The Insider

The Nuclear Option
By Carlo Muñoz
February 6, 2009 at 5:00 AM

As the newly minted Obama White House formulates policies on everything from economic stimulus proposals to defense spending, one initiative being pursued by the new administration has raised the hackles of a small but influential circle of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The issue that has lawmakers up in arms is a recent memorandum issued by the Office of Management and Budget requesting a cost-benefit assessment on transferring the National Nuclear Security Administration and the national laboratories from the Energy Department to the Pentagon.

First reported by media outlets in New Mexico, OMB's request calls upon DOE to “assess the costs and benefits” of shifting NNSA to DOD beginning in fiscal year 2011.

“The idea of moving NNSA into the DOD is not a new one, and has been rejected in the past for good reasons,” according to Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.

NNSA's assignment to DOE is necessary to “ensure some independence from the military,” and the move would send a message to the international community that the United States was “militarizing control” of the nuclear weapons portfolio, she said in a Feb. 5 letter to OMB Director Peter Orszag.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others in the Pentagon have taken significant steps to reinvigorate the importance of the nuclear mission after a number of high-profile gaffes in the handling and transport of nuclear weapons in recent years.

But those efforts, according to Tauscher, have done little to restore lawmakers' confidence in the Pentagon's ability to manage the entire nuclear portfolio. “With all the recent evidence of military neglect of the nuclear mission, it is an odd time to consider relying on that vast bureaucracy to manage the activities” of either NNSA or the labs, Tauscher's letter states.

While opposed to the effort, the California Democrat suggested that if the White House was intent on exploring this option, it should do so in a broad-based manner, “and not focused on one option for improved management.”

“Such an examination would also be best formulated in consultation with Congress, particularly the committees of jurisdiction,” she writes.

Testing, Testing . . .
By John Liang
February 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Missile Defense Agency has revamped its ground-test schedule, according to a spokesman.

In its fiscal year 2009 budget request, MDA listed three line items for ground tests dubbed "GTX-03c," scheduled for the first quarter of 2009, "GTX-09" in the second quarter of 2009 and "GTI-09" in the third quarter of 2009.

MDA conducted the first phase of GTX-03c in early December 2008, and ran "additional risk-reduction runs" late last month, according to MDA spokesman Rick Lehner:

GTX-03c simulated an engagement of an intermediate range ballistic missile target using the SM-3 interceptor and evaluated data transmission with the transportable AN/TPY-2 forward based radar. This ground test served as risk reduction for the upcoming Aegis BMD flight test FTM-15, scheduled to take place this spring.

The other two tests have been renamed as GTX-04a and GTI-04, respectively, Lehner told Inside Missile Defense today. Asked when the tests would take place, he responded: "Both ground tests are still pending determination of their final execution schedules."

GTX-04a, the first test of this campaign, will focus on theater-level missile defense capabilities, and assess the ((Ballistic Missile Defense System's)) ability to simultaneously execute multiple engagements, while integrating several BMDS elements, including PATRIOT, THAAD, Aegis BMD, AN/TPY-2 radar, and the Command Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system).

While specific test objectives for GTI-04 are still under review, "the test will assess the BMDS ability to simultaneously execute multiple engagements using both theater- and strategic-level assets," he added.

As we told you last week, MDA completed a new testing plan last November that cancels out what had been the agency's testing roadmap that had been in place since March 2005. In response to questions posed by InsideDefense.com, MDA said the change was made "to reflect the natural evolution of the agency's testing policy, which has occurred with the maturation of the ((ballistic missile defense)) system."

Googled
By Sebastian Sprenger
February 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

We told you yesterday about a missile defense researcher outside the government using the free Google mapping software to create pretty sophisticated visualizations. But government workers themselves -- Navy folks, to be exact -- also are employing the software giant's technology.

On Monday, officials at the the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NMOC) said they had entered a cooperative research agreement with Google that allows the two organizations to share unclassified data about the world's oceans.

Under the agreement, NMOC officials are making available bathymetric data sets, sea surface temperatures and ocean current information, which can now be viewed in the latest Google Earth application.

In return, Navy officials received Google Earth enterprise licenses, which gives them an easy-to-use way of visualizing their vast amount of data.

Out Of The Gate
By John Liang
February 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Senate Armed Services Committee today approved the nominations of William Lynn to be deputy defense secretary, Robert Hale to be Pentagon comptroller, Michèle Flournoy to be under secretary of defense for policy and Jeh Charles Johnson to be DOD general counsel, according to a panel spokeswoman.

