Inside the Pentagon highlights

Some must-reads from this week's edition of Inside the Pentagon:

1. The Strategic Capabilities Office is seeking nearly $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2019 -- an increase of more than 20 percent over FY-18 -- to develop new and surprising ways of using existing technology to bolster conventional deterrence against China and Russia.

Full story: DOD seeking $1.5B for SCO in FY-19, including $438M for seven new projects

2. The Pentagon will soon deliver a proposal to the director of national intelligence to reform the security clearance process by relying more on the use of "continuous evaluation" technologies and automated record checks rather than periodic background investigations.

Full story: Pentagon developing proposal to reform security clearance process

3. The military service vice chiefs, who last year generated alarm by testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. military readiness had been compromised, recently delivered a more optimistic message following a bipartisan budget deal poised to pump an additional $165 billion into the Defense Department over the next two years.

Full story: Military's tone on readiness shifts from alarm to guarded optimism

4. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is nearly quadrupling its planned investments in fiscal year 2019 for programs seeking to find new materials, architectures and designs for microelectronics.

Full story: DARPA seeks massive boost in electronics research funding