The Insider

'Informationized'
By Sebastian Sprenger
January 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Readers parsing China's recently released national defense white paper for certain words might be surprised that one term is notably absent -- "cyber."

How can this be, given that U.S. officials seem to believe the PLA is quite active in snooping around on Western governments' networks?

The answer lies in the different terminology used by the Chinese, we're told by an expert. What readers instead will encounter frequently is the word "informationization." And that term is so central to the text that it can be found all over the document -- 35 times, by the count of our .pdf reader.

"Taking informationization as the goal of modernization of its national defense and armed forces and in light of its national and military conditions, China actively pushes forward the ((revolution in military affairs)) with Chinese characteristics," the document states.

A search for "information warfare" turns up exactly one match. The section goes like this:

The PLA is spreading basic knowledge of electromagnetic-spectrum and battlefield-electromagnetic environments, learning and mastering basic theories of information warfare, particularly electronic warfare. It is enhancing training on how to operate and use informationized weaponry and equipment, and command information systems. It is working on the informationizing of combined tactical training bases, and holding exercises in complex electromagnetic environments.

Acting Up
By Dan Dupont
January 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Shay Assad, the director of defense procurement at the Pentagon, has a new title, temporarily; he's now the acting deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, according to John Young, the under secretary.

Assad is filling in for James Finley, who, as was expected, left the building before the Obama administration took over.

Young made Assad's acting role official in a Jan. 19 memo.

Before the Obama team can get around to filling the deputy job full-time, of course, it must find someone to succeed Young, who is sticking around until a replacement is confirmed.

While Harvard's Ashton Carter, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during the Clinton administration's first term, was thought to be a strong candidate for several weeks, his lack of acquisition experience has, according to some observers, made him less likely to get the nod.

The latest name getting the most buzz for frontrunner status is that of David Oliver, retired rear admiral and former principal deputy under secretary for acquisition. Oliver now serves as a higher-up at EADS North America and played a big role for that company in the tanker competition, which is sure to raise some eyebrows on Capitol Hill should he be Obama's pick.

Strike Out
By Jason Simpson
January 23, 2009 at 5:00 AM

You can't always believe what you read on the Internet.

This morning, the Aviation Week blog “Ares” posted an entry titled “JSF Blows Nunn-McCurdy." The post claims a "bombshell" recently was dropped by the Government Accountability Office on a GAO Web page for the presidential transition, which states:

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) -- DOD's largest acquisition program procuring aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and U.S. allies -- also recently declared a Nunn-McCurdy unit cost breach. This program faces considerable risks stemming from its decision to reduce test assets and the flight-test program to pay for development and manufacturing cost increases.

According to Ares, this is a big deal.

Outgoing program office director Maj Gen Charles Davis chose not to mention the breach in a 90-minute briefing and discussion at the Brookings Institute last week, and although several questions were asked about costs, nobody specifically used the N-word.

And the post ends thusly: "Welcome to the Pentagon, Mr President!"

There's just one problem: The Web site links to a GAO report dated almost a year ago, citing a Nunn-McCurdy breach from 2005.

Contacted by Inside the Air Force today, GAO said the wording of its statement may be a little misleading. Mike Sullivan, the director of GAO's aqcuisition and sourcing management team, told ITAF that “the Nunn-McCurdy breach . . . actually was in the December 2005 (selected acquisition reports). It's three years old. We were just trying to list programs that had Nunn-McCurdy breaches since they changed the Nunn-McCurdy criteria, and it was a unit-cost breach. It probably should have been explained better, but when we say 'recent,' it didn't happen now, it's three years old.”

Re-Armed
By Christopher J. Castelli
January 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Senate Armed Services Committee will be a bit larger than before, and there will be a few new faces.

Among the new members, we've learned, will be Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL), who was recently appointed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).

Three other Democrats are joining the panel: Sens. Mark Udall (CO), Kay Hagan (NC) and Mark Begich (AK).

Hillary Clinton, who yesterday became secretary of state, has left the committee; so has Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR).

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn is also off the panel.

Republican Sens. Richard Burr (NC) and David Vitter (LA) are new additions to the committee.

Manual Transmission
By Carlo Muñoz
January 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Retired Adm. Dennis Blair, President Obama's pick for director of national intelligence, today told lawmakers he supports the administration's newly minted executive orders governing interrogations of suspected terrorists by the CIA and other intel agencies, but cautioned that some of those actions could put future intelligence-gathering efforts at risk.

