I wrote a piece recently on the long list of developments in the waters off Iran.

It's something I think most military writers, and readers, think about a lot lately and while I can only speak for myself, it's getting hard to make the situation real for my readers.

After spending three days on the USS Wasp in May and catching a glimpse of the people aboard the ships that make up the U.S. fleet, I know what's behind the names of the ships we list when describing a naval buildup.

The sailors that populate the ships assigned there and what their lives are like, is where America's understanding falters. The Persian Gulf and sweeping for mines, it's abstract and I want to go for the minesweeping exercises in September and make it real.

The 11 day exercises will bring together 20 countries to practice a worst-case scenario that might find the Strait of Hormuz, where nearly 40 percent of the world's oil passes, blocked by underwater mines. Iran has threatened to close the strait in the past and could attempt to do so if the U.S. attacks Tehran's nuclear facilities.

I'd love to go cover this firsthand. If you're in a position to help my naval embark request along its way and get me onto a Navy ship to cover the joint exercise, please let me know: rjohnson@businessinsider.com

Now: Check out the USS Wasp >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Following last week's announcement from the U.S. Air Force that its 30,000 pound bunker-buster bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), was ready for action, Iran's state-owned media outlet PressTV has published an angry reply.

From PressTV:

This week, a threat against Iran by the United States was published by the UK Telegraph. Peter Foster, of their Washington Bureau met with Mike Donnelly, US Air Force Secretary to question him about deployment of experimental “bunker buster” bombs...He has no combat experience and cannot fly an airplane. He is a perfect choice to run an Air force.   

The dogging of Donnelly's lack of combat aviation experience kind of sums up the tone for the rest of the very long post.

From there it calls the MOP's cost, effectiveness, and delivery into question:

[The Massive Ordnance Penetrator] has never been successfully tested. Essentially, it is an 8” cannon barrel filled with high explosives hoped to be dropped from the B2 Stealth Bomber. Each B2 costs $2.1 billion dollars not to mention the $300 billion in design costs.

It then goes on to to say there are concerns that dropping a "defective bomb on non-existent targets without rationale or legal authority" raises concerns.

From there PressTV mentions it's also hoped, presumably by the U.S., that Iran has not modified its air defense like Serbia did in the '90s — a move that allowed it to shoot down "several" American stealth planes. The reference must be to the F-177A  taken down down over Serbia in 1999.

The post then changes the MOP to MOb and says every member of Congress involved in the MOP project "have accepted large campaign contributions from Israeli sources in the past few months and are expecting more."

The response is fascinating, and confusing in equal measure, but well worth checking out.

The MOP was sent back to Boeing at the beginning of the year for modifications that would allow it to penetrate what was believed to be Iran's deep nuclear facilities.

Though still undergoing enhancements and modifications the Air Force says the bomb is ready to take out whatever targets it has in mind. 

It appears Iran is convinced those targets may be Tehran's alleged nuclear facilities.

Check out the full piece here >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

The Missile Defense Agency just awarded Raytheon $925 million for development of the newest version of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), which will improve on the already hugely successful SM-3 designs in service right now. 

This project will be a collaboration between Japan and the United States. The two navies use the SM-3 to potentially destroy short and intermediate range ballistic missiles. 

Currently, the SM-3 Block IA is in service and the Block IB will be by installed 2015. This new version is an upgrade, the Block IIA.

So far, the SM-3 program has had 21 successful missile interceptions. Destroying incoming ballistic missiles, often referred to as the "hitting a bullet with a bullet" problem, is remarkably difficult. 

We took a look at what the SM-3 does. 

The SM-3 is launched from a Vertical Launch System on a ship

The initial lift is from an Aerojet rocket booster

The missile connects with the command center on the ship right after launch, receiving guidance from the AEGIS system

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

With the Pentagon's increased focus on the Pacific region, and deployment of 60 percent of its naval fleet to the area, the locations now being considered for bases could shape U.S. military policy for decades. 

