Thursday, January 23, 2025
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 Defense Department has for the first time established a fixed spending plan to support an organization President Bush established last year to lead U.S. military efforts to blunt the effectiveness of roadside bombs that continue to kill and maim U.S. troops each week in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Frustrated by schedule delays and cost increases, the Army has directed Bell Helicopter Textron to stop work on the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, giving the company a final chance to save a program potentially worth $4.1 billion.
The White House is threatening to veto an emergency spending bill packed with $95.5 billion to pay for new armored vehicles, new aviation defenses, new U.S. troops and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of September -- money Army officials say is needed within weeks.
The Army and Marine Corps are pushing to accelerate the production of a humvee replacement by two years, to fiscal year 2010, in an aggressive bid to expedite the fielding of a new tactical vehicle fleet.
A new Pentagon assessment of the defense industrial base says Boeing's prospects for continued fixed-wing military aircraft construction are bleak, noting that Air Force and Navy plans to wrap up major purchases of cargo and fighter planes may force the Chicago-based company to shutter two major assembly lines.
The Office of Naval Intelligence has produced a new study of China's navy that is designed to foster better understanding among U.S. naval officers of an increasingly influential foreign sea power that aims to challenge U.S. naval supremacy on the world's seas.
Senior Pentagon acquisition officials are scrambling to establish a sound legal footing for a quick-moving armored vehicle program that sprouted last fall from an urgent request from Marines in Iraq into a $7 billion effort to procure nearly 7,000 vehicles that offer enhanced protection against roadside bombs.
The Bush administration is seeking to revise key parts of its fiscal year 2007 military spending plans by asking Congress to take funds from across the federal budget and use them to boost spending by $6.3 billion in support of operations in Iraq, as well as to implement key recommendations of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.
Staff on an influential House committee are proposing a $311 million boost to the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 emergency spending requests that would allow the Marine Corps and Army to buy as many Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles as possible to outfit troops in Iraq with improved protection against roadside bombs.
In a bid to address congressional concerns about the rampant cost growth and regular schedule delays that afflict many major acquisition programs, the Pentagon has produced a new report outlining initiatives -- some of which began relatively recently -- to set big procurement efforts on a reliable track.
The Pentagon's acquisition executive has formed a new task force to explore how the U.S. military might better integrate and distribute information collected from its wide array intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems which U.S. military leaders say are key to fighting in the future.
In response to congressional criticism, the Defense Department plans to rescind its request for additional fixed-wing aircraft -- including stealthy new Joint Strike Fighters -- from its fiscal year 2007 emergency spending proposals in order to free up funds for thousands of additional ground forces supporting stepped-up operations in and around Baghdad.
The price tag of the Bush Administration's so-called troop surge into Iraq is poised to balloon in the wake of a recent Pentagon determination that the $5.6 billion requested last month to pay for the addition of 21,500 ground forces and additional warships in the Persian Gulf is inadequate.
The Pentagon's No. 2 official has directed the sprawling U.S. military bureaucracy, the federal government's largest single energy consumer, to refine its plans to reduce oil consumption and increase reliance on renewable and alternate energy sources to fulfill a recent presidential directive highlighting the importance of energy efficiency.
The Pentagon is considering shipping non-lethal ray guns to Iraq to assist Marines in guarding posts, countering insurgent snipers and protecting convoys in Al Anbar, the restive Sunni province west of Baghdad, according to documents and defense officials.
The Defense Department and the intelligence community are exploring the feasibility of developing a radically new array of sensors capable of detecting odors, DNA samples shed by individuals and acoustic emissions, all of which could be useful in identifying and locating enemy personnel.
The Defense Department is seeking permission from Congress to establish new organizations focused on human rights that would provide a means for the U.S. military to cooperate with foreign armed forces and nongovernmental organizations on matters like human trafficking.
The Army National Guard has detailed $24 billion in shortfalls across the Pentagon's new six-year spending plan, including $13.1 billion in additional funds needed to procure trucks, helicopters and other equipment it says is essential to supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as homeland defense missions.
The Pentagon's No. 2 official has formally directed the Air Force to prepare to contribute one C-17 aircraft to a new initiative designed to give European nations and the NATO alliance an independent strategic airlift capability.
The leaders of the military services have tallied up a record $35.9 billion in unfunded requirements for weapon systems, force protection equipment and construction projects that are not paid for in the Pentagon's fiscal year 2008 budget request or the supplemental spending bills that fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.