Sunday, June 15, 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
This Tuesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on the White House's proposed "skinny budget," plus Army aviation and more.
A senior Republican appropriator is warning against the Trump administration's proposed defense budget:
McConnell: White House 'skinny budget' sets stage for defense investment 'cliff'
Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Chairman Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today said he opposes the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 defense spending request because of its reliance on a "budgetary sleight of hand" that masks a failure to pursue real and sustained growth in Pentagon buying power.
Here's a curtain-raiser for this week's Quad A conference in Nashville:
Vision for Army aviation becoming further unmanned with latest shakeup
A year ago, the Army was already placing its aviation emphasis on drones, satellites and other unmanned technologies, having canceled the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft along with the RQ-7 Shadow drone as part of the February 2024 aviation "rebalance.”
The Missile Defense Agency recently published an Advanced Capability Concepts solicitation outlining an expansive vision to harness disruptive technologies that could redefine how the U.S. military deters and defeats missile threats:
MDA unveils sweeping solicitation with eye toward breakthrough capabilities
The Pentagon is opening the gates to an aspirational new era in missile defense development, publishing a wide-ranging, five-year solicitation that seeks paradigm-shifting approaches to delivering interceptors, battle management, electronic warfare, space systems, artificial intelligence and more.
Document: MDA solicitation for advanced capability concepts
More MDA news:
MDA plans overhaul of missile defense targets with industry callout
The Missile Defense Agency wants to overhaul the payload systems it uses to test U.S. missile defense systems, launching a formal request for information to expand the flexibility, speed and realism of future target vehicles.
Document: MDA's 'payload next' RFI
In a recent exercise, the Army's 18th Airborne Corps led a joint forcible entry operation across land, air, maritime and special operations with satellites, high-altitude balloons, long-range precision fires, myriad launched effects and lots of robots:
Lessons from Project Convergence are shaping the Army's future robotics buys
The Army tried something new at its fifth Project Convergence experiment this year: Invading the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, CA, with around 250 technologies that yielded plenty of ideas for how soldiers and robots might fight together in the future.