Friday, April 26, 2024
Key Issues Optical clocks Prototype funding SPAFORGEN
A congressionally formed commission on terrorist threats to the United States is recommending giving the Defense Department lead agency status, possibly with law enforcement powers, for responding to a terrorist attack that results in thousands of casualties.
A senior Pentagon official has told House and Senate lawmakers an ongoing study of the utility of sea-based national missile defenses confirms an earlier analysis showing no technical reasons why the Navy could not assume a major role in NMD.
A Marine Corps judge advocate general's team investigating the causes of an April 8 V-22 Osprey crash today requested a 30-day extension to the 45-day deadline it has been operating under, a Marine Corps spokeswoman told InsideDefense.com.
Stepping forward to support the Army's plan to transition from a heavy, mechanized Cold War force to a lighter, quicker one and ensure it stays on track in succeeding budgets, House lawmakers today approved legislation designed to prohibit the use of dollars budgeted for the plan for other Army programs.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee wants to kill the Discoverer II satellite program because there is no firm requirement for the platform and development costs could shoot well past $1 billion, according to the panel's fiscal year 2001 defense-spending bill.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) today foreshadowed what may be a bitter fight on the Senate floor over language in the Senate's fiscal year 2001 defense authorization bill that restricts the energy secretary from making any organizational changes to the newly created National Nuclear Security Administration.
House and Senate leaders are considering several ways to reach agreement on the Clinton administration's $7.6 billion fiscal year 2000 Kosovo supplemental request, now that the Senate has split the money among three separate spending bills.
A plan suggested by the House and Senate that allows the Army to enter into multiyear contracts for two helicopters and an armored fighting vehicle will reap nearly $200 million in savings for the service, according to a May 12 estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.
The Pentagon should forget about any plans to split the Joint Strike Fighter production contract between competitors Boeing and Lockheed Martin and instead focus on choosing the best design for the potentially $300 billion program, the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee said today.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee has created an airlift fund to protect the C-17 program against raids for money to pay for tactical fighter programs, Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) said today.
Adm. Vernon Clark, President Clinton's nominee to be the next chief of naval operations, said today he will launch a new force-level study to determine exactly how large the Navy fleet should be if he is confirmed for the job.
A five-man Air Force team will arrive in Sierra Leone tomorrow to inspect the country's main airport to see if it could handle more U.S. military air flights into the civil war-torn country, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said today.
Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander in Kosovo, told InsideDefense.com today that a Senate amendment aimed at pulling United States troops out of Kosovo will damage U.S. credibility in diplomatic and military circles around the world.
The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved a measure that cuts off all funds for U.S. peacekeeping forces in Kosovo by July 1, 2000 unless the president seeks and receives congressional approval to keep troops in the region.
The Army has selected Computer Sciences Corporation to take part in a $2.5 billion support services program for the Army's Aviation and Missile Command, the company announced today.
Following a nine-week investigation last fall, U.S. military investigators found approximately 26 tank carcasses and enough evidentiary data to add 67 more tanks to the total number destroyed by U.S. and allied pilots during the 78-day air war with Serbia, the Air Force general in charge of the review told reporters today.
Conceding the United States will likely never be able to prevent all terrorist acts against U.S. military and government facilities, the Pentagon plans to spend $130 million over the next six years on eight research programs aimed mostly at the early detection of terrorist devices, according to research plans the Pentagon released last month.
Now that the Justice Department has removed local protesters from the Naval Training Range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, a senior Navy official said today the service might resume training on Vieques within a few weeks.
The Clinton administration's plan to spend more than $200 million to broaden a program that encourages Russian chemical and biological weapons experts to conduct peaceful civilian research poses potential risks to the United States, the General Accounting Office said in a report released today.
Navy Under Secretary Jerry Hultin is leaving the Pentagon to become dean of the Stevens Institute's Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management, the Defense Department announced yesterday.