The Insider

The Pentagon this past week released the quarterly report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The April 30 report describes "two major oversight concerns," it states: "One relates to the decision to provide more reconstruction dollars through the Afghan national budget as 'direct assistance' and the other relates to security."

Over the past 11 years, the United States has spent nearly $93 billion "to build Afghan security forces, improve governance, and foster economic development in Afghanistan," according to the report.

The effort is "the most costly rebuilding of a single country in U.S. history," and "depends on the degree to which U.S. assistance can" do the following:

• build Afghan security forces capable of preventing extremists from re-establishing strongholds in Afghanistan

• strengthen the capacity of the Afghan government to hold credible presidential elections in 2014, peacefully transfer political power, and provide essential services through the rule of law

• develop the foundation for a viable economy despite anticipated reductions in foreign aid

• improve Afghan institutions’ ability to manage and account for U.S. and other donor funds delivered directly through the Afghan national budget.

View the full report.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has sent Navy Secretary Ray Mabus a letter seeking answers about the service's 30-year shipbuilding plan. The April 26 letter questions the likelihood the Navy will be able to achieve its plan "given the steep drop in defense spending to include the current law impacting funding levels, known as sequestration."

McCain presses Mabus to answer six questions about the shipbuilding plan by May 3. Among other things, McCain wants to know when the Navy will get around to sending lawmakers the complete plan as opposed to a handful of chart excerpted from the plan. The senator's questions also touch on planned ship retirements, funding level assumptions for shipbuilding, construction costs and the potential for a "back-up plan" prepared in light of fiscal uncertainty.

"I have serious concerns with our shipbuilding plan and look forward to your timely response," writes McCain.

A new Congressional Research Service report looks at the Defense Department's use of multiyear procurement and block buy contracting.

The April 25 report -- originally obtained by Secrecy News -- finds that potential issues for lawmakers "include whether to use MYP and BBC in the future more frequently, less frequently, or about as frequently as they are currently used, and whether to create a permanent statute to govern the use of BBC, analogous to the permanent statute that governs the use of MYP." Further:

Compared with estimated costs under annual contracting, estimated savings for programs being proposed for MYP have ranged from less than 5% to more than 15%, depending on the particulars of the program in question, with many estimates falling in the range of 5% to 10%. In practice, actual savings from using MYP rather than annual contracting can be difficult to observe or verify because of cost growth during the execution of the contract due to changes in the program independent of the use of MYP rather than annual contracting.

View the full report.

Air Force Space Command chief Gen. William Shelton at a House hearing this week outlined the activities of the Joint Functional Component Command for Space.

The Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) "is the avenue through which JFCC SPACE commands and controls space forces and it is the epicenter of the space situational awareness mission," Shelton said in his prepared testimony, adding: "The JSpOC is also the means by which JFCC SPACE coordinates space situational awareness with other agencies." Further:

To support national security space operations in an increasingly challenged environment, the JSpOC collects and processes data from a worldwide network of radar and optical sensors, as well as a dedicated space surveillance satellite. Each day the JSpOC creates and disseminates over 200,000 sensor taskings, which result in nearly 500,000 observations for processing. JSpOC operators use this data to maintain a very accurate catalog for more than 23,000 objects and to perform over 1,000 satellite collision avoidance screenings daily. These operations form the basis of the United States' space situational awareness capability, which is then shared with other operators in the national security, civil and commercial sector of space operations.

InsideDefense.com reported earlier today that Defense Department leadership is reviewing internal procedures related to entering into lease agreements with Chinese satellite service providers, following the recent discovery that the United States has been leasing satellite services from a Chinese company:

Doug Loverro, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, testified April 25 at a hearing of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee that upon entering his current role about a month ago, he learned of DOD leases with a Chinese satellite service provider that were issued early last year through a joint urgent operational needs statement to support "warfighter needs."

"The warfighter needed [satellite communication] support in his area of operations. He went to the Defense Information Systems Agency to request that support," Loverro said.

Read the full story.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel earlier today visited "an air base in Southwest Asia," where he met with troops and answered a question about how the Air Force will go about transitioning from Southwest Asia to the Pacific. According to the Pentagon transcript, this is what he said:

Well, the larger context of your question was regarding our rebalancing of our focus with our assets around the world.  As you noticed and noted in your comments, we are unwinding our -- our major combat presence in Afghanistan and we have unwound our presence in Iraq.  And we have made the assessment -- and I think correctly -- that -- and, by the way, these assessments are constantly changing based on the world, based on dangers, based on assets, based on interest, based on allies.  And so the world is not static; I don't have to remind any of you.  It changes hour to hour, minute to minute.

So our job in the Department of Defense, a leader's job, President Obama's job, all of your jobs, is to protect our country and to assure our interest in the world, and security is the anchor to that.  So that policy, as we rebalance our focus, has rebalanced more assets to the Asia Pacific, which I think is exactly right.

All our services, including the Air Force, will continue to have a very, very, very significant role in that.  How can it be otherwise?  We will -- we will shift in varying ways presence in operations, depending on what the threat is, depending on how we want to project power, and that is all part of a continual assessment.

So the Air Force in particular, the question you asked about, will continue to play an important role, if for no other reason than projection of power.  And I think where we want to continue to go -- Secretary Gates talked about this, Secretary Panetta talked about it -- is a flexible, agile military.

The threats are shifted.  Ten years ago, I don't think very many people in this room would have talked much about cyber warfare or -- or the cyber threat.  Even five years ago, it was a different world.  Obviously, non-state actors, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorists, the coordination of those terrorists, interests that go below the surface, these are not coming all or mainly from state threats, from nation-state threats.  Most of these threats are coming from non-state actors.

And so that is shifting not only our balance of assets, but our -- our strategic interests and the strategies that protect those strategic interests and the tactics then that employ those -- those strategies.  So our Air Force, our Navy, our Marines, our Army, Coast Guard, all remain -- will continue to remain vital parts of our security interests.

You may be spending more time in the Pacific.  Not a bad assignment.

The 8 percent funding cut brought about by sequestration is "not a death blow" for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but it has been "quite corrosive," according to DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon this afternoon, Prabhakar said her agency has done its best to prioritize what efforts to scale back as a result of the sequestration cuts. But as a decade of two wars comes to an end, now is "a particularly important time" for the agency "to step back" and look at where DARPA needs to go in the future.

Prabhakar said her agency foresees three trends in the near future: An extended period where the United States will face a wide variety of different threats; new technologies will continue to play a role -- both for the United States and its potential adversaries; and fiscal constraints could portend a "fundamental shift" in how the United States allocates its national security resources.

DARPA will be looking to make systems more adaptable and will seek "ideas that can invert the cost equation," where adversaries are forced to spend more money on technology than the United States does, according to Prabhakar.

DARPA this afternoon released a 2013 framework document on "Driving Technological Surprise."

The Air Force has hired a principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told reporters today that the service has chosen William LaPlante to fill a position that has been vacant since David Van Buren left the post in early 2012.

LaPlante brings with him a “broad range of experience” in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, sensors and communications, Donley said. He also has Defense Science Board experience, Donley added.

LaPlante, who does missile defense work for MITRE Corporation, will start working for the Air Force on May 6, he said, adding,“We look forward to getting him on board."

Donley said he will retain service acquisition executive authority “for the time being.”