The Insider

By Jason Sherman
August 10, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Security challenges caused by increasing global temperatures offer the United States and China new opportunities for military cooperation, particularly in Africa. That is a finding offered by Rymn Parsons -- a naval reservist and attorney with Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Norfolk, VA -- in a new monograph published by the Army War College.

The U.S. military is the best vehicle, most notably in areas in which conflict is occurring or where civil government is ineffective or not present, for enabling diplomacy, development, and defense, as part of a preventative, collective security construct. The military’s reach, capability, and durability in these circumstances are obvious (but not limitless) advantages.

So, too, is the military’s capacity to connect and coordinate external and internal entities, not merely indigenous and foreign security forces, but also regional and international governing organizations and non-governmental organizations. Sub-Saharan Africa would be a particularly good place to address the challenges that climate change is causing and will produce. It is also a particularly good place to take advantage of opportunities that environmental engagement offers. Working together with African militaries, AFRICOM and the PLA ((China's People's Liberation Army)) can enable security and stability projects focused on global warming and other climate change phenomena.

The intelligence community last year concluded that climate change will degrade U.S. military readiness by diverting key transportation assets and combat support forces. The Pentagon, at the direction of Congress, is currently examining the national security implications of climate change in the Quadrennial Defense Review.

By Sebastian Sprenger
August 7, 2009 at 5:00 AM

That term became the new mantra among Defense Department officials some years ago when roadside bombs in Iraq were killing dozens of U.S. forces every month, with no end in sight. It symbolized a shift in attention -- mainly through intelligence and good old fashioned police work -- toward understanding and disabling the networks of bomb makers behind the deadly attacks.

Similar thinking is apparently going on among the nation's intelligence agencies charged with stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, according to a speech by a top official this week.

In the past, counter-WMD efforts often were understood as a "technical" discipline providing "descriptive analysis" to U.S. decision-makers, National Counterproliferation Center Director Kenneth Brill said in a speech this week at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy.

But officials now are increasingly trying to figure out the motivations of WMD-seeking adversaries and deduce from those potential strategies to "discourage, prevent, rollback and deter" their WMD programs, Brill said.

"To get to the left of the proliferation problem, we need to learn about and understand a state’s motivations, determine ways to address those motivations and identify what levers and opportunities can be applied or exploited to dissuade interest in WMD," according to Brill.

"The Intelligence Community, in coordination with partners across the U.S. government -- is instituting a new watchfulness to guide its action -- watchful for nascent WMD programs, watchful for levers that can discourage such programs, and watchful for the threats that have been made real in this era of globalization," he said.

By Marjorie Censer
August 6, 2009 at 5:00 AM

After seven years of underfunding of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama will have to funnel more resources to Afghanistan operations if he hopes to win there, according to a new report.

The report, written by Anthony Cordesman and Erin Fitzgerald of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues that the Bush administration dramatically underresourced the wars both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Bush Administration failed to develop a meaningful long-term strategy or plan for the Iraq and Afghan Wars, while also failing to properly resource its wars and produce sound budgets," a summary of the report reads. "For the past eight budgets, the Department of Defense requested emergency supplemental or 'bridge' funding outside of the regular defense budget."

Consequently, the administration and DOD "never developed a consistent or credible long-term funding profile for war fighting, nor did it properly manage either conflict," the summary adds.

Only beginning in fiscal year 2009, the report says, did the administration "began to fund the war seriously."

But, it adds, Obama now must "deal with two badly managed and budgeted wars." In Iraq, he must handle the withdrawal of forces, while in Afghanistan he must "now pay far more to compensate for a past Administration's grand strategic failures or risk losing the war in Afghanistan."

By Sebastian Sprenger
August 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The White House yesterday released a memo outlining the Obama Administration's science and technology priorities for fiscal year 2011.

The document sets out four "practical challenges" to which agencies must divert dollars from "lower-priority" projects.

As for defense-related themes, the memo lists as one of the four practical challenges "technologies needed to protect our troops, citizens and national interests, including those needed to verify arms control and nonproliferation agreements essential to our security."

