The INSIDER daily digest -- Oct. 25, 2018

This Thursday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on a new Congressional Budget Office report on OCO funding, a Defense Science Board summer study on the "Future of U.S. Military Superiority," defense contractor earnings and much more.

The Congressional Budget Office looks at the Pentagon's Overseas Contingency Operations spending:

CBO says 70 percent of Pentagon's war contingency account not really for contingencies

About 70 percent of the Pentagon's $69 billion Overseas Contingency Operations account -- intended for warfighting costs -- will actually pay for "enduring" priorities that would likely continue in the absence of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report.

A new Defense Science Board summer study is underway:

Griffin looking beyond guns and bombs in search to ensure future U.S. military superiority

The Pentagon's top weapons technology official has commissioned a new study to envision how the U.S. military might make the most of its current advantage in select technologies as well as to look beyond guns and bombs to prevail in future fights, imagining how to win by also exploiting an adversary's values and dealing with an enemy's false narratives.

More earnings news this week from Leidos and Raytheon:

Leidos, Raytheon report sales, profit boosts

Leidos said today sales during its most recent quarter hit $2.6 billion, up nearly 3 percent from the same three-month period a year earlier.

Here is more of our coverage of congressional lawmakers' response to the Pentagon's omnibus reprogramming request:

Army gets approval to shift money for Close Combat Lethality Task Force priorities

Army programs key to Defense Secretary James Mattis' Close Combat Lethality Task Force will receive more money after Congress' approval of most of the Defense Department's omnibus reprogramming request.

Congress defers bulk of $126 million GBSD reprogramming request

Senate appropriators deferred the Air Force's request to shift nearly $87 million into the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program because the service no longer needs the money, a congressional source said this week.

A look at the Air Force's directed-energy efforts:

Air Force issues RFI for directed-energy experiment to counter cruise missiles

Airborne directed-energy weapons could soon be used to take out surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles as well as ground targets, as the Air Force plans a field experiment campaign to explore those options in fiscal year 2020.

Don't expect to get any cost and schedule details from the Pentagon on the F-35 Block 4 acquisition strategy:

Pentagon approves F-35 Block 4 strategy, but says cost and schedule estimates are proprietary

The Pentagon has approved an update to the F-35 Block 4 acquisition strategy nearly a year later than the joint program office anticipated, but officials do not plan to release cost and schedule details, citing proprietary concerns.

Navy Under Secretary Thomas Modly spoke recently on his service's latest business operations plan:

Modly: Navy's FY-19 to FY-21 business ops plan will free up money for the warfighter

The Navy's fiscal year 2019 to FY-21 business operations plan, published today, is projected to reap savings that will eventually be invested into the warfighter, according to the service's No. 2 civilian.

The "next leg" of the defense industrial base assessment released last month is "the issue of infrastructure," according to Peter Navarro, director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy:

White House trade policy shop moves to conduct U.S. infrastructure assessment with defense slant

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The White House's trade policy office, on the heels of a sweeping defense industrial base assessment, next wants to hone in on the U.S. infrastructure sector and how it can be shored up against potential Chinese intrusions, according to the head of the office.