The committee "was able to establish a quorum this afternoon and voted to favorably report the . . . nominations, en bloc and by voice vote," the spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "All nominations were immediately reported to the floor following the committee’s action."

As of 6:20pm today, the full Senate hadn't voted on the nominations.

On Guard
By John Reed
February 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Air National Guard finally got its new boss on Tuesday when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and National Guard Bureau Director Gen. Craig McKinley pinned three stars on Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt during a Pentagon ceremony marking Wyatt's promotion to director of the ANG.

Wyatt succeeds McKinley, who was selected to be the first four-star director of the National Guard Bureau last year. McKinley's -- now Wyatt's -- deputy, Maj. Gen. Emmett Titshaw, served as acting director of the Air Guard following McKinley's promotion in December.

Wyatt takes the reins of the Air Guard as it faces dramatic reductions to its fighter fleet. Many of the Guard's 386 Block 25/30/32 F-16s will reach the end of their service lives as soon as 2016, while their replacement, the F-35 Lightning II, continues to suffer delays. This has left ANG leaders scrambling to find alternate missions for numerous flying units, Titshaw told an audience at the Reserve Officers Association Mid Winter Conference in Washington on Tuesday.

Time will tell if Wyatt is as outspoken as his predecessor about the need to recapitalize the ANG fleet. McKinley frequently told congress that the Air Guard was facing a fighter gap that would hurt its ability to perform the Operation Noble Eagle fighter patrols that defend stateside airspace against attack.

Wyatt was previously the adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard. The career fighter pilot has flown everything from F-100 Super Sabres to F-16 Vipers.

Bringing It All Back Home
By Kate Brannen
February 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Army officials are beginning to tackle the enormous logistical task of bringing back the thousands of systems fielded for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finding a home for them stateside.

"If the war ended tomorrow, what would we do with all of these systems?" asked Tim Owings, deputy project manager for the Army's unmanned aircraft systems, speaking to reporters at the AUVSI conference this week.

It's an especially big problem when it comes to UAVs, whose numbers grew dramatically over the past couple of years -- and they continue to grow as operations shift to Afghanistan.

The original acquisition for the Shadow platform was 44 systems, said Owings, and now it's at 116. Every system includes four actual Shadow aircraft.

The numbers for Sky Warriors are now as high as 35 to 40 and there are just "a ton of Raven systems," said Owings.

"We're getting concerned about, if the war ended tomorrow, how do we, one, continue to keep currency on all that with the soldiers, and secondly, how do we sustain the equipment stateside?"

He said the Army is beginning to look at what needs to be done to handle the future influx of these systems. It is considering such issues as military construction, hangar space and runway space, in addition to continued simulation and training for soldiers so that they can stay fluent on the systems once the equipment is stateside.

"It is an issue and it's something we're acutely aware of in terms of trying to address it," said Owings.

However, the Army doesn't expect these systems to come home overnight either, he added.

Today's News?
By Thomas Duffy
February 4, 2009 at 5:00 AM

If you read USA Today today, you saw two stories that may have looked familiar. One dealt with a Defense Department inspector general's report on the Army and Marine Corps Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program. If you are a regular reader of ours you saw that report, marked "official use only," here in December.

And you also read USA Today's other story here first. That story was about the new, lighter weight, all terrain MRAP. You can link to our January story here.

Intelligence Sharing
By Sebastian Sprenger
February 4, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Defense Department officials can no longer "categorically" deny Government Accountability Office investigators access to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information, according to a new Pentagon instruction.

"Such information may be furnished to GAO representatives having a legitimate need to know. Therefore, denials of access to such information must be carefully considered and supported legitimately," the Jan. 27 document states.

According to the Secrecy News blog, where the tidbit was first unearthed, there is a history of haggling over the issue.

GAO access to intelligence information has long been a subject of dispute and controversy. By law (31 U.S.C. 716d), the Comptroller General who directs the GAO cannot compel executive branch agencies to disclose intelligence information. The Central Intelligence Agency has generally refused to cooperate with GAO auditors, while defense intelligence agencies have historically been somewhat more forthcoming.

Fun with Maps
By Sebastian Sprenger
February 4, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Thanks to Google Maps and Google Earth, satellite imagery analysis has become a treasured pastime of armchair generals worldwide. But making extensive use of Google Earth images to construct an entire briefing about the technical effectiveness of missile defense systems in Europe -- featuring radar ranges, earth curvature and all -- that's taking it to the next level.