According to the White House directive, all government officials will now have to adhere to the rules, regulations and practices outlined in the Army's field manual for interrogation tactics, techniques and procedures. During today's confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Blair said that if he is confirmed he will take the administration's edict a step further by renaming the Army document the "Manual for Government Interrogations."

However, Blair expressed concerns over the possibility that the manual, in the wrong hands, could "become the training manual for resistance training" for suspected terrorists detained by U.S. forces. "I agree they should be uniform . . . (but) we need to be very careful about how we do this," Blair said. "We need to get it right."

To maintain operational security while implementing a uniform code of interrogation procedures, Blair said, he would use his position as the vice chairman on the "Special Task Force on Interrogation and Transfer Policies" -- also established under the administration's executive order -- to ensure that information in the manual cannot be used against U.S forces. Further, Blair floated the notion of issuing a version of the manual that is "widely available in an unclassified form" but would not include "the specific techniques that can provide training value" to adversaries.

But ranking member Kit Bond (R-MO) pointed out that Blair's idea for two versions of the manual was the same approach applied by the Bush White House. When Blair attempted to respond, Bond cut Blair off, telling the DNI nominee he did not need a response.

Super Tuesday?
By Sebastian Sprenger
January 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Senators on the Armed Services Committee could use the occasion of a hearing with Defense Secretary Robert Gates next week to consider the nominations for some key Pentagon posts, according to panel spokeswoman Tara Andringa.

On Inauguration Day, the committee received the nominations of Jeh Johnson to be the general counsel of the Defense Department, Robert Hale to be the Pentagon comptroller, Michele Flournoy to be the under secretary of defense for policy and William Lynn to be the deputy defense secretary.

While the committee has not scheduled it, a vote "could possibly happen" when the panel convenes Tuesday morning to hear from Gates, Andringa told us today.

Whether senators will vote on the Lynn nomination then is unclear. Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) announced today that members are awaiting an Obama administration assessment to see whether lobbying-related rules, outlined by the new president this week, would preclude Lynn from the No. 2 Pentagon job. (See our story on this issue here.)

Meanwhile, DOD officials saw the departure of acting Comptroller Douglas Brook over the weekend. According to a mid-January memo from Navy Secretary Donald Winter, Brook was scheduled to leave his Navy comptroller job, which he kept after becoming acting DOD comptroller last fall, on Jan. 17. Sources today confirmed this meant Brook was leaving the Pentagon altogether.

A DOD spokesman did not return an e-mail seeking comment on whether the administration would bother to name a new acting comptroller before the Senate confirms someone, probably Hale, for the job.

Business as Usual
By Sebastian Sprenger
January 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Pentagon officials today said they are not stopping the clock on a proposed December 2008 rule that would set out new guidelines governing the employment of federal military forces during domestic crises.

Shortly after President Obama's inauguration on Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo to all government agency chiefs, ordering them to temporarily suspend action on certain Bush-era rules in the rulemaking pipeline until Obama officials have had a chance to review them.

ABC News published that memo here.

The proposed Pentagon rule, published in the Federal Register on Dec. 4, 2008, seeks to implement a series of guidelines, known under the umbrella term "Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA)," that script what federal troops may and may not do when asked for help by a civilian agency after a domestic natural disaster or terrorist attack.

The proposed rule includes an "emergency conditions" provision that allows uniformed or civilian Defense Department officials to quickly spring into action after a crisis without immediate approval from Pentagon leaders. More details are in our story here.

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Lt. Col. Almarah Belk, Emanuel's memo has no effect on the proposed DSCA rule.

"The memo applies to new and pending rules that have not (been) published and to published final rules for which the effective date has not passed," she said in an e-mail today.

The comment period for the DSCA rule ends on Feb. 2.

Exemption Exception
By Jason Sherman
January 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

A Pentagon watchdog group wants William Lynn, a former Raytheon executive and registered lobbyist for the defense industry giant, knocked out of the running to be the Defense Department's No. 2 official and replaced with a candidate who does not require a waiver from new White House ethics rules.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, said her organization “believes strongly in the revolving door restrictions President Barack Obama has outlined to restore integrity and ethics to government.”

