The Insider

The Pentagon is updating its annual report on China's military capabilities to Congress because of historic reforms undertaken by the Chinese military last year, as well as the United States' new National Defense Strategy that emphasizes the return of "great power competition."

In a letter received by the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 28, Randall Schriver, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, tells lawmakers the annual report on China's military and security developments will be delivered by the end of the month.

"Given historic reforms within the Chinese military in 2017 and the recent release of relevant strategy documents, including the National Security Strategy in December 2017 and the National Defense Strategy in January 2018, we respectfully request additional time in order to update several sections of the report," Schriver writes. "We are striving to ensure Congress receives the most up-to-date assessments available when the report is issued, and we anticipate delivery no later than April 30, 2018."

Last year's report found China sharpened its focus on innovation and continued a two decades-long trend of increasing its military budget to more than $180 billion in 2016.

Meanwhile, the National Defense Strategy released by the Pentagon in January states the Pentagon is shifting from a focus on counter-terrorism to “great power competition” with China and Russia.

Defense officials have warned the United States is falling behind China in areas like artificial intelligence and hypersonics.

The Pentagon notified Congress in February the Japanese government is projected to contribute $521 million in its 2018 fiscal year, which runs from April to March, to relocate Marines from Okinawa to Guam, and that, to date, Japan has pledged $1.5 billion in contributions.

The FY-16 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Defense Department to notify Congress each year about the Japanese government's contributions toward realignment of Marine Corps forces in the Asia Pacific. The letter notifying Congress was signed by Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist.

Of the $1.5 billion in contributions, $401 million has been cumulatively obligated to date, Norquist wrote.

The Japanese government contributed $113 million in its FY-16 and $235 million the following year, according to Norquist. The $521 million projection for FY-18 is based on a draft budget and is subject to the Japanese government's approval.

French company Orolia announced this week it has agreed to acquire Talen-X, a U.S. company that specializes in Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) solutions.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the transaction is subject to approvals required by the Defense Security Service and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Talen-X develops technologies that "characterize, enhance and implement advanced techniques and products to solve real-world [Global Navigation Satellite System] vulnerability problems," according to an Orolia statement.

"Through this acquisition, Orolia will significantly enhance Assured [Positioning, Navigation and Timing] capabilities across the global company's portfolio to support mission-critical applications," the statement reads. "These additional resources also strengthen Orolia's commitment to serving the U.S. government, with further expansion of domestic capabilities and a greater U.S. footprint. Toward that end, the companies will reinforce their commercial co-operation in order to maximize market awareness and access."

Tim Erbes, Talen-X's chief technology officer, said: "Our culture of innovation, together with our demonstrated testing capabilities, will complement Orolia's global technology expertise and significantly enhance the reliability, performance and safety of military operations."

The Army has awarded a $429.1 million hybrid contract to two Massachusetts-based companies, initiating the engineering and manufacturing development phase for the Common Robotic System (Individual), or CRS(I).

Endeavor Robotics and QinetiQ North America will compete in a 10-month run-off test of CRS(I) prototypes before the Army chooses one to carry out the rest of the contract term ending Feb. 2, 2027, according to a March 30 Defense Department announcement. CRS(I) is the service's desired miniature, unmanned system for dismounted forces to enhance reconnaissance capability.

The hybrid contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity agreement. Under the terms of the contract, the two vendors in addition to the run-off systems will each deliver seven CRS(I) systems and eight production-representative systems to support government testing and activities. The vendors will also provide support for a "system interoperability profile instantiation conformance test," an early security control assessment and cybersecurity tests.

Bryan McVeigh, project manager for force projection, told Inside Defense in a March 27 interview the CRS(I) award would also include development of a common controller for the service's entire non-standard robotics fleet. According to the service's fiscal year 2019 budget request, the Common Robotic Controller is also intended to operate current unmanned aerial systems and ground vehicles at the battalion level and below.

The announcement comes as the service aims to drop half of its non-standard robot inventory, which currently totals 4,000 systems, and arrange the remaining systems into three programs of record: CRS(I); Man Transportable Robotic System Increment II, or MTRS Inc II and Common Robotic System (Heavy), or CRS(H).

The Army just met its deadline for the contract award and is on track to make the milestone C decision for CRS(I) in the second quarter of FY-19, leading into low-rate initial production.

The United States plans to provide nearly $100 million to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for the procurement of large-caliber ammunition and $70 million for training and equipping their forces, according to an announcement from the White House.

"The United States continues to improve defense and security infrastructure in the Baltic region, strengthen Baltic national resilience efforts, and build defense capacity through security assistance programs such as Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET)," the announcement reads. "The Baltic States have together traditionally received about $3.5 million annually in IMET assistance to allow 150 students to attend formal training at military academies in the United States."

The announcement notes the United States this year will lead the Saber Strike and BALTOPS  multinational military exercises in the Baltic Region.

Saber Strike, according to the White House, will include more than 5,000 troops, making it the largest event of its kind to take place in the Baltic region.

The Defense Department has migrated nearly all of its offices to Windows 10, completing a lengthy and sometimes torturous process.

Acting DOD CIO Essye Miller announced the milestone today during an industry day in National Harbor, MD. The Pentagon had set a deadline for all DOD components to migrate their office IT systems to Windows 10 by March 31.

"For the most part, with the exception of a couple [offices], we are there," Miller said.

"We'll spend sometime this morning with the deputy secretary just congratulating folks for their hard work," she added. "It's been a long, long, long journey."

Former Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work had originally set a deadline of January 2017 for Windows 10 migration. In a February 2016 memo laying out the order, Work said the decision was "based on the need to strengthen our cyber security posture while concurrently streamlining the IT operating environment."

But DOD missed that deadline. The DOD CIO's office, working through its cyber score card process, helped the military services prioritize their investments and set a new deadline of March 2018, Miller told reporters in September 2017 following a conference in Washington.

"It gives it the level of visibility that it needs to drive to the expected outcome," Miller said of the scorecard then. "Windows 10 obviously postures us on a security operating environment and that's what we want."

The head of the Defense Digital Service will remain at his post for the foreseeable future as the Pentagon attempts a controversial transition to a new, commercial cloud computing system.

"Joining @usds and founding @defensedigital has been one of the most incredible moments of my life. I get to work with the most amazing team," Chris Lynch tweeted April 2. "We get to do important work on a mission that matters. I’ve been asked numerous times: I have extended my term at DOD and DDS. Onward!"

Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who established the Defense Digital Service in November 2015, often drew attention to Lynch during speeches about technology and innovation, remarking that Lynch and his team wore hoodies and sneakers around the Pentagon.

Lynch is also known for standing up DOD's "Hack the Pentagon" bug bounty program.

More recently, Lynch's team began leading the development of the acquisition strategy for its new cloud environment -- the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program.

The Pentagon released a draft request for proposals in March, with a second draft expected this month. The final RFP will be released in May.

Though the Pentagon is stressing that its enterprise cloud initiative is a full and open competition with the single award contract planned with multiple off ramps, many contractors are worried that Amazon Web Services has an inside track on a deal that could lock the Defense Department into a single provider.

Meanwhile, Congress has asked DOD to justify its choice to go with a single contract award.

Joining @usds and founding @defensedigital has been one of the most incredible moments of my life. I get to work with the most amazing team. We get to do important work on a mission that matters.

I’ve been asked numerous times: I have extended my term at DOD and DDS. Onward!

— Chris Lynch (@lynchseattle) April 3, 2018