Guam has been a prime contender for years, but a new report out by the Center of Strategic and International Studies could bring that plan into reality.

Brett Kelman at Pacific Daily News reports 109 unclassified pages of the document were released yesterday and outline a plan to move as many as 5,000 marines to the U.S. territory.

While this is a few thousand troops less than originally planned, the report also recommends bringing more weapons systems than originally called for.

If the White House agrees to the plan, which was drafted to reignite stalled efforts at a 2007 buildup agenda, the island could see three new submarines, a rotation of 12 B-52 bombers, and an extensive missile defense system to protect it all.

Already hosting B-52 rotations, Submarine Squadron 15 which includes three Los Angeles class nuclear submarines, and Naval Special Warfare Unit One which includes three SEAL teams — and a specialized group to deliver the SEALs into hostile territories — the additional buildup would make Guam a sizeable outpost in the Philippine Sea.

Guam is about 2,200 miles closer to Taiwan than Hawaii, already home to U.S. forces and the port facilities necessary to host and maintain fleet operations. 

Given these considerations there seems little doubt that the island will see an increased U.S. military presence and we'll follow this up when additional information becomes available.

In the meantime we'll start taking a look at other proposed bases in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore in the coming days.

Now: See how the U.S. could protect itself against a full-on attack >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

After a cross-country road trip last month that left many Americans believing the government was hauling around a UFO, Northrop Grumman's X-47B took its first East Coast flight July 29 at Patuxent River, Md.

After several weeks of preparation the X-47B took to the Maryland skies at 11 a.m. for a 35 minute flight that took it out over Chesapeake Bay. Climbing to 7,500 feet the stealth drone hit an airspeed of 207 mph before returning to the naval base for a successful landing.

The X-47B is slated to be the Navy's first fully integrated aircraft carrier drone and Patuxent River is home to a simulated carrier center that will allow for controlled testing before letting the drone pound a flight deck at sea.

Also in the running for supplying the Navy with its first fleet of carrier drones, Lockheed Martin did not sit idly by while the Grumman's craft grabbed all the attention and released its firs partial artist image of its Sea Ghost drone aboard a US carrier.

Now: Check out the drones of the future >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

There is some controversy and debate about China's first foray into the Black Sea.

On the surface two Chinese vessels have entered the inland sea just days after the conclusion of the 2012 Sea Breeze exercises, for the first time ever, according to Radio Free Europe.

The Sea Breeze exercises included 1,500 troops from 16 countries, including the U.S., Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Algiers, Belgium, Georgia, Israel, Canada, Moldova, Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Turkey and concluded July 21.

China's "Qingdao" destroyer, with guided missiles, and the "Yantai" patrol boat entered the sea on July 31 at the request of Ukraine.

The two ships will reportedly part ways, with the patrol boat docking at Romania and the destroyer staying at Ukraine's port of Sevastopol until August 4.

The news of the destination comes after reports that the same Chinese ships passed through the Suez canal on July 27. 

The Global Times reports the Qingdao and the Yantai were in the Suez teaching sailors the process of navigating the canal under the guidance of experienced Egyptian sailors.

Al Arabiya reports the Suez crossing outraged the Syrian opposition who say Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood does not have the right to control traffic in the strategically vital Suez.

The Syrian opposition forces are convinced the ships carried arms to be used against them, but the Chinese maintain the ships are delivering commodities to the Ukraine.

The Daily News out of Egypt offers even more speculation on the crossing and the ships involved >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Members of al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadist organizations are entering Syria and establishing themselves as some of the best fighters in the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad's regime, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad of the Guardian reports from Syria.

Abdul-Ahad spoke with Abu Khuder, an al-Qaeda fighter who fought with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) before becoming a battalion commander for al-Qaeda's organization in Syria known as the Solidarity Front.