Stanford University professor Dean Wilkening has done just that, and his graphics don't make the proposed Poland- and Czech Republic-based missile shield look good, we reported earlier today.

We can't say whether the plots are meant to be accurate or merely intended to be illustrative. But they sure look cool.

The briefing slides are making the rounds on Capitol Hill and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, we're told. And not for their graphics.

Defense Stimulus
By John Liang
February 4, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) wants a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package under debate in the Senate this week to go to defense.

To that end, Inhofe introduced an amendment today that would add $5.2 billion to the Defense Department's procurement accounts via the stimulus bill to manufacture or acquire vehicles, equipment, ammunition, and materials required to reconstitute military units, he said on the Senate floor.

"Investing in our nation’s defense provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our nation’s security," he added. "Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the U.S. with our aerospace industry alone employing more than 655,000 workers spread across over most of the U.S."

Further:

It is clear that infrastructure investment, along with defense spending and tax cuts, has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than anything else the government can do.

If our infrastructure needs repair, we equally need the tools to reconstruct military readiness. . . .

So we're accomplishing two things here: We're providing the jobs, we're also rebuilding our military.

Specifically, Inhofe's amendment would allow the buying of "aircraft, tracked and non-tracked combat vehicles, missiles, weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, maintenance equipment, naval coastal warfare boats, salvage equipment, riverine equipment, expeditionary material handling equipment, and other expeditionary items."

Inhofe emphasized that his amendment doesn't increase the cost of the bill because it also includes the following offsets that he said "highlight a part of the frivolous spending" included in the legislation that many Republicans have criticized. Those offsets include:

* $20 million for fish passage barrier removal,
* $20 million for trail improvements,
* $25 million for habitat restoration,
* $34 million to renovate the Commerce Department,
* $600 million for the federal government to buy cars – specifically hybrid and battery cars,
* $13 million to research volunteer activities,
* $650 million in coupons for digital TV (DTV) transition,
* $70 million for a support computer for climate change research,
* $1 billion for the Census,
* $850 million for Amtrak, and
* $2 billion reduction from $6 billion to use 'green technology' to revamp federal office buildings.

"This is a common sense amendment with real stimulative impact," Inhofe said. His spokesman told InsideDefense.com that a vote on the amendment could come later this afternoon.

UPDATE (Feb. 6): The amendment was defeated Feb. 5 "on a budget point of order" by a 38-59 vote, according to Inhofe's spokesman.

Wait and See
By Jason Simpson
February 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The GE Rolls-Royce team building the secondary engine to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has begun testing its first production-configuration F136 engine a month ahead of schedule, the companies announced this week.

The engine began testing Jan. 30 and represents the first complete engine assembled following government validation of the design in 2008, according to a GE Rolls-Royce statement. Several more engines are scheduled to be tested by the end of the year.

The statement touts: “The F136 engine is a product of the best technology from two world-leading propulsion companies. The GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team has designed the only engine specifically developed for the F-35 aircraft, offering extra temperature margin and affordable growth.”

This program is one that the Defense Department has refused to fund in previous spending budgets, even though Congress has mandated the funding for the JSF's alternate engine and has time and time again re-infused F-35 coffers with monies to go to the GE Rolls-Royce power plant.

The question now is whether the F136 has similar issues as the fifth-generation jet's primary power supply, the Pratt & Whitney F135. Though the JSF program office has said repeatedly -- after the fact -- that officials were expecting it, a Pratt engine suffered “high-cycle fatigue” when it failed and a blade broke off during a test for the Marine Corps' short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant almost a year ago. This incident occurred roughly half a year after a similar incident on an engine for the Air Force's conventional takeoff-and-landing variant.

Program Executive Officer Maj. Gen. Charles Davis has said that these types of issues occur when testing new jets and engines, and has not come out to say that any of the F135 incidents were huge deals. But with all the Pentagon has done to try to kill the program, will it be more critical with problems on the F136?

Fair Buying
By John Liang
February 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Aerospace Industries Association is calling on the new administration and Congress to consider "rational reform of the current system and avoid specific complex and unique government acquisition processes that were unsuccessful in the past," according to a report released today.

In a statement, AIA President and CEO Marion Blakey called the report "industry's blueprint to be a constructive voice and partner with the government in achieving that goal."

