Thursday, June 19, 2025
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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 has updated its counterproliferation policy in a new directive that codifies new bureaucratic responsibilities and assigns working relationships to deal with both the threat of attack-- as well as the aftermath of a possible strike -- involving weapons of mass destruction.
The Pentagon's high-level requirements panel next week will revisit the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program and assess the assumptions underpinning the Marine Corps' rapid acquisition strategy, which relies on eight different companies producing a fleet of nearly 8,000 vehicles over the next 18 months.
American commanders in Iraq who daily contend with threats from two types of roadside bombs -- improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators -- are being asked which of these deadly insurgent weapons is most important to protect against.
Congress has appropriated $3 billion for the Pentagon to spend on a new fleet of armored vehicles over the next six months, naming the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected program a special "interest" item.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has directed two new assessments designed to advance the development of powerful tools senior Pentagon officials can use to make unprecedented side-by-side comparisons of weapon system capabilities, allowing them to regularly consider moving resources between service budgets.
The Marine Corps yesterday plunked down nearly $500 million to buy 1,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, kick-starting an expected procurement spree that will pump billions of dollars into the coffers of tactical vehicle makers this summer and quickly produce a new fleet of armored vehicles for troops in Iraq.
The Defense Department has delayed by nearly a month its plans to determine the winner of the Joint Cargo Aircraft competition, a contest with the potential to provide one of two competitors a nearly $5 billion deal.
The Pentagon has tapped several Army and Marine Corps modernization accounts to amass nearly $500 million for the rapid purchase of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, which promise improved protection against roadside bombs.
Bell Helicopter Textron will try to salvage its role as prime contractor for the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program today, meeting with Army acquisition officials to address Pentagon concerns about cost growth and schedule delays.
Army budget officials are crafting plans for additional rounds of "severe" spending restrictions to be executed if the fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental spending bill is delayed into the summer, according to an internal service document obtained by InsideDefense.com.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has approved a raft of new reforms designed to improve governance of the massive military bureaucracy by recalibrating how the Pentagon charts its strategic direction, sets priorities for future weapon system investments, and manages development of new combat capabilities.
The Joint Staff is exempting the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program from fulfilling a handful of criteria that new weapon system programs normally must fulfill in a bid to support the rapid acquisition and fielding of the new armored vehicle fleet.
The Defense Department has directed officials managing the development of three next-generation weapon system programs to consider energy efficiency as a key part of their designs, a significant step that could pave the way for economic fuel consumption to play a prominent role in planning for future U.S. combat capabilities.
The Defense Department should undertake a high-level review of U.S. military capabilities required to respond to the consequences of global climate change, in particular the ability to react to natural disasters stemming from extreme weather and pandemic disease.
The Marine Corps is looking for a few good private-sector logisticians to chaperone newly minted Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles from factory assembly lines to the Iraqi frontlines as part of an effort to rapidly field the new armored fleet.
The Army and Marine Corps are set to provide a day of VIP briefings for key congressional staff members at Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland, demonstrating for them how the military is testing new armored vehicles that promise to provide improved protection against roadside bombs to personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An influential Pentagon advisory panel has recommended an array of organizational changes, technology investments and policy reviews to strengthen U.S. military identity verification capabilities of both friendly and enemy forces using biometric technologies.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned lawmakers that any delay in funding continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could impair U.S. forces' ability to prepare to deploy and compromise future readiness and "strategic agility."
The first batch of armored trucks ordered under the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program are being wired for combat radios and outfitted with counter-IED jammers and other gear in preparation for quick shipment to Marines in Iraq as soon as the end of this month, according to defense officials and documents. IEDs are improvised explosive devices, low-tech weapons that are the scourge of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Marine Corps is considering terminating the contract of an armored vehicle manufacturer vying for a piece of the $8.4 billion Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program after the company -- General Purpose Vehicles of New Haven, MI -- said it will need up to five additional months to produce a prototype.