The INSIDER daily digest -- Dec. 18, 2023

This Monday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on the Pentagon's National Defense Industrial Strategy, homeland missile defense, Army networks and more.

Keep an eye out next month for the Pentagon to release the final version of its National Defense Industrial Strategy:

DOD plans to unveil National Defense Industrial Strategy next month

The Defense Department is planning to release its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy in January, a pre-decisional draft of which was obtained by Inside Defense earlier this month 219699 that calls for "generational change."

The final version of the fiscal year 2024 defense authorization conference bill largely restates missile defense objectives set forth in a FY-17 law; the only tweak is to break out as a separate line in the legislation the policy that the United States will rely on nuclear deterrence to address more sophisticated and larger-quantity, near-peer intercontinental missile threats to the homeland:

House gambit to expand national missile defense policy rolled back in final FY-24 policy bill

A proposal to dramatically expand in law the national missile defense policy -- with a provision proposed in the House version of the fiscal year 2024 defense authorization bill the Biden administration warned would be destabilizing, unaffordable and undoable -- was rolled back in the final version of the legislation.

Lt. Gen. John Morrison, the deputy chief of staff, G-6, said last week during Technical Exchange Meeting 11 that two years ago there were 16 organizational networks and that number is now down to nine:

Army leaders target 2025 for consolidating organizational networks

SAVANNAH, GA -- The Army's top leaders anticipate that by the end of 2025, the service will have consolidated all of its organizational networks into one.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. C.Q. Brown, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall each sent separate letters to Senate appropriators last week, warning of the damage a full-year continuing resolution would do to the U.S. military:

Pentagon leaders tally potential devastation from a full-year CR

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior Pentagon leaders have sent Senate appropriators five separate letters detailing the damage that a first-ever, full-year continuing resolution would visit upon thousands of U.S. weapons programs, resulting in a possible 4.1% across-the-board budget cut.

Document: DOD letters to Congress on yearlong CR

Leveraging technology, like generative AI, requires an entire organizational effort, according to a senior Defense Department official:

DOD working on responsibly integrating generative AI across department

A senior Pentagon official in the chief digital and artificial intelligence office today detailed what areas of emerging technology the office is focusing on in attempts to leverage AI usage across the Defense Department.