The document gets more concrete in a section prescribing four "cross-cutting areas," which agencies also must sufficiently fund.

According to the memo, investments will be needed to enhance U.S. space capabilities because they are "essential for communications, geopositioning, intelligence gathering, Earth observation and national defense, as well as for increasing our understanding of the universe and our place in it."

By Sebastian Sprenger
August 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM

U.S. Special Operations Command today asked for industry proposals aimed at beefing up the military's flying drones.

Unmanned aerial vehicles play a crucial role in Defense Department attempts to kill extremist leaders in Afghanistan. And SOCOM officials are seeking ideas for payloads capable of providing full-motion infrared video that would enable operators to "identify individuals and determine their intent from altitudes and slant range such that the aircraft platform is non-detectable," according to a notice published on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site.

Also sought are payloads enabling what officials call "tagging, tracking and locating," an uber-secretive process that involves discreetly placing some kind of hard-to-detect emitter on a person so the individual can be targeted with aerial weaponry at any time.

Additional technologies of interest to SOCOM are mapping and automated change detection, which officials have mentioned previously as a useful tool for finding buried improvised explosive devices.

Other payload technologies mentioned in the FBO notice have to do with precision-guided weapons, the employment of lasers, and communications.

Industry proposals must fulfill the requirements of technology readyness level 6, which means offerors should have prototypes that can be tested in a lab environment.

By John Liang
August 4, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The resignation of the director of national intelligence's top cybersecurity adviser doesn't sit well with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME).

As The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:

Melissa Hathaway, who completed the Obama administration's cybersecurity review in April, said in an interview that she was leaving for personal reasons. "It's time to pass the torch," she said, adding that she and her colleagues have provided an "initial down payment for what's needed to start to address cybersecurity."

Hathaway said yesterday that she would resign her position effective Aug. 21.

Collins, however, said in a statement released today that the resignation "underscores the continued lack of leadership within the Obama administration on cyber security issues. The loss of her expertise on this issue is unfortunate. However, the White House plan to appoint yet another czar to address this real and growing threat is not the answer."

Further, Collins said:

Indeed, the Administration should take this time to reconsider the merits of putting a cyber czar within the White House -- with no operational authority and shielded from Congressional oversight. Rather, the Administration should work with Congress to establish an effective, accountable cyber leader at the Department of Homeland Security.

This position should be given real authority over cyber security with the singular focus of protecting America’s critical networks, throughout the federal government and within the private sector. Effective cyber security requires the cooperation of numerous agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security is the nexus of key realms – intelligence gathering and dissemination, security planning and threat assessment, and coordination with law enforcement and private sector officials.

A czar at the White House -- unconfirmed and unaccountable to Congress -- cannot create the environment needed to secure our critical networks.”

By John Liang
August 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM

A draft White House executive order requiring a 20 percent cut in greenhouse-gas emissions from the federal government, currently circulating among federal agencies, could prompt the Defense Department to call for amending acquisition rules to allow for investments in costly energy efficiency and other low-emitting technologies, InsideEPA.com reported late last week. Specifically:

The draft order could also revive long-standing concerns from DOD over spending restrictions currently enshrined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which generally require agencies to procure the most cost-effective goods and services.

DOD officials have long argued that such approaches hamper their ability to procure low-carbon technologies, which often have high upfront costs and do not achieve significant savings, making it difficult for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to approve under their current budget scoring approaches.

Brian Lally, DOD’s facility energy director, told InsideEPA recently that the department’s existing drive to increase its energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions is hampered by the scoring procedures, which CBO and OMB use to calculate projects’ compliance with the federal acquisition rules.

The scoring should be revised, Lally said, to allow the military services to undertake projects -- such as constructing new, highly efficient buildings -- that have high up-front costs but could achieve significant savings that OMB and CBO do not currently consider. He added that he is building support within the department to push the Obama administration for such a change in the rules. . . .