Consequently, the White House and Congress should focus on three overarching themes this year, according to AIA:

Stability and fairness in contracting and financial policies;
Reform of the major elements of the defense acquisition system; and
Competitiveness and efficiency of the aerospace and defense industry.

In her foreword to the report, Blakey writes:

There has been substantial expansion of acquisition-related legislation in the national defense authorization acts passed during the past 10 years. Since the late 1990s, the number of acquisition provisions put in place by Congress has increased by three-to-four fold. In the past two years alone, the number has approached 100.

At the same time, there has been growth in the defense budget along with a dramatic reduction in the acquisition workforce-making it almost impossible for acquisition officials to perform their jobs efficiently and in compliance with all rules and laws. Moreover, there is a commensurate cost of compliance on the part of the defense industry included in the prices of goods and services.

The Aerospace Industries Association believes that now is the time to recalculate the imbalances in the defense acquisition system and take action for positive reform to ensure that the policies and processes that govern it are fair, reasonable and flexible.

The detailed AIA paper herein provides an overview of the acquisition system and offers recommendations for improvement. We welcome your comments and suggestions on this positive agenda.

But acquisition reform is a term that has been in use for decades by the Defense Department, and a White House national security paper issued not long after President Obama's inauguration has acquisition reform listed as one of the new administration's defense priorities:

Create Transparency for Military Contractors: President Obama and Vice President Biden will require the Pentagon and State Department to develop a strategy for determining when contracting makes sense, rather than continually handing off governmental jobs to well-connected companies. They will create the transparency and accountability needed for good governance, and establish the legal status of contractor personnel, making possible prosecution of any abuses committed by private military contractors.

Restore Honesty, Openness, and Commonsense to Contracting and Procurement: The Obama-Biden Administration will realize savings by reducing the corruption and cost overruns that have become all too routine in defense contracting. This includes launching a program of acquisition reform and management, which would end the common practice of no-bid contracting. Obama and Biden will end the abuse of supplemental budgets by creating a system of oversight for war funds as stringent as in the regular budget. Obama and Biden will restore the government's ability to manage contracts by rebuilding our contract officer corps. They will order the Justice Department to prioritize prosecutions that will punish and deter fraud, waste and abuse.

The Army's vice chief of staff thinks that the service's Rapid Equipping Force makes an excellent model for future acquisition reform by accelerating solutions that meet operational commanders' needs, Inside the Army reported this week:

The REF, as it is commonly known, streamlines procurement by focusing less on defining requirements and more on “finding point solutions to capabilities shortfalls on the battlefield,” said Gen. Peter Chiarelli at a Jan. 27 Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference in Washington.

It does this by canvassing the military, government, industry and academia to see what is already available or nearly available that can be delivered in a short time frame to commanders in the field.

Chiarelli praised the organization’s contributions to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and argued that the regular procurement system should try to follow its example.

“It provides a great model for how we might improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the current procurement system in the future,” said Chiarelli. “Rather than waiting seven years for 95 percent solutions, we should work to get capabilities out to warfighters as quickly as possible.”

Budget Revisions
By Jason Sherman
February 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Listening to Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell's comments at the Defense Department podium this afternoon, one might be left with the impression that DOD was largely looking to shift recurring war costs to the base budget last year when the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the top brass tacked on roughly $60 billion to a draft fiscal year 2010 budget request:

There was an internal exercise done on budgeting matters.

And it reflected two things that are important to note, or three things: number one, the notion of 4 percent of GDP being dedicated to defense spending; number two, trying to be responsive to the desires of the Congress that more and more supplemental spending be moved into the base budget -- and by that, I'm speaking of things like Wounded Warrior, the JIEDDO program, you know, Army and Marine Corps growth, as well as some operational spending to reflect sort of the persistent-presence reality that we find ourselves in; and lastly, and most importantly, it was done at a time in which you could probably go through such an exercise.

That is not exactly a full accounting of the increase the Pentagon sought to allocate to itself last year, in incorporating $57 billion in extra spending on top of the $523 billion which the Bush White House Office of Management and Budget authorized the Pentagon for FY-10.

In fact, recurring war costs amount for probably less than $10 billion of the amount. More than $20 billion would go to fund new aircraft and other weapons, and the largest portion -- more than $30 billion -- would finance activities related to the “long war,” including a boost for JIEDDO. These “long war” spending targets would pay for “presence” missions by all the services that presumed policies on Afghanistan and Iraq by the Obama administration.

