The INSIDER daily digest -- Feb. 15, 2019

This Friday INSIDER Daily Digest features coverage of the ramifications of the president's southern border emergency declaration on defense spending and much more.

We start off with the ramifications of President Trump's southern border emergency declaration on defense spending:

Trump to tap more than $6 billion in Pentagon funds to build border wall

President Trump declared a national emergency today to use $3.6 billion in Defense Department military construction funds to build a wall on the southwestern border. Additionally, he will seek to reprogram $2.5 billion to DOD's drug interdiction account from other unidentified Pentagon sources.

Capitol Hill readies for aftershock as Trump diverts DOD funds toward border wall

Democrats in Congress say they are eager to learn which military construction projects will go unfunded so President Trump can divert $3.6 billion to build a wall on the southwestern border following his declaration of a national emergency.

Here is more of our coverage from this week's AFCEA West conference in San Diego:

Air Boss: New aviation sustainment system reducing maintenance times

SAN DIEGO -- The Navy is starting to see benefits from a new aviation sustainment system in the form of reducing the time it takes to conduct various maintenance activities, one of the service's top aviators said.

Geurts: With SSTD suspended, fleet will fall back on existing technologies for torpedo defense

SAN DIEGO -- The Navy's aircraft carriers will rely on other technologies to defend against torpedoes after determining its $700 million Surface Ship Torpedo Defense system is not worth pursuing any further, according to the Navy's acquisition executive.

BAE Systems will be working on an active protection system for Army combat vehicles:

BAE electronic defense system chosen for active protection testing on Bradley

The Army today announced it has chosen BAE Systems to participate in a "layered" active protection demonstration this summer following a successful performance in a test last fall.

Maj. Gen. Stephen Davis, the director of global operations at U.S. Strategic Command, spoke this week at an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute on Capitol Hill:

STRATCOM establishes NC3 Enterprise Center

U.S. Strategic Command is setting up a new organization to oversee the Defense Department's disparate nuclear command, control and communications systems, as well as lead the development of next-generation NC3 requirements.

The Pentagon's top weapons tester has determined that the Navy will have to push back its testing of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's ability to operate on certain big-deck amphibious ships by a year:

DOT&E: Navy pushes operational evaluation of LHA-6 to accommodate F-35s to FY-21

The Navy has delayed its time line for conducting an operational evaluation of the America-class amphibious assault ship’s capability to accommodate the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter from fiscal year 2020 to FY-21.

The Pentagon has figured out how much the follow-on to the GPS system will cost:

GPS III Follow-On satellites acquisition will cost $10.7 billion

The Defense Department estimates the newest Global Positioning System satellite program -- the GPS III Follow-On being built by Lockheed Martin -- will cost $10.7 billion, a figure the Air Force has recently conveyed to Congress as part of a report establishing a baseline for the planned 22-satellite acquisition effort.