Tuesday, December 5, 2023
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.
Kenneth Krieg, the Pentagon's acquisition executive, has directed the Defense Department's procurement community to comply with a congressional mandate that the services consider survivability against asymmetric threats in designing manned weapon systems.
Pentagon budget officials are racing to put the finishing touches on the fiscal year 2007 defense budget request while observers wonder if 11th-hour cuts will materialize before the Christmas holiday, as they did last year.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) and five other Republican senators have written President Bush to oppose tens of billions of dollars in possible cuts to Pentagon weapon modernization accounts.
The head of U.S. Strategic Command wants to streamline the wide array of ballistic missile defense sensors and command and control tools in order to improve operational control of such defenses.
The Defense Department is preparing to advance a new war planning strategy that retains the requirement to fight two major conflicts but includes refinements designed to prepare the military to deal with homeland defense and the global war on terrorism, according to Pentagon officials.
The head of U.S. Strategic Command wants to enhance a new suite of capabilities that do not involve dropping bombs -- either conventional or nuclear -- and which are effective in deterring adversaries, particularly terrorist networks and violent extremists.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense late Tuesday evening issued a sweeping budget decision proposing to adopt an Air Force move to cut tens of thousands of personnel and enact Army plans to reduce the growth of its active-duty ranks and implement Army National Guard cuts, according to Pentagon officials.
The Defense Department will develop new capabilities to tailor its decades-old deterrence tools -- namely the threat of nuclear and conventional military force -- to deal effectively with new threats facing the United States, including violent extremists and terrorist networks.
Singapore's decision to buy as many as 20 new F-15 fighters will keep Boeing's combat aircraft production line warm through 2009 and give Air Force officials the option to buy additional F-15s if the Quadrennial Defense Review truncates procurement plans for the Joint Strike Fighter or the F/A-22, according to a defense analyst.
Gordon England, the acting deputy defense secretary, is weighing far-reaching changes to the Pentagon's complex acquisition system that include empowering the combatant commanders -- rather than the military services -- to dictate requirements for new weapon systems.
NEW YORK -- Navy and Marine Corps efforts to provide relief to communities devastated by last year's Asian tsunami constitute the most significant victory to date in the global war on terrorism, according to a senior Pentagon official.
NEW YORK -- Navy leaders hope to bring stability to shipbuilding accounts by firmly sticking to a requirement for a 313-ship fleet and not tinkering with acquisition plans in the service's five-year spending plan, according to a senior service official.
NEW YORK -- A senior Pentagon official overseeing the Quadrennial Defense Review told investment bankers and defense industry representatives here that the Defense Department has "plenty" of money to invest in new capabilities, stressing that the U.S. military is enjoying a budget that has grown 40 percent over the last four years.
NEW YORK -- Senior Army officials are circling the wagons to protect the crown jewel of the service's modernization effort, the Future Combat System, a network of 18 different platforms that service officials say is as essential to ground forces as aircraft carriers are to the Navy.
The Air Force is eyeing cuts across its entire personnel operation -- including all categories of uniformed and civilian workers -- in a bid to avoid cutting its weapon system modernization accounts, according to Pentagon officials.
The Defense Department is directing the Army to hand over to U.S. Special Operations Command five high-speed ships to ferry troops and equipment, according to Pentagon officials.
Kuwait is eyeing a $175 million arms deal that would provide its navy with high-speed, U.S.-made military boats to protect its territorial waters and offshore oil production facilities from terrorist attacks, according to the Defense Department.
The first wave of Pentagon budget decisions has largely spared the military's major programs.
Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a long-awaited directive on stability operations this week, handing the under secretary of defense for policy far-reaching powers to shape the Pentagon's approach to stabilizing and rebuilding failed or failing states.
The Defense Department is preparing to issue a series of classified budget decisions next week that Pentagon officials anticipate will detail the key results of its nearly 10-month long Quadrennial Defense Review, including the programs to be terminated or pared back.