It is because we believe so strongly in the positive impact that such a change will have that we urge the President to withdraw his nomination of William J. Lynn III as deputy secretary of defense. President Obama should not compromise his standards and the effectiveness of the Department of Defense by allowing a top defense industry lobbyist to receive a waiver from these standards. The defense industry is in a class of its own among all of the industries that have had a pervasive stranglehold on public policy to advance their own financial interests.

Obama yesterday signed executive orders that set forth the strictest rules imposed by any president on lobbying activities for his administration.

Will this call by POGO move anyone in the Senate to block the nomination?

During Lynn's Jan. 15 confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) -- one of Obama's earliest and staunchest supporters in the Senate during the presidential campaign -- was the only lawmaker to raise the indelicate matter of Lynn's lobbying background.

SEN. MCCASKILL: Mr. Lynn -- you know, first of all, all of you I appreciate your service. All of you are not coming back for the glory or the money; you're coming back because you want to serve, and I thank all four of you for that. And I don't mean by directing this question to in any way impugn your integrity, but the revolving door is an important issue for us to talk about, between the Pentagon and the defense community.

You went directly from the Pentagon to a defense contractor.

You are coming back directly from a defense contractor, a major -- one of the largest defense contractors -- into the Department of Defense. And in that role, you have a major responsibility over acquisition procurement.

This is troubling to a lot of people who are just looking at this situation. We have gone a long way in Congress to try to begin to stop the revolving door. We haven't done as well as we'd like to, but there's a whole lot of attention in the public about the revolving door between lobbying and Congress and lobbying and Congress. Frankly, there isn't as much attention in the defense sector, and it's an incestuous business what's going on in terms of the defense contractors and the Pentagon and the highest levels of our military. I'd like to give you an opportunity to speak to it, since you're an example of it. (Laughter.)

MR. LYNN: Senator, when I left the department I followed the strict ethics, procedures and didn't have any contact with the department for the period that's set by law. On coming back into the department, there are equally strict ethics procedures on what issues I can handle and what issues I can't. I will be working with the general counsel's office to ensure to ensure I follow those ethics procedures completely.

SEN. MCCASKILL: Well, do you have a comment -- I mean, do you feel like you could be somebody who could be a reformer in this regard? Do you sense that there's something else that we need to do? Do you sense that there may not be a problem that there is maybe too much shortcutting of picking up the phone and dialing into the Pentagon from a defense contract agency because of former friends that are there and vice versa? I mean, do you have any sense that reform is needed here?

MR. LYNN: Well, I'm --

SEN. MCCASKILL: Do you hear the hopeful tone in my voice?

MR. LYNN: I do hear the tone, Senator. I'm not aware whether the DCAA case you -- I think you probably have more familiarity with the details as to whether that was people leaving DCAA and contacting back to DCAA. I hadn't heard that, but perhaps you know more. I think we need to keep --

SEN. MCCASKILL: The best example I can give you is the Thunderbird scandal. That was really somebody who had left the military and was working for a contractor and reached back in to get a contract, a sweetheart contract, no-bid, noncompetitive contract for some PR work for the Air Force Thunderbirds. That's one example; I can give you some other examples.

MR. LYNN: Well, Senator, I certainly believe that we need to maintain the highest ethical standards. I pledge to you that I will do that personally in terms of your hopefulness that we can reform. I will -- well, I will work to not only ensure that we follow the highest ethical standards but that we have the transparency that provides the public the belief, the understanding that indeed those standards are being followed. It's not just the reality, it's the perception, and I understand that and we plan to work on both.

The Senate Armed Services Committee received formal nominations of Pentagon appointees yesterday and has not yet voted on Lynn, according to a source on the committee.

Plane Truth
By Carlo Muñoz
January 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

During his confirmation hearing today before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, President Obama's pick for director of national intelligence, was hit with a wide variety of questions on the vast array of issues swirling around the intelligence community, and how he planned to address them.

But before Blair could be put on the spot over such issues as the interrogation tactics used by CIA operatives on foreign enemy combatants, domestic surveillance programs or what to do with the detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay once the U.S. detention facility there is closed, committee members wanted to hear . . . about the F-22A Raptor program.

For the very first question of the hearing, Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) brought up a 2006 incident regarding Blair's involvement on the Raptor program during his tenure as president of the Fairfax, VA-based Institute for Defense Analyses. At the time, it was revealed that Blair held financial interests in F-22A subcontractor EDO Corp while IDA was conducting a business-case analysis on the program for the Air Force.