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief Ashton Carter also said May 26 that the Pentagon is working on ways to incorporate energy efficiency considerations into acquisition policy, in line with the department’s own expert recommendations. Carter told an audience of leading military policy experts that energy will be a key driver of military purchasing decisions under the current administration. Specifically, the department is working to incorporate the fully burdened cost of fuel -- the true cost of delivering fuel to the military end user -- into acquisition decisions, which would militate toward lower energy consumption in vehicles and systems.

That story got the attention of New Republic blogger Bradford Plumer, who writes in a post today:

To put this in context, the U.S. military is the world's single biggest oil buyer, and accounts for about 80 percent of the federal government's energy demand (and about 1 percent of all U.S. demand). And, for the past few years, the Pentagon has been contemplating an energy diet. It's easy to see the motivation here: In 2008, the military shelled out about $20 billion for energy, more than double the $10.9 spent in 2006, thanks to the spike in oil prices, and no one in the Pentagon sounded terribly thrilled with writing a $10 billion check to the Middle East.

By Marjorie Censer
August 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Though Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to cancel the vehicle component of the Army's Future Combat Systems program, the service needs a new modernization strategy to ensure it does not repeat "the mistakes of the past," according to a new Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments report (.pdf).

The report, "Correcting Course: The Cancellation of the Future Combat Systems Program," was authored by CSBA president Andrew Krepinevich, a new member of the Defense Policy Board, and Evan Braden Montgomery.

It argues that Gates' cancellation of the manned ground vehicles was "justified" because the FCS program "was an ambitious but fundamentally flawed attempt to transform Army force structure.

"Although its original intent -- to improve the Army's ability to meet emerging threats in a changing security environment -- was reasonable, the program ultimately pursued extremely complex and costly solutions to a set of military challenges that have become less and less relevant since the program's inception," the document continues.

More specifically, Krepinevich and Montgomery write, the FCS effort involved fiscal, technical, joint and operational risk.

Yet, they warn that the cancellation of the vehicle component will not itself guarantee success. The report notes that a "a number of FCS components will still be introduced to units throughout the Army over the next decade and a half" and that the replacement ground combat vehicle will be produced under roughly the same timetable as the previous MGV program.

"Apparently, the Army will attempt to incorporate as much of the FCS program as possible into any new design," the report reads.

Consequently, it adds, the Army should "develop a modernization strategy that will mitigate the risks described above, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past."

By Marjorie Censer
July 31, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program office today announced a deadline for foreign countries interested in participating in the initiative, which is seeking to provide a next-generation humvee.

As Inside the Army reported earlier this month, the program office, along with the Army’s defense exports and cooperation office, hosted an international conference July 16. The event was intended to provide attendees from 16 registered countries information on potential partnerships during the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the JLTV program, a joint Army-Marine Corps effort.

In a press release issued today, the program office said interested countries "must submit a Letter of Intent portraying interest and technical elements no later than September 17, 2009, which will formally indicate their desire to participate in the JLTV program."

The press release adds that international participation in the JLTV effort "will reduce program risk as the Joint Services prepare to meet the challenges of future operations."

JLTV program officials announced earlier this year a project arrangement with Australia that provides funding for additional vehicle prototypes from each contractor team. The program also has working groups with Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom.

Additionally, the document references the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle program, now under way. The press release says "((j))oint collaboration and consistent communication between the Army's JLTV and MRAP program offices, under the same PEO, will only augment the Services' ability to develop survivable, fully capable and expeditionary tactical vehicle solutions to our joint Warfighters."

By Sebastian Sprenger
July 31, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The air must have been thick with questions during a U.S. Strategic Command-sponsored symposium on the topic of deterrence this week, judging by the opening remarks of STRATCOM chief Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton.

In his July 29 speech, published on the command's Web site, Chilton reiterated a few points he made during an appearance on Capitol Hill earlier this year. For one, he argued, U.S. defense experts have not paid enough attention to the question of what deterrence means -- and how it should be practiced -- in a post-Cold War world.