Khuder's men blend in with other rebels as they wear combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards, but they call themselves "strangers" and fight for al-Qaeda. Nevertheless his men meet with members of FSA's military council almost every day.

From the Guardian: 

"We have clear instructions from our [al-Qaida] leadership that if the FSA need our help we should give it. We help them with IEDs and car bombs. Our main talent is in the bombing operations."

Khuder told Abdul-Ahad that he helped form one of the first FSA battalions and gained a reputation as one of the bravest and most ruthless men in the Deir el-Zour province but began fighting with local Islamists after becoming frustrated with the disorganization and lack of discipline of the FSA.

Martin Chulov of the Guardian reports that the ongoing battle in Aleppo has brought "scores of foreign jihadists" to fight against regime troops, and other accounts mention incoming fighters from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Belgium Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chechnya and Britain.

Al Jazeera reports that some jihadist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda have begun to fly its black flags and say they now have established training camps inside the country.

Phil Rees, filmmaker and author of Dining with Terrorists, told Al Jazeera that it is no longer clear who are freedom fighters and who are al-Qaeda:

"Who is Al Qaeda? Someone coming from Libya who helped overthrow [Muammar] Gaddafi? During Libya, they were considered to be freedom fighters and the British government supported them. Now they travel to Syria where they feel a jihad going on," he said. "Therefore would you call them Al Qaeda? I don't think so."

The Telegraph reports British photographer John Cantlie and Dutchman Jeroen Oerlemans were held in captivity by 30 to 100 Islamists until their release Thursday, and Oerlemans told Dutch media that some of the men had British accents. None of the men were Syrian as the Europeans were released only after members of the FSA showed up and demanded their release.

A local FSA commander told Abdul-Ahad that the relationship between the FSA and the al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have been filled with secrecy and distrust, adding that the jihadists are good fighters but the FSA fears that they will act with the same brutality that led to a sectarian war in Iraq.

A young jihadi from Abu Khuder's unit was more blunt, saying that the al-Qaeda fighters "are stealing the revolution from us and they are working for the day that comes after." 

SEE ALSO: Syria Is Looking At A Complete Free-For-All If The Assad Regime Falls >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Able to carry 800 Marines and their gear anyplace they need to go — the San Antonio Class Amphibious Transport Dock is vital for projecting U.S. forces abroad: but they don't come cheap.

The newest vessel will cost American taxpayers about $1.5 billion and is designed to be the the most survivable amphibious assault ship ever designed.

While the Defense Department's director of evaluations doesn't agree, and thinks the ship's critical systems aren't reliable, and the ship will crumble against an attack — it didn't stop the Pentagon from purchasing one more — last week.

Given the ship's weighty cost and its debatable abilities we thought we'd take a look at what the Pentagon's getting for the taxpayers' dollars.

The Navy's six active San Antonio-class amphibious Landing Platform Dock ships are an integral part of the Navy's future

The flight deck holds up to four Sea Knight helicopters that together can transport 100 troops or 28,000 pounds of cargo

The second LPD to hit the seas was christened the USS Green Bay and its flight deck is called "Lambeau Field" after the Packers stadium

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

The Government Accountability Office just released a report backing up earlier findings: because a series of recommendations were ignored, the U.S. electric grid remains highly susceptible to cyberattacks. 

The grid is reliant on a number of IT systems that have known and likely unknown vulnerabilities. The result of a cyberattack on the grid could result in damage to electricity control systems, power outages, and failures in safety equipment on a scale currently unknown. 

GAO believes that there are still massive problems in the way the grid secures itself. Here are some of the reasons why they said the grid was open to attack:

• A lack of a coordinated approach to monitor industry compliance with voluntary standards.
• Aspects of the current regulatory environment made it difficult to ensure the cybersecurity of smart grid systems.
• A focus by utilities on regulatory compliance instead of comprehensive security.
• A lack of security features consistently built into smart grid systems.

