Friday, April 19, 2024
Sebastian Sprenger was the chief editor of Inside the Army until May 2016, where he primarily reported on land warfare and associated budgets, policies and technologies. A native of Siegen, Germany, he got is start in journalism at the now-defunct Westfälische Rundschau in Kreuztal. He studied at Universität Trier and elsewhere.
Pentagon leaders should order a military-wide review of contingency contracting practices to ensure current contracts supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are receiving adequate oversight, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday.
The old adage of “putting your money where your mouth is” is an inherently tricky business at the Defense Department that likely will occupy any new Pentagon leadership.
The incoming defense secretary should consider keeping the organization of three senior Pentagon decision-making panels as a new president gets settled in at the White House, according to a group of Pentagon advisers.
Congress wants the next president to appoint a Pentagon official to champion "operational" energy policy issues across the military, according to the conference agreement on the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bill House and Senate lawmakers reached yesterday.
Defense Department officials are poring over a draft version of the Pentagon's energy security plan, slated for release later this year.
The combatant commanders are involved in a set campaigns of their own that could have major ramifications for the next president.
Pentagon officials are moving to implement a $98 million batch of military aid projects aimed at boosting the capabilities of security forces worldwide, including those of Pakistan, Mexico and a host of African nations, according to defense officials.
A senior Defense Department procurement official is seeking guarantees from the services and defense agencies that key acquisition workers in those organizations refrain from acting outside their assigned responsibilities during source-selection proceedings for major programs.
Pentagon officials are lobbying lawmakers in an attempt to avert looming budget cuts to key command and control, navigation and hypersonics research programs.
Defense officials are writing a concept of operations that will lay out the implications of the Pentagon's relatively new "adaptive planning" (AP) process on everything from budgets to personnel structure, a Joint Staff official tells InsideDefense.com.
The Defense Department yesterday issued an interim rule giving preference to Iraqi and Afghan companies for all U.S. government contracts awarded during combat and stabilization operations there, according to a Sept. 15 Federal Register notice.
Congress has given the Defense Department $807 billion since 2001 to pursue what Bush administration officials have termed the "global war on terrorism," and the Pentagon had used $595 billion of those funds as of June 2008, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Defense Department officials crafting a new policy directive governing the military's approach to irregular warfare are pondering the role of information operations in that form of conflict, according to documents and sources.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has authorized a Defense Department internal transfer of $20 million to provide field commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan with communications gear, systems to counter improvised explosive devices and upgrades to military medical technology, according to a Sept. 3 reprogramming notice published by the Pentagon.
Pentagon officials have again rescheduled the release of the Defense Department's first-ever irregular warfare directive amid continued criticism from the services over language that would label military activities to stabilize weak governments as a form of irregular warfare, according to documents and sources.
Pentagon leaders have scheduled 13 high-level reviews of big-ticket weapon programs in the next three months, starting with a review of the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program this week and ending with a "revisit" of the Combat Search-and-Rescue helicopter program on Dec. 10.
Pentagon acquisition executive John Young earlier this week gave the Defense Department's biometrics-related efforts a high-profile status normally reserved for the military's most expensive weapon programs, according to documents and sources.
Army leaders are slated to consider new design proposals for the Army's worldwide component commands this fall, a service source tells InsideDefense.com.
Defense Department officials are tentatively planning to launch next month a new social networking site dedicated to the sharing of science and technology know-how, sources tell InsideDefense.com.
Senior Defense Department leaders are pondering a new way of strengthening the role of combatant commanders in the Pentagon's deliberations over capabilities and budgets, according to a previously unreported DOD planning document signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates this spring.