Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Key Issues HADES deployment SAOC contract FORGE framework
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.
The Pentagon's No. 2 official last month tapped the Defense Security Cooperation Agency to better account for the transfer of weapon systems to Iraqi security forces, a policy move aimed at plugging holes in Defense Department security assistance practices that last year could not account for the whereabouts of 190,000 weapons shipped to Iraq.
The Defense Department is planning a new pilot program to arm low-flying unmanned aircraft with precision weapons, a move to emulate strike capabilities of higher-flying Predator UAVs that Pentagon officials believe could point toward an entire class of small, unmanned systems capable of killing targets they locate.
Despite another punishing day on Wall Street -- where stock prices plummeted more than 500 points, dragging the Dow Jones Industrial Average down to 9,447 -- the Pentagon’s main weapon systems builders report they are well-positioned to weather the credit crisis that is rocking global markets, Joseph Campbell of Barclays Capital told investors today.
The Army has unveiled an important new addition to its doctrinal canon: Field Manual 3-07: Stability Operations. Yesterday’s Washington Post summed it up nicely.
The Army is raising the stakes in a major competition to build new tactical trucks, boosting the size of the acquisition objective from 18,000 vehicles to more than 22,000, an increase of more than 20 percent to the program that aims to recapitalize the Family of Medium of Tactical Vehicles.
Barack Obama's top foreign policy adviser today endorsed the possibility of asking Robert Gates to remain as defense secretary should the Democratic presidential nominee win the Nov. 4 election, a move that could give the Republican-appointed Pentagon chief more time and new leverage to carry out his vision of a U.S. military enterprise better suited to today's challenges.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense is circulating draft program guidance that directs the services to bolster capabilities required to support higher operational tempo and to reduce potential terrorist havens around the world by enhancing the capabilities of foreign military forces, a key policy goal of the Bush administration.
The Pentagon's top brass are homing in on about 10 issues identified this summer as crucial matters for the next president and his Defense Department transition team to address as they take the reins of the U.S. military bureaucracy early next year, according to Pentagon officials.
The Pentagon comptroller's departure last week left a career civil servant in charge of the budget shop at a critical juncture in the development of the fiscal year 2010 spending plan, a sign that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is unlikely to make major changes to the slate of weapon systems the military services hope to develop and purchase, according to Pentagon officials.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to address students at the National Defense University on the 2008 National Defense Strategy (a document he signed way back in early June, and which the Pentagon made public in July only after InsideDefense.com posted the 23-page document).
The Pentagon's No. 2 official today approved a new directive that encapsulates a significant -- and controversial -- realignment of the U.S. defense bureaucracy, fulfilling an early goal of the Bush administration's Office of the Secretary of Defense to give combatant commanders more influence in budget decisions -- a domain previously the sole province of military service chiefs.
Lawmakers are urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to appoint a high-level czar to spearhead a new organization dedicated to providing warfighters all the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities the Defense Department can muster, a step that could give permanent status to the ISR Task Force Gates formed in May.
The $700 billion taxpayer-financed bailout package the Bush administration has proposed for Wall Street will compound pressures on the federal budget and force reductions to military spending, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, predicted in an exclusive interview with InsideDefense.com.
Why would the Pentagon add a whopping $57 billion to the FY-10 budget request?
The Pentagon's No. 2 official is warning that he will recommend President Bush veto the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bill unless more than a dozen provisions -- including cuts to missile defense and rules allowing public participation in the selection of a new aerial refueling tanker -- are reversed.
Congress will not act this year on a pair of treaties that aim to facilitate defense deals and technology transfers with two of the United States' closest allies, dashing the Bush administration's hopes that the Senate would ratify the landmark defense trade pacts with the United Kingdom and Australia during the current legislative session.
The Pentagon is asking Congress to consider restoring $320 million worth of cuts to a handful of Air Force modernization programs, ranging from cargo aircraft improvements to developing a reusable hypersonic aircraft, in the House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bills.
The Pentagon is seeking a repeal of $1.8 billion in funding cuts imposed on key major weapon systems programs and a handful of policy initiatives in the House and Senate fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bills, including some legislative proposals the White House has said will draw a veto if not removed from the final bill.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said he will offer to stay in his post until the Senate confirms a successor nominated by the incoming administration, part of an effort to ensure as much continuity as possible during the first wartime transition of Pentagon authority in 40 years.
The Defense Department is going through the Mother of All Budget Drills, gaming options for how it would spend an additional $57 billion in fiscal year 2010, according to the Pentagon's No. 2 official.