The verdict? A terrible regulatory environment that makes the industry focus on things that don't make the grid more secure. Electric companies who couldn't care less about spending more on security. A lack of focus on preventing an attack against the electric lifeblood of the United States.

The worst is, GAO told the Government what they had to do last year, and it was ignored. 

The Department of Commerce's report on smart grid security was "missing key elements" and has not been fixed.

The Department of Energy was tasked with "periodically evaluate[ing] the extent to which utilities [...] are following voluntary interoperability and cybersecurity standards" and this report says they haven't.

Until that happens, the grid remains wide open. And all anyone has to do is look at India this week to see what happens when a nation's grid collapses. 

Now, check out how the world's most advanced missile defense system takes out a target >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) warned its employees and contractors to stop watching and downloading porn on government computers, Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg reports. 

Executive Director John James Jr. circulated a memo on July 27 that "there have been instances of employees and contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images.”

The MDA has a proposed 2013 budget of $7.7 billion.

A government cybersecurity specialist told Bloomberg that criminals and foreign intelligence services use viruses embedded in pornographic websites to gain access to data from government and corporate computer networks.

James wrote that the "seriousness of the potential breach to operations cannot be overstated.”

Of course looking at porn at work also wastes time and taxpayer money.

SEE ALSO: Hearing About Dozens Of 'Confirmed Kills' During A Lap Dance Sticks With You >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that.

But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad's opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble.

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment.

'NERVE CENTER'

A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.

Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.

This "nerve center" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.

Turkey's moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad's departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment.

European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad's departure.

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad's helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Syrian government armed forces have employed such air power more extensively in recent days.

NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey.

On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had "not obtained any such weapons at all." U.S. government sources said they could not confirm the MANPADs deliveries, but could not rule them out either.

Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas.

Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad's opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a "memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding.

Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels.

Reuters first reported last week that the White House had crafted a directive authorizing greater U.S. covert assistance to Syrian rebels. It was unclear at that time whether Obama had signed it.

OVERT SUPPORT

Separately from the president's secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad's opponents.

The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for "non-lethal" assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios.

The State Department also says the United States has set aside $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury confirmed it had granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, Washington representative of one of the most active rebel factions, the Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group's behalf. The authorization was first reported on Friday by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website.

Last year, when rebels began organizing themselves to challenge the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama also signed an initial "finding" broadly authorizing secret U.S. backing for them. But the president moved cautiously in authorizing specific measures to support them.

Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad's opponents.

Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups.

Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad's opponents.

U.S. and European officials say that, so far, intelligence agencies do not believe the militants' role in the anti-Assad opposition is dominant.

While U.S. and allied government experts believe that the Syrian rebels have been making some progress against Assad's forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter Cooney)

Now, check out the $1.5 billion ship that drops Marines on any shore >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Gearing up for Iran's annual "Qods Day", a nationwide event dedicated to expressing outrage against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted a speech to his website saying world forces must work together to annihilate Israel.

Joanna Paraszczuk at The Jerusalem Post reports Ahmadinejad followed that up by telling ambassadors from Islamic countries that a "horrible Zionist current" has been directing global policies for "about 400 years."

From The Jerusalem Post: 

Repeating traditional anti-Semitic slurs, the Iranian president accused "Zionists" of controlling the world's media and financial systems. It was Zionists, he said, who were “behind the scene of the world’s main powers, media, monetary and banking centers.” 

"They are the decision makers, to the extent that the presidential election hopefuls [of the USA] must go and kiss the feet of the Zionists to ensure their election victory,” he added. Ahmadinejad added that "liberating Palestine" would solve all the world's problems, although he did not elaborate on exactly how that might work.

Qods Day, or Jerusalem Day, was established as a national holiday in 1979 and sees massive crowds condemning Israel and the U.S. government with chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."