“((W))hatever the reason, the result is, I believe, we’ve allowed an entire generation to skip class, if you will, on the subject of strategic deterrence,” he said. “Few who put on the uniform or joined our civil service corps of the Department of Defense after 1992 have been challenged with the imperative to be versant in the art of deterrence,” he added.

It should be noted that Chilton made his comments out of an assumption that “ nuclear weapons will be with us for the foreseeable future.”

But non-nuclear deterrence mechanisms, including contributions from civilian agencies, also will be crucial as new threats loom from space and cyberspace, Chilton stressed.

The general hurled two profound questions at the audience: How does one deter terrorists? And, our favorite: “What role do nuclear weapons play in efforts to curb their own proliferation?”

We'll check back with STRATCOM soon to find out whether the symposium has helped anyone find the answers.

One noteworthy event detail: Chilton made a point of greeting foreign symposium attendants who traditionalists would consider the very targets of U.S. deterrence efforts. Among them were Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, and Chinese military scholar Senior Colonel Yao Yunzhu.

An “interconnected world” indeed, as Chilton called it.

By John Liang
July 30, 2009 at 5:00 AM

House lawmakers today sought to delete $80 million allocated to the Missile Defense Agency’s last week by the House Appropriations Committee to keep Kinetic Energy Interceptor-related technology development going until the Defense Department's renewed emphasis on “early intercept” efforts gets under way.

The committee’s report on the FY-10 defense appropriations bill states that MDA “is determining how to make the best use of the current technologies and their technical worth as well as the possible benefits of integrating these developments with other MDA programs.”

But this morning, during a House floor debate on the FY-10 defense appropriations bill, Reps. John Tierney (D-MA) and Rush Holt (D-NJ) submitted an amendment that would delete those funds.

A program that has been killed by the defense secretary and had no funding included for it in either the House or Senate authorization bills "no longer warrants Congress' support," Tierney said, adding:

It's never too late to do the right thing, and here's our opportunity to do the right thing. We have to at some point in time start looking at all of our budgets and that includes the defense budget to make sure that we're not putting money out that needs to be put towards other priorities. Here you have the Missile Defense Agency's director himself saying that this program should be terminated, you have the secretary of defense and two administrations saying the program should be terminated; you have from what i can hear from the silence of those who say they're against this amendment not arguing in fact that this is a program that should move forward.

For his part, Holt said:

I understand the desire of the distinguished Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee to get something of value from the billions of dollars already spent, but stringing this program along is not the answer. Even after removal of $80 million in funding for the KEI, the underlying bill still would provide $20.6 billion in R&D funding to learn from the mistakes of this program.

Mr. Chairman, even if the KEI were “successful,” it would never work well enough to change our strategy. Missile defense systems must be perfect to achieve their professed goals. But we can never count on their perfection. The fact is we don’t need them against our friends and they only encourage our enemies to build more offensive systems to get around the so-called shield.

The best this flawed system could provide us is a provocative yet permeable defense, creating an inherently destabilizing situation that would weaken the security of all Americans.

Rep. John Murtha (R-PA), the House Appropriations defense subcommittee chairman, opposed the amendment, but said House and Senate lawmakers "may need to adjust this in conference." Further, he said, "this program's already spent a billion dollars, we ought to get something out of it."

The House subsequently killed the amendment via voice vote.

By Christopher J. Castelli
July 30, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The White House today announced plans to nominate Frank Kendall to be deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology. If confirmed, he will serve under Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter.