For more details on where the Pentagon was planning to spend the extra money, see this story from last fall. We also reported last fall how the $57 billion boost was an effort to boost an inflation-adjusted defense spending plan advanced by the Bush administration built last year that was set to shrink through FY-13.

Last week OMB directed the Pentagon to build its FY-10 budget to the $523 billion topline set by the Bush administration, guidance that will force the Defense Department, in the words of one military official, to “rip the guts” out of the detailed spending proposal prepared for the Obama administration. Morrell said the Pentagon is backing away from its bid to push the FY-10 base budget north of $580 billion.

So this department is well aware of the fact that times are tough, and we are prepared to do the belt-tightening that is required and responsible of us.

He added:

The reality is, the economic situation has deteriorated dramatically since we undertook that exercise, and you can -- we today can probably not be as ambitious as we were in that exercise in moving funding from supplementals into the base budget. But that was an internal exercise, not a proposed budget, and not a starting-off point for any negotiations.

Big Things
By Dan Dupont
February 2, 2009 at 5:00 AM

So, what’s the next big thing for the Navy?

That was the question asked last year by the “Navy’s Next Big Thing subcommittee” of the Chief of Naval Operations’ Executive Panel. What’s that, you ask? Like the Defense Science Board, it’s a board of outside advisers set up under the Federal Advisory Committee Act -- a law designed to ensure the public has a means of seeing what such advisory panels do.

Unless, of course, it’s classified. As are the Next Big Things, apparently; last October the subcommittee met in closed session to talk about “what actual threats and opportunities are ‘Navy’s Next Big Things’ for the United States Navy in terms of ‘game changers’ and technology disruptors.

Got that?

They also talked about “ways to ameliorate the effects of these ‘Navy’s Next Big Things’ or to develop/enhance them for Navy’s own use.”

And that’s the sum total of what the Navy deems it appropriate for the public to know about that meeting, according to the official minutes. Though to be fair, they do tell you who was there.

Testing the Limits
By Thomas Duffy
February 2, 2009 at 5:00 AM

In one of his last acts as director of the Missile Defense Agency last November, Lt. Gen. Trey Obering (now retired) signed out a new testing plan for the agency. We recently got hold of the plan, which Obering signed Nov. 21.

The new plan cancels out what had been the agency's testing roadmap that had been in place since March 2005. In response to questions posed by InsideDefense.com, MDA said the change was made “to reflect the natural evolution of the agency's testing policy, which has occurred with the maturation of the ((ballistic missile defense)) system.”

The document makes it clear that the MDA director -- now Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly -- is fully in charge of agency testing. All testing issues and decisions flow through him. The new policy, though, sets up a three-headed body consisting of a deputy for test, a deputy for engineering and a mission director to shepherd each test through five different stages: test event requirements phase; test event planning and design phase; test event readiness phase; test event execution phase; and test event analysis and evaluation phase.

MDA tells us the deputy for test is Air Force Maj. Gen. Chris Anzalone. The new deputy for engineering is Keith Englander. O'Reilly will appoint a mission director for specific tests. Interestingly, the deputy for test is in charge of only the test event and planning phase. The deputy for engineering is in charge of the requirements phase (the first phase in the process) and the analysis and evaluation phase (the final phase). The mission director is in charge of the readiness phase (the third of the five phases).

Despite the title, the deputy for test assumes a supporting role during four of the five phases, MDA tells us.

Exceptions are made for test events in which the (deputy) for test is also the mission director. For these tests, the (deputy) for test has the primary responsibility for the test event, planning and design phase, the test event readiness phase and the test event execution phase.

Philip Coyle was in charge of the Pentagon independent operational testing office during the Clinton administration. He told us the new MDA testing organization looks “very flat” and has everything running through O'Reilly.

"This puts the director in the position of managing every little detail, and nearly every decision of any consequence ends up having to go to the director," he says. "The Missile Defense Agency is too large for that."

Coyle has some questions about the deputy for test/engineering/mission director setup, too.

I understand that MDA tests can be quite expensive, but breaking each one into five parts and then having a troika of three deputies manage each of those five parts separately from the others is unnecessarily complicated. Yes, I'm sure MDA will tell you that those three managers in the troika must coordinate, and let's hope they do because otherwise this new organization will be dysfunctional.

 MDA told us that every test carried out since the new policy was signed has been done so under the new setup: “Some tailoring was accomplished to ensure continuity and efficiency of work that was already in progress.”