: bows extended the range of the battlefield, airplanes created air support, and the atomic bomb made “total war” too terrible to conduct with the regularity of conventional warfare. Increasingly, hypersonic missile platforms are beginning to look like […]

Peshmerga to receive $290 million from the US in 2019

Peshmerga to receive $290 million from the US in 2019

The 2019 U.S. defense budget was approved on Thursday by the U.S. House of Representatives, $290 million of which will be allocated to Kurdistan’s Peshmerga military forces — under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The U.S. budget for Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) is $560 out of $850 million, the rest will be allocated to […]

Repairs on the USS Gerald R. Ford engines and elevators to cost another $120 million

Repairs on the USS Gerald R. Ford engines and elevators to cost another $120 million

Last week, SOFREP reported on a previously undisclosed breakdown of the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, that took place in during sea trials in January of this year. The issue, determined to be a manufacturing defect in the GE sourced main thrust bearings, resulted in two separate breakdowns, the second of […]

More problems for the Navy’s newest carrier — now it’s the propulsion system

More problems for the Navy’s newest carrier — now it’s the propulsion system

A previously undisclosed issue with the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, forced it to return to port during shakedown testing in January, the branch admitted this week. For the second time, an issue with the carrier, which cost just short of $13 billion to build, has raised questions […]