Friday, April 19, 2024
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.
For the first time since the creation of a new national intelligence director's office, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has issued a directive detailing the responsibilities of the Pentagon's intelligence executive and spelling out the military's jurisdiction over intel activities.
The Pentagon has set an aggressive schedule for the completion of its new defense budget and is poised this week to begin advising the services of what weapon system programs will soon be cut.
The Pentagon's intelligence chief has outlined new guidelines for the U.S. military to follow in acquiring information dealing with espionage, sabotage, terrorism, assassinations or other intelligence activities conducted by terrorists or foreign powers.
The Defense Department has begun compiling the findings of its nine-month assessment of U.S. military force structure, modernization plans and roles and missions, preparing a draft report that is expected to begin circulating within the Pentagon by mid-December.
The Defense Department is drawing up a short list of Army, Navy and Air Force weapon system programs that could be terminated or significantly pared back in the coming weeks as the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 budget request takes final shape.
PHOENIX -- A key senior Pentagon official today sought to lower expectations for next Monday's high-level Quadrennial Defense Review meeting, which is expected to be a forum for final decisions on changes to service force structure and weapon system procurement plans.
The Navy's top brass is reshuffling its Pentagon staff responsible for the development and procurement of submarines, ships and naval aircraft, giving a single three-star admiral oversight of the services' near- and long-term weapon system investment decisions.
The Defense Department must "act with dispatch" to improve its ability to conduct post-conflict stability operations, a high-level advisory panel to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has recommended.
The Army, struggling to contend with one major insurgency in Iraq, is studying a theoretical world in which irregular warfare has spread across the globe, trying to determine what it would mean for service war plans, capabilities, and operations.
An influential advisory panel to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is recommending the Pentagon "keep open the option to acquire additional C-17" cargo aircraft beyond the 180 planes the Air Force plans to buy, a move that could require the Defense Department in coming weeks to commit more money to the cargo plane program in order keep the production line open.
Just weeks after delaying a purchase of new F-16 fighter aircraft in order to divert resources to deal with a devastating earthquake, Pakistan is eyeing the near-term acquisition of as many as 25 used fighters while waiting on the rest of the F-16 package, according to officials familiar with the country's plans.
An Army-commissioned tool has been developed to assist the service with one of the most vexing challenges facing war planners preparing for post-conflict and stability operations: determining how many troops are needed.
A long-awaited reassessment of the U.S. military's mobility requirements concludes that the current inventory of cargo ships and aircraft dedicated to hauling equipment is adequate to support the National Military Strategy, according to Pentagon and congressional sources.
The Defense Department is weighing $32 billion in cuts to major weapon systems and Army force structure over the next six years, reductions that may represent only a down payment on the total bill facing the Pentagon as federal budget pressures mount.
Senior Navy officials are considering a new proposal for a 313-ship fleet, which would require greater investments in shipbuilding accounts and an accelerated pace of ship construction to build the fleet up from its current size, according to sources familiar with the effort.
The Army's need for linguists to assist soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is steadily increasing, climbing nearly 15 percent for Arabic speakers and 35 percent for Pashtu and Dari in the last year and driving a reallocation of resources to pay for interpreters, according to Pentagon officials and documents.
Gordon England, the acting deputy defense secretary, this week established a new Defense Department task force to support the White House-led review of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Tokyo's decision to allow a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier to homeport in Japan could expedite U.S. Navy plans to retire its conventionally powered aircraft carriers and trim its carrier fleet to 11, according to Defense Department officials and analysts.
The next few weeks could bring significant changes to the shape and size of the Air Force, as senior Joint Staff and Office of the Secretary of Defense officials finalize decisions in the ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review.
The Defense Department should fundamentally overhaul its military psychological operations apparatus by providing an infusion of cash and new technology, while developing a streamlined process for approving messages for dissemination.