Sunday, May 28, 2023
Key Issues Taiwan weapons delay FTUAS contracts SFRC RFP delay
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than two decades -- including stints with Defense News and Armed Forces Journal -- he has covered the Pentagon, defense industry, the military budget, weapon system acquisition and defense policy formulation as well as reporting on technology, business, and global arms trade. Jason has traveled to more than 40 countries, studied medieval history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and lives in Brooklyn.
A Senate panel wants the Missile Defense Agency to draft plans to expand production of a Next Generation Interceptor to replace the entire Ground-based Interceptor fleet, potentially raising the stakes by about $4.8 billion in the competition between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to design and manufacture a new homeland defense against North Korean nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Biden administration’s gambit to provide an additional $1 billion in fiscal year 2022 funds for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system would, if enacted, mark the third time in six years missile defense funding for Israel has exceeded the $500 million annual cap Israel and the United States agreed to in 2016. (UPDATED)
The House next week will consider a proposal to launch a sweeping assessment on the efficacy of long-range missile defense programs in the context of overall security of the United States, specifically a proposal to charter the National Academy of Sciences to explore potential adverse consequences associated with the $202 billion program to develop and procure the Ballistic Missile Defense System.
New legislation would establish an independent assessment of the $202 billion Ballistic Missile Defense System, chartering the JASON private scientific advisory panel to identify limitations of the collection of radars, interceptors and battle management, command and control tools that are designed to protect the nation against a long-range, North Korean nuclear strike.
House lawmakers want a comprehensive assessment from the Pentagon of China's military, economic and diplomatic activities in Latin America and the Caribbean after the head of U.S. Southern Command earlier this year publicly warned of Beijing's stepped-up efforts to gain influence across the region.
The Missile Defense Agency executed a non-intercept flight test of a new Ground-based Midcourse Defense capability that aims to improve homeland defense against North Korean threats by optimizing engagement times of long-range interceptors by giving operators a new option to tailor the trajectory of guided-missile interceptors.
House lawmakers are looking to catapult development of a "critical" technology needed to intercept maneuvering hypersonic threats at very long ranges by authorizing a nearly four-fold increase in fiscal year 2022 funding for Glide Breaker, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency venture that the Missile Defense Agency is eyeing as part of a program to field a defense against a new class of ultra-fast maneuvering weapons.
House lawmakers are looking to jump-start funding in fiscal year 2022 to begin modernizing the North Warning System with over-the-horizon radar technology to give North American Aerospace Defense Command's main ground sensor new ability to detect threats to U.S. and Canadian airspace.
The $24 billion topline increase proposed as part of the House Armed Services Committee's mark of the fiscal year 2022 defense policy bill boosts missile defense spending by $780 million, adding significant funds for a new Guam defense system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system interceptors and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system.
Support is mounting in Congress to again reinstate funding for a Hawaii-based ballistic missile defense radar, with the House Armed Services Committee authorizing $75 million for the project and setting September 2028 as the target for initial operations -- keeping the effort alive in defiance of Pentagon proposals for the last two years to shelve it.
House lawmakers have agreed to new legislative provisions that would require an accounting of the ability to detect hypersonic threats to the United States, direct the Navy to plan for future upgrades to its long-range hypersonic strike project and require the Air Force to prepare a cost estimate to re-alert nuclear-armed bombers.
The Army needs to prepare to "ruthlessly" retire the Patriot and Stinger air defense systems, according to a senior service official who said wholesale replacement of the Cold War systems is needed to modernize the air defense force for emerging threats.
The House Armed Services Committee this week will take up a proposal to authorize $34 million to reinstate the Missile Defense Agency's role in laser technology development, a provision that, if agreed to, would approve spending on a pair of directed-energy projects that proponents believe have potential to counter ballistic and hypersonic threats.
The Defense Department is punting on a new statutory requirement to prepare an annual aviation inventory and funding plan aligned with the National Defense Strategy, citing the Biden administration’s deliberate decision to prepare a fiscal year 2022 budget request without the traditional accompanying future year spending plan.
An influential lawmaker is proposing legislation that -- if enacted -- could establish a new framework for assessing the suitability of the U.S. military’s existing major weapon system inventory for potential future combat operations, directing a review that could reshape the $2 trillion roster of current projects by identifying programs for divestiture that are not keeping pace with emerging threats.
The Defense Department is spiking plans to provide Congress detailed updates about the status of major weapon system acquisitions -- a nearly $2 trillion portfolio -- advising lawmakers earlier this summer that because the Biden administration’s fiscal year 2022 budget submission is not accompanied by a detailed future-year spending forecast, the Pentagon will not submit any annual Selected Acquisition Reports.
The Defense Department believes it can increase the inventory of Ground-based Interceptors by integrating existing components with new hardware acquired through the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), giving U.S. commanders more than 44 guided missiles to counter North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The top military official responsible for defending U.S. and Canadian airspace is lobbying for the two nations to invest in an advanced, next-generation sensor system capable of seeing beyond the horizon and detecting a wide range of threats -- from large bombers to small, unmanned aircraft -- advocacy that is likely to influence future plans to replace NORAD’s centerpiece radar network: the North Warning System (NWS).
The head of the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command said he is eyeing a “crucial” new ground-based sensor to help defend Washington, DC, from long-range, high-speed, difficult-to-detect Russian cruise missiles that could be used to disrupt strategic decision-making -- or even decapitate U.S. leadership.
The Marine Corps says it successfully demonstrated its new robotically controlled, ship-killing ground vehicle during Large Scale Exercise 21, launching a pair of cruise missiles from an unmanned tactical vehicle in Hawaii and sinking an at-sea target, a significant development for the service's No. 1 ground vehicle modernization priority.