Ahmadinejad has called the holocaust a myth and last invited Israel's annihilation in 2005 when he said it should be "wiped off the page of time."

The president added:  "Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom.”

Israel is concerned Iran may develop nuclear capabilities and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Israeli's Prime Minister Wednesday that the use of force against Tehran remains an active possibility.

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

So far, nearly everyone in government has remained coy about what exactly gets cut if sequestration — the mandatory spending cuts that make up one half of the "Fiscal Cliff" — goes through.

Yesterday was a huge day for people trying to figure out what could go down in January, but it was also one of the more disconcerting hearings on the hill in recent memory. 

Here's the stage: the House Armed Services Committee called Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget Jeffrey Zientz and Pentagon second-in-command Ashton Carter to the stand to testify about the possible $55 billion cuts. 

The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan back and forth which tried to shift blame for the impending fiscal apocalypse between the legislative and the executive. 

But between all the bickering we learned how the Department of Defense will handle one of the largest budget cuts in history if the policy called a "blunt indiscriminate instrument to force action" fails to do so. 

Here are the takeaways.

The gist of the plan:

• The Department of Defense will identify "exempt" and "nonexempt" budget lines.
• The sequestration is a blanket policy that affects each and every contract and budget line with a single percentage budget cut. Every single non-exempted contract, research project, and account is reduced by the exact same number. 

The Afghanistan War fund is under the knife, and it'll be Army and Marines who pay for it. 

• The funds for the Afghanistan war — "OCO," or Overseas Contingency Operations — will be cut along with everything else. 
• The one plan they have to deal with this has to do with the Operations & Management budget. Without going into too much detail, they'd shift the burden from the War front to the home front.
• What does that mean? In the view of Ashton Carter, They would sacrifice the training and preparedness of some troops bound for deployment in favor of troops with earlier deployment dates.
• In the view of the Department of Defense, this would hollow out the Army and Marines the most. 

The civilian employees of the Department of Defense could take the biggest hit. 

Right now, there are a mere two weeks left in the legislative session. A pre-election solution is laughably improbable. If Congress and the President cannot come together to stop these cuts, the military left afterwards will be — according to Carter — an unready and "hollow" force.

See the billion dollar missile system that could be one of the casualties >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

The Pentagon's $600,000 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAP) do not save more lives than cheaper alternatives and therefore are a huge waste of money, according to a study by Chris Rohlfs and Ryan Sullivan of Foreign Affairs.

Last summer Pentagon claimed that the $45 billion program to design, manufacture, and deploy 27,000 heavily protected vehicles into Iraq and Afghanistan had saved the lives of 40,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But a study by Rohlfs and Sullivan – using For Official Use Only Pentagon data – found that the heavily-armored MRAPs were no better at saving lives than Humvees with "medium" amounts of armor plating and mine protection.

One life was saved for every seven up-armored Humvees purchased.

MRAPs cost $600,000 each while up-armored Humvees cost $170,000.

Furthermore some units have been reluctant to use the heavier vehicles because they knock down power lines, struggle on dirt and mud roads, and scare locals.

From Foreign Policy: 

"Accordingly, the purchase of MRAPs should be restricted to the relatively few units that are involved in intense combat, if at all… it does not make sense for the Defense Department to purchase MRAPs in large numbers."

But that's precisely what the Defense Department has been doing as it purchased another 5,244 MRAPs in 2009 despite the fact that "thousands of first-generation MRAPs now sit in southwest Asia and are not part of the Army's documented force structure" because of drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Furthering the waste, Tamir Eshel of Defense Update reports that in Afghanistan "the Army plans to scrap some of the vehicles, and could leave behind about 60 percent of the 21,000 MRAPs, to be stored in prepositioned stockpiles prepared for future contingency or sold to local military forces."

Given the fact that the military suicide rate is outpacing combat deaths this year, perhaps some MRAP money should go to improved health services for veterans.

