The Insider

The Pentagon today named the next director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been tapped to replace outgoing DIA Director Lt. Gen. General Ronald Burgess, according to a Defense Department statement released this afternoon. Flynn is the assistant director of national intelligence for partner engagement.

From Flynn's official bio:

Michael T. Flynn graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1981 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in Military Intelligence. His first assignment was as a paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Since that time he has served in a variety of command and staff positions to include, Commander, 313th Military Intelligence Battalion and G2, 82nd Airborne Division; G2, 18th Airborne Corps, CJ2, CJTF-180 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan; Commander, 111th Military Intelligence Brigade at the Army's Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Director of Intelligence, Joint Special Operations Command with duty in OEF and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF); Director of Intelligence, United States Central Command with duty in OEF and OIF; Director of Intelligence, the Joint Staff; Director of Intelligence, International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan and US Forces-Afghanistan, Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2; and he currently serves as the Assistant Director of National Intelligence, Partner Engagement.

Lieutenant General Flynn holds an undergraduate degree in Management Science from the University of Rhode Island and holds three graduate degrees; a Master's of Business Administration in Telecommunications from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, a Masters in the Military Arts and Sciences from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a Masters in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States Naval War College. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws, from the Institute of World Politics, Washington D.C.

Lieutenant General Flynn's other assignments include multiple tours at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division as a platoon leader for Operation URGENT FURY in Grenada, and as Chief of Joint War Plans for JTF-180 UPHOLD DEMOCRACY in Haiti. He also served with the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and as the Senior Observer/Controller for Intelligence at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Army Maj. Gen. Theodore Nicholas, deputy director for signals intelligence at the National Security Agency, has been tapped to replace Flynn at ODNI as well as for promotion to lieutenant general, according to the same DOD announcement.

The Defense Department would have to begin planning by mid to late summer for the possibility that the sequestration trigger to last year's congressional budget plan may kick in if Congress and the White House cannot reach a deal to avoid it, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters during a press briefing today.

The sequestration trigger would result in about $500 billion in defense budget cuts over a 10-year period.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta agreed with Dempsey and told reporters that by mid summer the Office of Management and Budget will have to give DOD and other government agencies some indication of how they should plan for sequestration. The "shadow of sequestration" is already looming within the Pentagon, Panetta said, adding that the defense industrial base is particularly worried.

Panetta said he has not met one member of Congress who doesn't think sequestration is a bad idea. Pointing out another budget issue, Panetta said that as Congress reviews the department's fiscal year 2013 budget request, it is working in a zero-sum game. The Obama administration has forwarded six program cancellations as part of the budget request and Panetta said the department would have to find $9.6 billion in savings "from other areas" if Congress rejects those cancellations.

The Air Force wants a new class of precision munitions capable of being guided to targets without satellite-provided geo-location information. The Air Armaments Center, Eglin Air Force Base, on April 12 solicited white papers on “near-demonstration ready” super- and subsonic “Non-GPS Precision Navigation Solutions.”

In an amendment to an April 10 Broad Area Announcement, the Air Force yesterday asked for proposals for the following subsonic capability:

A precision navigation solution, not augmented by GPS, is needed for subsonic air launched weapons. Assume a poor initial inertial measurement unit (IMU) alignment, since the GPS signal may not be available for the launch aircraft. The vehicle will cruise between 200 and 1000 feet at speeds around than Mach 0.7. Flight times will be in excess of three hours. Near GPS quality accuracies by the start of the terminal flight phase is desired.

Assumptions for supersonic proposals should include vehicle cruising above 40,000 feet “at speeds greater than mach 1.5” and flight times “in excess of one hour.”

The Navy has paused operations involving MQ-8B Fire Scout drones pending crash-investigation results, according to Naval Air Systems Command.

On March 30, an MQ-8B operating from the frigate Simpson (FFG-56) settled into the water after failing to acquire the automated recovery system. “The air vehicle was unable to achieve UAS Common Automated Recovery System (UCARS) lock on, a requirement for recovery at sea. It's a system that provides aircraft relative position to the ship while landing,” Navy spokeswoman Jamie Cosgrove told InsideDefense.com. Naval personnel on the ship later performed a recovery of the aircraft at night, she said, noting the cause of the damage has not been determined.

