Wednesday, January 15, 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.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is seeking congressional approval to establish a new assistant secretary for global affairs position as part of a far-reaching reorganization of one of the Pentagon's most important shops -- the office of the under secretary of defense for policy.
The Pentagon is establishing a high-level task force designed to marshal counterterrorism efforts across the defense bureaucracy, according to Pentagon officials.
The Air Force is proposing a $5 billion down payment for a next-generation long-range strike aircraft, money the service hopes will propel research and development needed to meet the Pentagon's goal of fielding a new bomber fleet by 2018, according to sources familiar with new Air Force investment plans.
The Marine Corps is planning steep cuts to one of its largest modernization programs -- the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle -- as part of a wider effort to recalibrate its forces to better fight irregular combatants, according to internal Pentagon budget documents.
The Navy and Marine Corps want to delay fielding of the Joint Strike Fighter by more than a year, according to Pentagon officials.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense is considering adding tens of billions of dollars to the Army's base budget in the Pentagon's new six-year spending plan in order to address funding shortfalls that service officials say could threaten the viability of U.S. ground forces, according to Defense Department officials.
The Defense Department yesterday announced delays involving major Air Force and Navy acquisition programs.
Congressional investigators are calling on the Defense Department to overhaul key elements of the U.S. military's marquee training initiative to better reflect reserve component training needs and to accredit training regimens for new mission areas like irregular warfare and combating weapons of mass destruction.
The Pentagon is poised to spend $100 million on programs it has framed working with the State Department to enhance the counterterrorism capabilities of foreign militaries in 14 nations across Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to a senior Defense Department official.
U.S. and British defense officials have inked a new agreement on the transfer of sensitive technologies for the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, removing an irritant in the close relationship between the two allies that has rankled both sides for months.
Personnel bills continue to squeeze Army modernization accounts, prompting the Defense Department to seek congressional permission to raid ammunition, tactical vehicles and armor programs to cover paychecks in the final months of the fiscal year.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is asking Congress to roll back changes to the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill made by lawmakers earlier this year, including provisions that would restrict the Pentagon's ability to retire aging weapon systems, reduce missile defense spending, and limit options to purchase equipment from foreign suppliers.
The Defense Department yesterday submitted to Congress a request to shift funds between procurement accounts in order to increase by a single aircraft the number of F-22 fighters it buys this fiscal year to 23, according to Pentagon officials.
The Defense Department is seeking congressional permission to expand its fledgling anti-satellite capability by shifting funds this summer to rapidly acquire a pair of Counter Communications Systems, designed to disrupt enemy communications without permanently damaging the satellite relaying an adversary's telephone calls or data exchange.
The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday cut the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 budget request by $9.1 billion to $453.5 billion.
The Defense Department has told Congress that Saudi Arabia is interested in purchasing a sweeping package of weapons -- including helicopters, armored vehicles, communications gear and small arms -- in a set of deals that could be worth more than $6 billion.
The Defense Department is enlisting commercial air cargo carriers to deliver military goods into Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a new effort to save money, reduce the demand for C-130s flown by reservists and, in some cases, deliver supplies more quickly.
The U.S. military has at its disposal a powerful and underutilized weapon that must be effectively employed to prevail in the global war against Islamic extremists -- a lexicon stripped of terms that lend legitimacy to religious claims of groups that espouse, and carry out, violence.
The Defense Department is weighing changes to the crown jewel of its higher-education system by recasting the National Defense University as a National Security University, a shift that could alter the curriculum and diversify the student body in an effort to better prepare graduates to deal with new and complex threats facing the nation.
The Defense Department should increase its investment in non-lethal weapons by more than 60 percent, to more than $1 billion over six years, in order to field new capabilities increasingly required by U.S. troops conducting stability operations, counter-insurgency missions and homeland defense assignments, according to a new Defense Department investment plan.