SEE ALSO: The US Bought Another Of These 'Unreliable' $1.5-Billion Ships >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Scan over the Sierra Mountains about an hour north of Reno, Nevada and you’ll come across the sprawling complex known as the Sierra Army Depot, a remote location where the military stores unused equipment on 36 thousand square acres of inhospitably dry, high desert terrain.

Within the neatly lined rows of military equipment, among them Bradley Fighting Vehicles, lie hundreds of idled Abrams M1 tanks, the third generation main battle tank with a cannon powerful enough to make short work of most buildings.

Normally a military depot would not make for sexy headlines, save for the fact that a recent investigation put out by the Center for Public Integrity now questions the surprising resiliency of General Dynamic’s Abrams in the face of wider cutbacks by the Defense Department.

Specifically, CPI points to the $3 billion cuts now at stake for refurbishment projects to the M1 from 2014 through 2017 (not exactly a massive sum in context).

The budget draw down would mean a halt to work for the tank’s main factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as  harm what GD refers to as the “industrial base,” impacting smaller suppliers and potentially making the planned temporary shutdowns far costlier than expected. 

Since first rolling off the assembly line in 1979, over nine thousand units have been produced and seen service throughout the Middle East, as well as been fielded by the armies of Egypt, Kuwait, Australia and Saudi Arabia (over two thousand are currently deployed by the U.S.).

While most Americans can still remember watching the columns of dust behind Abrams rolling through the Iraqi desert during the first Gulf War on CNN, more recently the tanks have seen deployment in urban combat settings in Iraq, having to contend with roadside bombs and sneak attacks from rooftops – crude though often effective tactics at inflicting some damage. Abrams have seen a lesser role in Afghanistan, with the first company having been deployed to Helmand province in 2010.

The Pentagon now finds itself in the peculiar position of facing Congressional support for a refurbishment program it does not seem to particularly want. The White House, for its part, has also objected to the upgrades program in its response to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.

As the potential mission scope for the Abrams has narrowed for the U.S., interest from countries like Taiwan -- currently considering procurement of surplus M1A1 Abrams – is under scrutiny. Critics have argued that the large and heavy tank would be of little use in a country known for rugged interior mountains, and a highly urbanized coastline.

Meanwhile, plans to provide 400 Abrams to Greece’s military “free of charge” appear to be moving forward and some military analysts are left wondering whether the M1 tank may not be facing a similar hibernation period as the Navy’s WWII-era heavy battleships.

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

We stumbled across this great video shot by the pilot of an F/A-18 jet flying over the Sierra Nevada mountains on a flight run. 

The stills themselves are great pictures, and they also give the viewer a sense of what it's like to sit in the cockpit of one of the most famous planes in military history. 

Here, we take a look at what it takes to ride in an F/A-18, and what makes the jet so unique.

Here's the left side view from the cockpit of an F/A-18

The pilot is flying over the Sierra Nevada mountains and the view from the cockpit is absolutely wonderful

The F/A-18 is a highly maneuverable jet designed for multiple uses

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

The USS Virginia-class submarines are the United State's newest and most advanced submarine.

The first Virginia slipped beneath the waves just eight years ago and  only nine vessels have been completed.

They take more than five years to build and run about $2.4 billion apiece.

Here, we look at the Virginia class of submarines from stern to bow, finding out what makes these ships unique.

We'll start in the engine room, move our way over the reactor, through the barracks to the command center and down into the torpedo room. 

The Virginia-class submarine is a new breed of high-tech post-Cold War nuclear subs

The submarines are nearly 400 feet long and have been in service since 2003

The ships were designed to function well in both deep sea and low-depth waters

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium has been temporarily shut after anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security fences, government officials said on Thursday.

WSI Oak Ridge, the contractor responsible for protecting the facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is owned by the international security firm G4S, which was at the center of a dispute over security at the London Olympic Games.

Officials said the facility was shut down on Wednesday at least until next week after three activists cut through perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key nuclear bomb component, is stored.

