Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Courtney McBride was the managing editor of Inside the Army until May 2018. She previously worked for Hotline and National Journal. A native of the Philadelphia area, she studied the modern Middle East at the University of Pennsylvania.
During a Pentagon press conference Thursday with Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Ukrainian defense minister Col. Gen. Stepan Poltorak said "the issue of lethal equipment was not on the table" in his discussions with U.S. officials, but he reiterated that Ukraine would welcome such assistance as it defends its eastern border from Russian-backed separatists.
Following a second round of input from the services and other stakeholders, a third draft of the Defense Department's new Force of the Future personnel reform strategy is being crafted, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
In a bid to determine the Pentagon's current competency in the areas of information operations (IO) and counter-propaganda, and to determine the path forward, the House Armed Services emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee will hold a closed roundtable Sept. 18 titled "Improving Department of Defense Operations in the Information Environment: A Roundtable Discussion on Technology and Concepts."
The Pentagon's plan to overhaul its personnel policies, dubbed "Force of the Future," includes proposed changes to the classification of civilian employees of the Defense Department, according to a pre-decisional DOD document released Sept. 15 by the American Federation of Government Employees.
The United States and Israel are nearing completion of a co-production deal on the David's Sling Weapons System, a short-range ballistic missile defense system currently in the testing phase, according to the director of the Missile Defense Agency.
The Department of Defense has announced plans to establish a Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSpOC) at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
The Defense Department, which is poised to save nearly $2 billion in fiscal year 2015 because of the plummeting global price of oil, is watching the market closely as the price continues to drop and has crafted FY-17 budget guidance to plan its investments, according to a statement from the Pentagon.
The Defense Department is implementing changes to its planning, training, information exchange, equipment allocation and passport procedures for Army brigades allocated to U.S. Africa Command. The regional alignment, in effect since 2013 for AFRICOM, is designed to ensure the availability of specially trained forces for the combatant commands.
From Aug. 6 to 21, the Pacific Air Forces took part in Red Flag Alaska 15-3, the latest installment of an annual set of exercises designed to facilitate cooperation among coalition partners. Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan and South Korea joined the United States in participating.
In their first joint press briefing in seven months, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh addressed the potential adverse implications a stopgap funding measure for the upcoming fiscal year would have on the service's programs and planning.