"Why you did not recuse yourself, how you view that decision in retrospect, and how you would intend to handle potential future conflicts in the future?" Feinstein asked. In response, Blair told members of the committee that the decision not to recuse himself from the IDA review of the Raptor was a mistake.

"I've thought a great deal about the incident since and the greatest damage was the damage to my own reputation for integrity caused by that decision and of course, the reputation of the Institute for Defense Analysis. I should have recused myself and I didn't," Blair said. However, he did note that a Defense Department inspector general inquiry into the matter found that his ties to EDO Corp. did not affect the results of 2006 business-case analysis.

"I think the lesson of that is that you can be absolutely sure that if confirmed, I will not take any action that is remotely -- that can remotely cause that kind of a situation to happen again. I will comply fully, in consultation with my counsel, with all regulations and ensure that any decisions that I make as DNI will be completely free of any suspicion," he said.

Site Seeing
By Kate Brannen
January 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

When Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, met with reporters at a breakfast this morning, he was reluctant to say much about the brand-new Obama administration. But he did say he liked what he he had seen on the White House's overhauled Website, which includes a new position paper on Obama's defense agenda.

Chiarelli said he browsed the site yesterday after it was launched and read up on the president's official agenda for defense. And, he said he was particularly pleased with the administration's position on growing the Army. "I'm sure the Marines feel the same way, because it said the same thing about the Marines."

"Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families," the paper states.

Chiarelli said he was also happy to see support for non-kinetic skill sets that are so useful to today's conflicts.

Obama and Biden believe that we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets.

"I was very, very pleased that that is the direction they seem to be going," said Chiarelli.

Meanwhile, the vice chief of staff made some news on FCS, which we cover here.

Fuel Gauge
By John Reed
January 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Air Force officials have delayed the decision on whether to built a privately owned coal-to-liquids refinery on unused land at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, service officials tell Inside the Air Force.

Air Force Times, citing a service spokesman, reported this week that the Air Force was expected to announce the results of the decision -- which was supposed to have been made last Friday -- this afternoon.

However, “Due to some technical issues and clarifications that still need to be made, no decision was made on Friday,” reads a Jan 21 e-mail from the same Air Force spokesman, Gary Strasburg. The decision likely will be made in the next two weeks, said Stasburg later this afternoon. He did not elaborate on the reasons behind the delay.

If built, the refinery could produce up to 20,000 gallons of coal-based fuel each day, Air Force officials said in late 2007 when they announced plans to build the plant. Service energy officials have long touted the plant as a major step toward the service's ultimate goal of being able to fly 50 percent of all stateside missions on synthetic fuel by 2016.

The Malmstrom plant would sit on property leased to its operators at a discount in exchange for a significant price break on the fuel produced there. The Minuteman III ICBM base -- which no longer has fixed-wing flight operations -- has plenty of unused land and sits near some of the world's largest coal deposits, service officials have said.

The plan to use coal-based synthetic fuel in Air Force planes has come under scrutiny over the past year as opponents have pointed out that so called “clean coal” technology does not exist outside of the laboratory. Using current technology, coal-based fuel emits far more greenhouse gases than standard jet fuel. Furthermore, Section 526 of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits the service from buying fuel that emits more greenhouse gases than conventional fuel.

This could be a major hurdle in getting investors to pony up the billions in cash for such a plant because the Air Force would not be able to sign long-term contracts for fuel that pollutes more than standard jet fuel.

However, Kevin Billings -- acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, logistics and environment -- told Inside the Air Force last week that the service is launching a plan to certify its planes to fly on biofuels made from feedstocks like algae and biomass. He did not provide a time line for this effort.

Future Combat
By Marjorie Censer
January 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Army's Future Combat Systems effort will support a full-spectrum Army, according to the service's chief of staff.

Gen. George Casey, in an interview in the most recent issue of Joint Force Quarterly, acknowledges that the program was designed with conventional warfare in mind but says it has been useful in current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In particular, he said the Land Warrior system is providing soldiers with greatly enhanced situational awareness.

“I visited (a battalion) there, and they said that they would rather leave the compound without their weapons than without their Land Warrior system,” Casey writes.