The activists painted slogans and threw what they said was human blood on the wall of the facility, one of numerous buildings in the facility known by the code name Y-12 that it was given during World War Two, officials said.

While moving between the perimeter fences, the activists triggered sensors that alerted security personnel. But officials conceded the intruders were still able to reach the building's walls before security personnel got to them.

Ellen Barfield, a spokeswoman for the activists who called themselves "Transform Now Plowshares," said three were arrested and charged with vandalism and criminal trespass.

She said the three, identified as Megan Rice, 82, Michael Walli, 63 and Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, were being held in custody and appeared for a hearing before a U.S. magistrate judge in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Thursday.

A detention hearing is set for Friday afternoon, when prosecutors must show the defendants are a flight risk and a danger to the community in order to keep them in custody, according to court officials. The trial date is October 9.

Barfield forwarded a statement from the group in which it said the activists had passed through four fences and walked for "over two hours" before reaching the uranium storage building, on which they hung banners and strung crime-scene tape.

Ralph Hutchinson, coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said the group's intention was not to demonstrate the lack of security at the plant, but to take a stance against the making of nuclear weapons.

"It wasn't so they could show how easy it was to bust into this bomb plant, it was because the production of nuclear weapons violates everything that is moral and good," Hutchinson said. "It is a war crime."

NUCLEAR MATERIALS 'NOT COMPROMISED'

Officials said that the storage building itself, which was built after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, was designed with modern security features and that its contents were not compromised.

WSI Oak Ridge, the private firm employed by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide security at Y-12, is a subsidiary of the giant international security firm G4S.

G4S drew criticism for failing to provide the number of security personnel it promised to protect the London Olympic Games, forcing the British government to deploy extra army troops.

A spokeswoman for G4S declined to comment and referred inquiries to government spokespeople.

The security failure was an embarrassment both for the security firm and for the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, the Energy Department branch that operates U.S. nuclear weapons plants. "It was obviously a pretty serious incident," NNSA spokesman Joshua McConaha told Reuters.

"We're taking this very, very seriously," added Steve Wyatt, a spokesman for the NNSA office in Oak Ridge, which supervises the activities of Y-12 contractors.

The NNSA officials said the activists cut through two chain-link fences surrounding the sprawling facility and a third fence surrounding the ultra-secure enriched uranium stockpile building, known as the "Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility."

Wyatt said the building served as the U.S. government's only "warehouse" for storing highly enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons.

Highly enriched uranium is a radioactive material used in the core of bombs to produce a nuclear detonation. The Oak Ridge plant is one of the most important government installations involved in the maintenance and production of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

INCIDENT REVEALED NUCLEAR RISKS

Although the security breach occurred overnight last Friday, officials confirmed that the shutdown - which applies to "all nuclear operations" at the Y-12 site - did not begin until Wednesday. Officials said it was expected to continue into next week.

In the meantime, personnel at the facility would be given additional security training.

Peter Stockton, a former congressional investigator and security consultant to the Energy Department, expressed skepticism at government assertions the nuclear material was not at risk.

"It is unbelievable this could happen," Stockton said. "The significance is outrageous. If they were terrorists, they could have blown open the door and got inside."

Stockton said the security breach was the "worst we've ever seen." He said it was more serious than the case of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born scientist who was suspected of espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. He pleaded guilty in 2000 to a less severe charge when the case against him collapsed.

(Additional reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago and Preston Peeden in Knoxville, Tennessee; Editing by David Storey and Peter Cooney)

Now take a look aboard the Navy's newest class of nuclear submarines >

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

According to reports, Russia is sending three boatloads of Marines to their base in Syria, and everyone is speculating about why. 

One of the more compelling theories is that Russia wants to deploy a force to secure their naval base at Tartus. Since only 360 marines are reportedly en route, it's pretty clear that this isn't the spearhead of an invasion — for now.