The incident occurred near the western coast of Africa when an MQ-8B Fire Scout was returning from a routine maritime surveillance mission in support of the Africa Partnership Station, Cosgrove said. “Operations aboard USS Simpson are suspended pending review of the Aircraft Mishap Board,” she said via email, noting the suspension took effect right after the incident. There is no history of the drone failing to acquire the automated recovery system, Cosgrove said.

“The Aircraft Reporting Custodian, Naval Test Wing Atlantic, requested to pause Fire Scout operations that do not require operational necessity,” Cosgrove said. The Simpson deployment is the only ongoing shipboard deployment for the MQ-8B but the Fire Scout team is conducting work ups on the frigate Klakring (FFG-42), Cosgrove said, noting there also is a Fire Scout detachment deployed in Afghanistan.

In an April 6 statement, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) disclosed that a rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in northern Afghanistan that day. “We are not able to provide details of the type of UAV involved in this incident,” ISAF's public affairs shop said via email. "The cause of the crash is currently being assessed, however initial reporting indicates there was no enemy activity in the area," NATO's statement said.

Flight International reported today on the crash of the MQ-8B, noting that it prompted a halt to flights of the drone there.

The State Department on Friday released its latest figures on the numbers of strategic offensive nuclear weapons, as required by the START Treaty,  in the U.S. and Russian inventories.

According to a department statement, the United States has 812 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers, while Russia has 494.

As for the warheads on those deployed missiles and bombers, the United States has 1,737 and Russia 1,492.

And as for "deployed and non-deployed launchers of ICBMs, deployed and non-deployed launchers of SLBMs, and deployed and non-deployed heavy bombers," the United States has 1,040 to Russia's 881, according to the statement.

The Pentagon recently submitted a report to Congress on rare-earth materials in defense applications. The study looked at the seven most prevalent elements used by defense contractors: Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Gadolinium, Neodymium, Praseodymium and Yttrium, and states:

The assessment determined that by 2013, U.S. production could satisfy the level of consumption required to meet defense procurement needs, with the exception of yttrium (estimates based on model using 2010 data). Since 2010, both expected DOD demand, and, more significantly, actual U.S. commercial demand have decreased significantly. As importantly, the U.S. and global market has responded to market conditions with new investments, corporate restructuring, and technical advances. All are trending positive for a market capable of meeting future U.S. Government demand. It is anticipated the domestic supply of REEs and rare-earth-containing products will continue to grow between now and 2015, and it will be possible for manufacturers within the defense industrial base to obtain some rare-earth-containing products from reliable foreign sources of supply.

Listing.

COCOMS' integrated priority lists, up first:

Consolidated Combatant Commanders' Wish List Set To Influence FY-14 Budget

Top Defense Department officials have hammered out a new ranking of the military's most acute capability shortfalls, a classified list of potential Achilles' heels intended to help drive investment decisions between fiscal years 2014 and 2018.

On March 20, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council convened in the Pentagon to wrap up work on one of its most important annual tasks -- producing a consolidated list of combatant commander priorities, according to military officials.

This year marked the first time combatant commanders have participated in the five-month "capability gap assessment" process as full voting members of the JROC. Combatant commanders, who play only an ancillary role in DOD's budget process, were last year elevated by law to full membership on the JROC and now outnumber the four service vice chiefs of staff, who wield enormous influence over the military's purse strings.

"Combatant commanders were able to participate and get their voices heard on particular issues a lot more than in the past," Air Force Col. Keith Duffy told InsideDefense.com. Duffy, the planning and integration branch chief in the Joint Staff's J-8 Joint Capability Division, played a key role in finalizing the "integrated priority list."

Proposed.

A key document up next:

DOD's Second FY-13 Legislative Proposals Package

On March 28, 2012, the Defense Department submitted its second package of fiscal year 2013 legislative proposals.

Touches on subjects like this:

DOD Asks Congress To Ease Notification Mandates For Cost Increases

The Defense Department is asking Congress to water down statutory notification requirements for major acquisition programs with soaring costs tied to quantity cuts.

