The Insider

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, InsideDefense.com's weekly look back at what was happening on or around this day in years past.

This week four years ago, an assessment from the House Armed Services Committee's Republican staff concluded that $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade would cripple the Pentagon's ability to execute the national military strategy, reducing force structure levels and devastating modernization accounts.

At the time, the White House and Congress were seeking to avoid sequestration, tasking a 12-member panel to craft a plan to cut the deficit by $1.2 billion. However, that effort failed.

Now, Congress is locked in another fight over the budgetary path forward, potentially heading toward a federal government shutdown next week.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) has offered a stopgap spending measure, or a continuing resolution, that would fund the federal government until Dec. 11, though his legislation is dead-on-arrival with Democrats because it would strip all funding from Planned Parenthood. The White House has also issued a statement threatening to veto Cochran's short-term CR in the unlikely event it is passed.

Lawmakers have until Oct. 1 to pass some kind of spending measure for fiscal year 2016 to avert a shutdown.

Story link: http://insidedefense.com/defensealert/house-gop-staff-assessment-sizes-potential-impact-1-trillion-defense-cuts

The Air Force's Office of Transformational Innovation launched its new website last Thursday, which not only touts its acquisition strategy success, but acknowledges its failures.

"Our focus really is on trying stuff out," Dr. Camron Gorguinpour, director of transformational innovation, said Sept. 15 at the Air Force Association's annual conference in National Harbor, MD. "We're not so policy or guidance driven, so I pitch ourselves as a Skunk Works for bureaucrats."

Through a "fail fast" method, OTI is burning through acquisition strategies in six months or less. Those failures are listed on OTI's website under its "Not Easy" button and includes its matchmaker project. The experiment found $2 billion in savings with the Space-Based Infrared Radar System, but struggled to identify other programs in suitable phases to match with an industry partner, according to Gorguinpour.

Gorguinpour's office is also spearheading the Air Force's Bending the Cost Curve initiative, which began as a push to reduce the time to award contracts. Since then, the initiative has evolved to include projects that will improve the internal acquisition processes, enhance industry interaction over the acquisition life cycle and reach out to companies outside the traditional defense industry orbit.

Engility announced today that Craig Reed, senior vice president for strategy and corporate development, would resign later this year.

Reed played an instrumental role in establishing Engility, which was spun off from L-3 Communications in 2012, and in steering the company's acquisitions, including its purchase of TASC earlier this year.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter had a "constructive conversation" this morning with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoygu about Russian military activity in Syria and efforts to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, according to a statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook.

Military relations between the United States and Russia were officially suspended after Russia annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine.

"The secretary and the minister talked about areas where the United States and Russia's perspectives overlap and areas of divergence," Cook stated. "They agreed to further discuss mechanisms for deconfliction in Syria and the counter-ISIL campaign. The secretary emphasized the importance of pursuing such consultations in parallel with diplomatic talks that would ensure a political transition in Syria. He noted that defeating ISIL and ensuring a political transition are objectives that need to be pursued at the same time. Both the secretary and the minister agreed to continue their dialogue."

Cook had said earlier this week that Carter had yet to discuss Russian military activities in Syria with his Russian counterpart because of the suspension of the U.S.-Russia military relationship.

The Pentagon announced today Defense Secretary Ash Carter has nominated Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., currently the head of Marine Corps Forces Central Command, to become director of strategic plans and policy, J-5, on the Joint Staff.

Additionally, Carter nominated Maj. Gen. William Beydler for appointment to the grade of lieutenant general and to become chief of Marine Corps Forces Central Command. He is currently commanding general of II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, NC.

PAE Government Services and RM Asia have agreed to pay the government $1.45 million to resolve allegations they engaged in a bid-rigging scheme that resulted in false payment claims under an Army contract for work in Afghanistan, the Justice Department announced today.

In 2007, the service awarded PAE a contract to provide vehicle maintenance and training services for the Afghanistan National Army, according to DOJ. PAE partnered with RM Asia on the work.

DOJ alleged former managers of the two companies used confidential information to ensure that companies they and their relatives owned won subcontracts.

Under the settlement, the claims remain allegations and there is no determination of liability.

UPDATE: In a statement provided to InsideDefense.com, PAE said it "was also a victim in this case."

"Although a PAE employee was among the perpetrators of this criminal scheme, in no way did PAE benefit from this criminal conspiracy," the company said.

Stan Soloway will step down as chief executive of the Professional Services Council after 15 years at the helm, the organization announced today.

Soloway said in the announcement that he has no specific immediate plans but he'd decided now was the time to do something different before he retires. Soloway has promised to remain engaged with the organization through the transition.

Anne Altman, IBM's general manager and a member of PSC's executive committee, is set to lead the search for Soloway's successor.

Before joining PSC in 2001, Soloway served as deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition reform.