He explains that seeing soldiers in Iraq using the equipment pushed him to restructure the FCS program, which will now be fielded first to infantry brigade combat teams, rather than to heavy brigade combat teams as originally planned.

“So we're doing that, and we'll have it in the hands of the light Soldiers in 2011,” Casey says. “The first brigade, which means probably the last of the 'Grow the Army' brigades that we build, will be outfitted with the FCS systems and the first increment of the network, and we'll continue to build the rest of the systems over time.”

He said the restructured format represents a move “in the right direction, and what we're going to see now is not just 15 FCS brigades that come out of this, but we're going to have an FCS-enabled Army, and it will start with the infantry guys, and that will be a fundamentally different Army.

“What you're going to see also is the FCS capabilities overlaid on modular organizations, and that's what the Army of the 21st century will ultimately look like,” he continues. “We're still refining that, but simplistically said, that's what's going to happen. It will be a full-spectrum Army.”

FURTHER READING: FCS

Staying On
By John Liang
January 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Several politically appointed defense environmental officials, including top DOD environment chief Wayne Arny, will be staying in their posts temporarily under the Obama administration until their replacements are named, sister publication Defense Environment Alert's Stuart Parker reported this week:

Political appointees requiring Senate confirmation may take some time to replace, DOD sources indicate, with the most senior posts being filled first. Other officials, meanwhile, are either leaving voluntarily on Jan. 20 or have been asked by the Obama transition team to vacate their positions.

Arny, deputy under secretary of defense for installations and environment, will be staying until a replacement is found, but the number two environment official, Alex Beehler, who is DOD assistant deputy under secretary for environment, safety and occupational health, was slated to officially leave his position by Jan. 16. Neither of these positions requires Senate confirmation.

At the Army, Keith Eastin, assistant secretary of the Army for installations and environment, will also stay for the time being, along with the Army’s top energy executive Paul Bollinger and the Army Secretary himself Pete Geren, sources confirm.

At the Navy, it is now clear that Donald Schregardus, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for environment, will stay until replaced, and Navy Secretary Donald Winter will remain until March 13, unless the president names a replacement first.

POTUS Brief
By Jason Sherman
January 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

President Barack Obama met this afternoon with select members of his national security team and U.S. military brass in charge of Iraq to discuss the mission. This evening Obama issued the following statement:

This afternoon, I met with our Ambassador to Iraq, the commander in Iraq, and the overall theater commander in the region in order to get a full update on the situation in Iraq. Key members of my cabinet and senior national security officials also participated in this meeting.

The meeting was productive and I very much appreciated receiving assessments from these experienced and dedicated individuals. During the discussion, I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq.

In the coming days and weeks, I will also visit the Department of Defense to consult with the Joint Chiefs on these issues, and we will undertake a full review of the situation in Afghanistan in order to develop a comprehensive policy for the entire region.

Hail to the Chief
By Dan Dupont
January 20, 2009 at 5:00 AM

President Obama's White House Website was up and running within minutes of his oath of office -- and while it lacks detail it does include a statement on his defense priorities.

A taste:

* Fully Equip Our Troops for the Missions They Face: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must get essential equipment to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines before lives are lost.

* Review Weapons Programs: We must rebalance our capabilities to ensure that our forces can succeed in both conventional wars and in stabilization and counter-insurgency operations. Obama and Biden have committed to a review of each major defense program in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios in the post-9/11 world.

* Preserve Global Reach in the Air: We must preserve our unparalleled airpower capabilities to deter and defeat any conventional competitors, swiftly respond to crises across the globe, and support our ground forces. We need greater investment in advanced technology ranging from the revolutionary, like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, to essential systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft, which provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power.

* Maintain Power Projection at Sea: We must recapitalize our naval forces, replacing aging ships and modernizing existing platforms, while adapting them to the 21st century. Obama and Biden will add to the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force Squadrons to support operations ashore and invest in smaller, more capable ships, providing the agility to operate close to shore and the reach to rapidly deploy Marines to global crises.

* National Missile Defense: The Obama-Biden Administration will support missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public.

* Ensure Freedom of Space: The Obama-Biden Administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. They will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.

* Protect the U.S in Cyberspace: The Obama-Biden Administration cooperate with our allies and the private sector to identify and protect against emerging cyber-threats.

More agenda items here.