In a legislative proposal sent to Capitol Hill last week, the Pentagon proposes further reducing the statutory requirements for critical Nunn-McCurdy breaches caused primarily by quantity changes.

DOD Wants To Narrow Definition Of Commercial Item To Ensure Fair Prices

The Pentagon wants lawmakers to narrow the definition of a commercial item to ensure goods and services are acquired at fair and reasonable prices and to preclude abuse.

Pentagon Seeks To Add Nine Countries To 'High Income' List

The Pentagon wants Congress to designate nine more countries, including four in the Middle East, as "high income," which would enable these governments to pay for military training at an incremental rate as part of the foreign military sales program.

DOD Asks Congress To Exempt DOE Work From Mandated Reviews

To avoid interruptions in critical national security activities, Congress should let Energy Department procurement efforts that support the Defense Department sidestep mandated inspector-general reviews, the Pentagon argues in a recent legislative proposal.

Cyber Concept.

Moving on to the front page of today's Inside the Pentagon:

New Joint Cyber Concept, Blessed By STRATCOM, Nears Dempsey's Desk

U.S. Strategic Command has approved a new joint concept to support major decisions about doctrine and resources for cyberspace operations, a key step toward final approval of the document by the military's top officer.

The Joint Concept for Cyberspace, designed to help military forces grapple with fundamental questions about cyberwarfare in the 2020s, now bears the signature of STRATCOM chief Gen. Robert Kehler and will ultimately land on the desk of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey for final approval. In the interim, STRATCOM officials must brief the document, roughly 55 pages, to key Joint Staff officials who oversee military requirements.

"The Joint Concept for Cyberspace will form the basis of joint warfighting doctrine and resourcing decisions to provide the joint force commander with the means to achieve and sustain cyberspace superiority," STRATCOM spokesman Rodney Ellison told Inside the Pentagon.

Legal Eagles.

Another front-pager, this one suggesting a need for more help on legal issues at the Pentagon:

Panetta Poised To Stand Up Defense Legal Policy Board

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta plans to create a blue-ribbon panel to advise the Defense Department on an array of complex legal policy matters, according to DOD officials and documents.

A defense official said the spectrum of issues awaiting the new Defense Legal Policy Board could include the targeted killing of individuals abroad; the process of trying terrorism suspects in military courtrooms; and matters related to major crimes committed by deployed service members, including requirements for status-of-forces agreements and the way the department processes major crimes.

On March 30, the Pentagon submitted a draft charter for the new panel to the General Services Administration, which has since approved the document.

DOCUMENT ALERT:

Defense Legal Policy Board Charter

The March 30, 2012, Office of the Secretary of Defense memo lays out the charter of the Defense Legal Policy Board.

Performance Review.

The IG gets busy:

Pentagon IG To Scrutinize DOD's Use Of Performance-Based Payments

The Pentagon's inspector general has launched a broad review of the award and administration of performance-based payments in Defense Department contracts.

The objective of this audit is to determine whether DOD officials negotiated and administered performance-based payment milestones in DOD contracts in accordance with selected Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements, according to a March 22 memo signed by Lorin Venable, the acting assistant inspector general for DOD payments and accounting operations.

"Specifically, we will determine whether DOD properly negotiated, verified, and disbursed performance-based payments," Venable writes. The memo is addressed to acting Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall, DOD Comptroller Robert Hale, service officials and defense agencies.

DOCUMENT ALERT:

DOD IG Memo On Performance-Based Payment Contracts Audit

In a March 22, 2012, memo, the Defense Department inspector general's office announces it would undertake an audit "to determine whether DOD officials negotiated and administered performance-based payment milestones in DOD contracts in accordance with selected Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements."

High Energy.

One more item of note today:

New Charter: Operational Energy Board To Serve As Forum, Review Plans

The Defense Department has released a new charter defining the membership, procedures and functions of the Defense Operational Energy Board, which will serve to review, synchronize and support department-wide operational energy policies, plans and programs.

DOCUMENT ALERT:

Defense Operational Energy Board Charter

On March 22, 2012, the Pentagon issued a charter establishing the Defense Operational Energy Board.

The