Here's Kendall's bio, as released by the White House:

Frank Kendall is currently a Managing Partner at Renaissance Strategic Advisors, an Arlington, Virginia based aerospace and defense sector consulting firm. Mr. Kendall has over 35 years of experience in engineering, management, defense acquisition and national security affairs in private industry, government and the military. For the past decade Mr. Kendall had been a consultant to defense industry firms, non-profit research organizations, and the Department of Defense in the areas of strategic planning, engineering management, and technology assessment. For the past several years Mr. Kendall has also been very active as an attorney in the field of human rights, working primarily on a pro bono basis. He has worked with Amnesty International USA, where he is currently a member of the Board of Directors, Human Rights First, for whom he has been an observer at Guantanamo, and for the Tahirih Justice Center, where he is currently Chair of the Board of Directors. Within government, Mr. Kendall held the position of Director of Tactical Warfare Programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the position of Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategic Defense Systems. Mr. Kendall was Vice President of Engineering for Raytheon Co, where he was responsible for management direction to the engineering functions throughout the company and for internal research and development. Mr. Kendall also spent ten years on active duty with the Army, serving in Germany, as an Assistant Professor of Engineering at West Point, and in research and development positions. Mr. Kendall is a former member of the Army Science Board and the Defense Intelligence Agency Science and Technology Advisory Board and he is currently a consultant to the Defense Science Board and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Kendall was born in Pittsfield, MA. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and he holds a Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering from California Institute of Technology, a Master of Business Administration Degree from C.W Post Center of Long Island University, and a Juris Doctoris from Georgetown University Law Center.

By Marjorie Censer
July 29, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Army has conducted its first tropical environment testing of the Stryker vehicle, according to the latest issue of Army AL&T Magazine.

The tests were held in an unlikely place: Suriname, which the magazine notes is South America's smallest country and has a per capita income less than 10 percent that of the United States.

Though Yuma Proving Ground, AZ, where the Stryker has undergone extensive testing, "also maintains test facilities in Hawaii, Honduras, and Panama, none of the three were suitable for the unique requirements of testing the several dozen-ton vehicle," the article says.

But readying for testing in Suriname wasn't easy, it adds. The Army had to find living quarters for testers and quickly build a compound "with security fencing, wiring, and communications networks." A test vehicle operator staked out 30 miles of existing roads for the evaluation, while the test vehicle endured a four-week boat trip from Texas to Suriname, delayed by a hurricane and other bad weather.

The testing was insightful, the magazine says, noting, for example, that the vehicle often sank in clay saturated by tropical rains. Testers learned that keeping the tires inflated at highway pressures would prevent sinking while also ensuring jungle biomass did not "compromise the space between the wheel and the tire."

"These types of insights would not have been generated by testing the vehicle in a simulation chamber," the article says.

Ultimately, it adds, the testing was completed five weeks ahead of schedule.

By John Liang
July 29, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Credit agency Standard and Poor's announced today that it has lowered Boeing's credit rating from "A+" to "A" due to changes in Pentagon spending and weaker commercial air traffic.

"Boeing Co.'s defense business remains stable, but changes in defense-spending priorities could constrain the long-term growth and competitiveness of the unit," the S&P statement reads, adding:

"The downgrade reflects concerns about the possibility of further production cuts due to airline order deferrals and cancellations, risks related to the development of the midsize 787 jetliner, which is two years behind schedule, and the potential for higher customer financing needs," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Christopher DeNicolo. "The long-term effect of changes in U.S. defense spending, and substantial pension liabilities were also factors," he continued.

By Thomas Duffy
July 29, 2009 at 5:00 AM

In late October the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center will host a three-day leaders' workshop to look at COIN operations in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The title of the workshop: “What is counterinsurgency and how as a military, do we approach the problem.”

The Army’s Ft. Leavenworth, KS, will be the host site.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was asked by The Los Angeles Times yesterday if there was too much focus on counterterrorism in the Afghanistan operation.

“I think there hasn't been enough focus on counterinsurgency,” he said. “I am certainly not in a position to criticize counterterrorism. But at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most important to focus on almost classic counterinsurgency.”

The COIN workshop gets under way on Oct. 27 with a counterinsurgency overview and presentations on the insurgent environment and cultural competencies. Day two leads off with a presentation on COIN lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Day three will feature Philadelphia Inquirer foreign affairs columnist Trudy Rubin speaking on “Regional Developments.” That day, and the workshop, concludes with a panel discussion.