The U.S. military's latest operations in Iraq will be funded through the Pentagon's wartime supplemental budget, though there is no cost estimate for them yet, according to a Defense Department spokesman.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Saturday, April 27, 2024
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Tony Bertuca is chief editor of Inside the Pentagon, the flagship publication of InsideDefense, where he focuses on defense budget and acquisition policy. He previously worked for the Sun-Times News Group in his hometown of Chicago, IL, and at the New Hampshire Union Leader in Manchester, NH. Tony has also served as managing editor of Inside the Army. He has a master's degree in journalism from Boston University.
The U.S. military's latest operations in Iraq will be funded through the Pentagon's wartime supplemental budget, though there is no cost estimate for them yet, according to a Defense Department spokesman.
The Army is pulsing industry for ideas that could possibly feed into a new Lightweight Reconnaissance Vehicle program aimed at supporting the service's planned rapid global response posture.
Oshkosh Defense has been awarded $45 million to reset and upgrade 800 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles, according to a recent Defense Department notice.
The National Defense Panel charged with evaluating the Pentagon's 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review has found a growing mismatch between what the U.S. military is required to do and what it has the resources to do, according to a July 31 report.
U.S. Pacific Command has announced it will host Fortune Guard 2014, the first-ever multinational Asia Pacific proliferation security exercise, next week.
The Pentagon's deputy acquisition executive recently told defense industry representatives that Frank Kendall, her boss, thinks full sequestration will be triggered in fiscal year 2016 and has been advising budget programmers to craft "off-ramps" to address looming program cuts.
Top-ranking Pentagon officials are defending the $58.6 billion overseas contingency operations request against claims from lawmakers that it has become a "slush fund."
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee has supported an array of Pentagon weapons programs in its $549.3 billion military spending bill for fiscal year 2015, including the Air Force's fleet of A-10 aircraft; the Army's combat vehicle industrial base; and the Navy's modernization of USS George Washington (CVN 73) and fleet of EA-18G Growlers.
The Defense Department is requesting permission from Congress to reprogram nearly $420 million in fiscal year 2014 funds to pay for the new purchase and refurbishment of Army tactical trucks, including Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, according to a Pentagon budget document obtained by InsideDefense.com.
The Army general nominated to lead U.S. Special Operations Command told senators last week that the military still does not have as many intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities as it needs to execute its mission, especially in Africa.
The Army has sent Congress a plan for how it will spend $90 million lawmakers added to the service's Abrams tank program in fiscal year 2014 to help shore up the combat vehicle industrial base, though some of the money will go toward establishing “leaner” tank production processes, according to an internal presentation obtained by InsideDefense.com.
The Army has completed its long-awaited analysis of the combat vehicle industrial base, briefing Capitol Hill this week on an array of controversial findings that show ample opportunity exists for consolidation, according to an internal slide presentation obtained by InsideDefense.com.
Europe's largest multinational live-fire exercise, which wrapped last month, featured U.S. Army tank training for the first time, according to a NATO announcement marking the end of the event.
The Army's Rapid Equipping Force expects to continue assisting U.S. forces in Afghanistan throughout fiscal year 2015, to the tune of $10.6 million in research and development spending, though the REF notes in recent budget justification documents that the systems it procures will require "substantial" follow-on spending if the service is to sustain them.
It would be wrong to look at the recent defense budget analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and conclude that America's best way forward in a time of fiscal austerity is to plan for a war with Russia and China, though that is what the report recommends, according to Clark Murdock, the analyst at CSIS who led the team that authored the study.
The Defense Department has updated its 2006 global strategy for countering weapons of mass destruction with a greater emphasis on a Pentagon-wide approach rather than a focus on military solutions, though the government still reserves the right to "act unilaterally, if necessary."
The Army has released a study detailing the impact massive end-strength reductions would have on 30 U.S. bases if full sequestration-level budget cuts remain in place.
The White House has submitted to Congress a $58.6 billion request for Defense Department overseas contingency operations funds in fiscal year 2015 to pay for ongoing operations in Afghanistan, but also to begin arming "vetted elements of the Syrian armed opposition" and support an array of counterterrorism partnerships in Africa and the Middle East.
Former senior defense officials gathered on Capitol Hill this week to pick apart the Pentagon's sprawling and oft-criticized system of acquisition regulations, while lawmakers remarked on the sense of futility that normally accompanies any effort to reform the way the Defense Department does business.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Senate appropriators that the United States has no choice but to fund President Obama's new $5 billion overseas contingency operations request to develop counterterrorism partnerships in Africa because the nation badly needs regional allies to address militant extremism.