Thursday, December 4, 2025
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Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than three 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.
Navy and CIA strategists have crafted a new framework for thinking about future threats that is being used to inform the sea service's 2007 budget proposal, and it may influence the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, according to a senior service official.
The Pentagon plans to lash up U.S. military personnel with Iraq's fledgling security force in a new, two-pronged approach to improve Iraqi combat effectiveness against insurgents by providing a wide range of support, including the ability to call for U.S. air strikes.
A sweeping defense review now under way may usher significant changes to what Pentagon officials call its "force planning construct" -- a key metric for shaping U.S. war plans, justifying the total size of the uniformed ranks and establishing the roster of needed combat gear, according to a senior Pentagon official.
The fate of billions of dollars in spending on weapon systems will be weighed in a series of Saturday meetings over the next few months, guiding the work of a key panel leading the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review's deliberations of future military capabilities.
Pentagon officials aim by mid-July to glean enough insights from the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review to recommend significant changes to the planned acquisition of major weapons systems, according to Defense Department documents and officials.
The White House has directed the Defense and Homeland Security departments to craft new policies and figure out what new equipment and organizations are necessary to tighten up security across the vast waterways surrounding the United States, which are vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has issued a new defense strategy that aims to reorient the U.S. military's focus from preparing to fight conventional armed forces to preparing to contend with a wider range of challenges, including insurgencies and catastrophic attacks.
The Air Force and Navy are convening a classified conference later this month to examine how best to employ air power against insurgencies and in the global war on terrorism.
The Defense Department has rolled out big plans to sharpen military foreign language skills and raise the profile of personnel with expertise in foreign cultures.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has officially launched a sweeping review of the U.S. armed forces that is expected to shake up the size and shape of the military as well as the catalog of weapons systems the Pentagon acquires, according to Defense Department officials.
The Pentagon's December decision to kill an Army-led program to develop a next-generation anti-armor missile was triggered by concerns about growing costs and likely schedule delays, according to a senior defense official.
The price tag for canceling the C-130J aircraft program could climb above $2 billion, according to a senior Air Force official and leading defense lawmaker.
The military's top brass have tallied up nearly $13.6 billion worth of combat hardware they need but is not paid for in the Pentagon's fiscal year 2006 spending request now before Congress.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has established six panels, each led by a senior civilian and military officer, to carry out the work of the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review.
The Pentagon has launched 15 new projects as part of its ongoing effort to quickly give combatant commanders everything from a computer chip that can read a saliva swab and diagnose an individual's health to a new long-range, vertical lift unmanned aerial vehicle.
The Pentagon is seeking the views of the National Security Council and the State Department on its plans for a sweeping strategy review that is expected to give unprecedented consideration to the roles of other federal agencies in dealing with future conflicts.
The Pentagon plans to establish a new acquisition executive to champion technologies and concepts designed for joint operations, according to defense officials and documents.
The Pentagon plans to wring $12 billion in contractor jobs from military payrolls over the next six years as part of a campaign to improve management of the defense bureaucracy, according to documents and government officials.
The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have hammered out a new agreement delineating how they will share responsibility for paramilitary operations, bucking a 9/11 Commission recommendation that called for all such activities to be shifted from the CIA to U.S. Special Operations Command.
A leading Democratic lawmaker is upping the ante in the growing debate over the size of the military by proposing the Pentagon increase the number of ground troops in its ranks by 40,000 more than the temporary end strength increases advanced by the Bush administration.