Russia has played ball with the UN and supported negotiations, clearly preferring that this whole situation just goes away as quickly as possible in the least messy manner. 

While Defense ministry officials quickly dismissed the claim that they were sending marines to Tartus, they left it open that that Navy could land there for "logistic reasons" at any point. 

One possible "logistic reason" is that there are an estimated 30,000 Russian nationals in Syria. Should the excrement hit the air conditioning, Russia would want to pull their people out, or at least protect the base where that many people could take refuge.

Like, you know, 360 Marines defending a base at Tartus. 

The base at Tartus is crucial for Russia, as it is the only place in the Mediterranean where the Navy can refuel and repair. It's the lynchpin of Russian Mediterranean naval strategy. They will not give it up to a rebellion. 

If Russia is prepping for an evacuation, this is just the first wave. Pulling that many people out of a country is a difficult endeavor.

Consider that in 1991, when Mt. Pinatubo erupted on Luzon Island in the Philippines, it took the USS Abraham Lincoln — one of the largest aircraft carriers in the world — leading a 23 ship armada to pull 45,000 Americans off of the island from an air base there. If Russia is seeing an evacuation in the future, this is just the first step of many. 

This movement could signal that the Russians are acknowledging an escalation. The battle at Aleppo is taking place a mere three hours northwest of Tartus, and it's pretty much expected that a nation with 30,000 citizens in a country with a brutal civil war underway would want an exit strategy for its people. 

In all likelihood, this troop movement is just that — the groundwork for an exit strategy in the event of the Russian's worst case scenario, and a force to hold the fort. 

Now check out what Syria has in its arsenal > 

Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

While the world went back and forth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in 2002, Saddam Hussein was planning for the worst and did all he could to acquire a batch of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

Say what you will about Saddam Hussein, but the man had a pretty well-defined sense of self-preservation and knew the S-300s were all that stood between him and spending his final days in a "spider hole."

Perhaps thinking it's staring down a similar fate as Iraq, Iran has been doing everything it can to acquire the same missiles in the hope of developing the ability to thwart any potential attacks.

Tehran actually pinned down a deal to buy the highly capable missiles from Russia in 2007, but then president Dmitry Medvedev quashed the deal three years later citing UN sanctions prohibiting the exchange.

Iran obviously disagreed with the decision and took Russian defense contractor Rosoboronexport to international arbitration court in Geneva last April, and sued them for $900 million.

The court sided with Iran and not only granted it their requested damages, but tacked on another $4 billion fine for good measure.

Iran doesn't want the money so much as it wants those S-300s, and has now come out saying it'll forget all about the $4 billion if Russia simply agrees to fulfill its original contract.

The S-300 is the best anti-ballistic missile, anti-aircraft ordnance Russia has to offer and has enjoyed nearly 50 years of improvements and modifications. They're what China has lined up along the no-nonsense Taiwan Strait.

They're very effective, very hard to jam, and very difficult to stop. They're reputed to be one of the most advanced "multi-target anti-aircraft missile systems in the world ... [with] a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time."

If Iran's acquisition of the S-300s didn't put the brakes on a possible attack scenario, it would certainly send military planners back to the drawing board to reconsider any eventual attack scenarios.

Forgiving the $4 billion may not be enough to spur Russia's desire to do the deal, but if it actually finds itself abandoning its Syrian base in Tartus all bets may be off.

Ilya Arkhipov at Bloomberg reports a Russian Think Tank believes that if Syria falls to the opposition, the Kremlin may be prompted to give Iran what it wants.

Russia is nearly as reluctant to see an attack on Iran as Tehran, and will likely do what it can to keep that from happening.

In the meantime, the pressure is building within Iran as a new round of deep and biting sanctions received approval from House and Senate negotiators Monday.

None of this is good news for the Iranian people who are already struggling to maintain their way of life and put a decent meal on the table.

Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »