Monday, August 15, 2022
Key Issues AETP China-Taiwan scenarios T-7A trainer
The Air Force is short 4,000 aircraft maintainers, with the problem growing worse every month, and that fact is the No. 1 reason the service is facing a significant fleet readiness shortfall, an Air Force official told House lawmakers earlier this week.
The Army has halted work on a six-year-old environmental study that was considering the impact of adding nearly 83,000 acres to Ft. Benning, GA, citing a reduction in requirements.
This Wednesday the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee will meet to consider the Defense Department's approach to research and innovation.
In testimony this morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said that if Congress rejects a package of pay and compensation reforms proposed by the Obama administration, the Defense Department will have to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years to pay for the resulting shortfall, with that money coming from readiness and force structure.
The Defense Department today announced that Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold will assume command of Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, FL. Heithold is currently serving as the vice commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.
The military's service chiefs appeared before the House Armed Services Committee today to warn lawmakers that automatic budget cuts triggered by sequestration would do irreparable harm to America's national defense.
Cuts to the Navy's fiscal year 2013 budget driven by sequestration have created a $252 million "bow wave" of unfunded requirements the service will have to tackle in the next fiscal year.
The Pentagon's top weapons tester told a Senate subcommittee this morning that without more money and time to complete F-35 Joint Strike Fighter development tests, the services might be unable to deliver airplanes with the full military capability needed for operational testing in 2018.
The Defense Department is reaching out to the private sector and to any "experts and interested parties" in its pursuit of detecting counterfeit parts in the military supply chain.
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced this morning that it will hold a hearing on the effects of sequestration and a yearlong continuing resolution on the Defense Department.
During a briefing today on the Defense Department's newest acquisition reform plan, called Better Buying Power 2.0, the Pentagon's top acquisition official addressed the gloomy prospects of an additional $500 billion in cuts via the sequestration trigger.
Last week the Defense Department issued an instruction that puts in place a policy to protect the department's warfighting mission capabilities from vulnerabilities in a system's design -- or sabotage or subversion.
Congress has approved the Defense Department's request to shift slightly more than $109 million into the Navy's fiscal year 2012 budget to support three unmanned air systems programs that are operating in Afghanistan.
Ever since North Korea tested the two-stage Taepo Dong 2 ballistic missile in 1996, the country has been held up by the Bush and Obama administrations as a significant potential threat to the United States.
The organizational culture of the Missile Defense Agency is still rooted in the early days of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, when virtually every idea was considered as MDA worked on an impenetrable shield against a Soviet ballistic missile attack, and that approach is keeping the agency from becoming an efficient and cost-effective technology developer, according to a new report from the National Academy of Sciences.
The Obama administration generally agrees with a new Senate cybersecurity bill, taking issue only with its call for a new interagency group and warning against any amendments to the bill that would weaken critical infrastructure measures, according to a statement of administration policy issued by the White House.
Pentagon press secretary George Little today got more questions regarding sequestration and its possible effects on the defense budget during a scheduled news conference.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has long enjoyed the "maverick" label used to describe his tendency to go his own way. He has also been called a few other names by fellow members of the Senate for his penchant for revealing how that chamber makes its sausage.
The Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee this morning strongly rejected the Obama administration's request for another round of military base closings in fiscal year 2013. Subcommittee Chairwoman Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said the Pentagon has not convinced her that another BRAC round is needed.
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced this afternoon that it was able to form a quorum and favorably reported out the following civilian Defense Department nominations.