The Insider

Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates took command today of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, the Pentagon shop charged with focusing full-time on what the Defense Department's No. 2 official said is “the single most deadly threat facing our troops in the field today” -- roadside bombs.

Oates, previously commander of the Army's 10th Mountain Division (Light), replaced Lt. Gen Thomas Metz, who is retiring.

In a change of command ceremony at the Pentagon auditorium, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn noted that Oates' recent operational experience sharpen skills essential to fighting complex bureaucratic battles. Congressional investigators have questioned JIEDDO's financial management as recently as this October said JIEDDO and the military services need to improve coordination of their respective counter-IED efforts.

Not long ago, Gen. Oates served in southern Iraq -- one of the most politically charged places we’re deployed,” Lynn said, according to a transcript. “There, a Shi’a religious hierarchy and network of powerful tribes operate outside the government. At every turn, Gen. Oates had to navigate shifting alliances, uncover hidden agendas, and strike delicate political arrangements.

“We believe that was excellent training for taking the command of JIEDDO,” Lynn said.

Ba dum dum, tsh.

Seriously, the deputy defense secretary said that in Afghanistan, only 10 percent of roadside bomb attacks manage to wound or kill U.S. forces.

“Yet this success rate is not good enough,” he said, according to the transcript

In Afghanistan, we are up against a determined and clever foe who mastered the use of this deadly technology long before our forces set foot in the mountains of the Hindu-Kush.

Recent translations of Soviet General Staff studies reveal that the Soviets lost nearly 2,000 soldiers and 1,200 vehicles to IEDs during their nine-year Soviet-Afghan war.

That IEDs have defeated another technologically advanced military, in the very same place we fight now, only adds to the urgency of our mission.

And IEDs have implications far beyond the battlefields we fight on today. In the past month, terrorists have detonated improvised explosive devices on five continents. Russia, Spain, and the UK have all seen deadly IED-attacks.

Mobile, AL -- Visitors to this city could get the impression workers here are already close to cranking out copies of the Air Force's new aerial refueling tanker. Driving westward on Interstate 10, near the Duval Street exit, motorists see a Northrop Grumman billboard with the message, "Welcome to Mobile, future home of the KC-45."

Of course, no decision has been made as to which company will get the multibillion-dollar contract.

Whatever the billboard is supposed to project, it reflects a sort of regional tension over the tanker saga that is not normally felt in Washington. (There is also a certain irony about the advertisement, given that Northrop has threatened to drop out of the competition.)

The local newspaper has reported at length about the skirmishes on Capitol Hill between lawmakers backing either Boeing's or Northrop Grumman's bid. Shortly before Christmas, the Mobile Press-Register ran an editorial proclaiming a "new civil war" over aircraft production pitting the Pacific Northwest against a "rising challenger in the Southeast."

There should be much more for Mobilians to discuss once Pentagon officials unveil the final request for proposals for the tanker in the coming weeks. There may even be new billboards.

Defense Department leaders have afforded the military medical community a direct line into senior Pentagon strategy and program deliberations, a move that could enable improved visibility of health-related readiness and cost issues.

A new Military Health System Strategic Analysis Working Group (SAWG) will be responsible for providing assessments to what is known in jargon as the Pentagon's analytic agenda, according to a recent DOD instruction.

The first step toward that end is the development of a "baseline"with respect to "both forces and enabler of medical capabilities, to include medical forces and health service support capabilities," the Dec. 18 document reads.

As one of several new duties for the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, that official will assist the DOD policy office in crafting defense planning scenarios, which are fundamental to DOD strategy development, the instruction reads.

Senators apparently are in no rush to consider the nomination of Sharon Burke to be the Pentagon's first-ever director of operational energy plans and programs, a position created by Congress over a year ago.

A Senate Armed Services Committee spokesman told us there is “a long way to go” before members will take action on the Dec. 11 nomination.

The delay is not lawmakers' doing, of course. It took the administration almost a year find someone willing to serve in the job. Burke is considered a capable candidate, according to a story by our colleagues of Defense Environment Alert.

The delay has consequences, of course. Even if Senators were to move quickly on the nomination early next year, Burke would effectively come on board after the deliberations of the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review are over. The drill is perhaps the Pentagon's single most comprehensive evaluation of its plans and programs.

That is not to say the QDR will not feature energy issues. In fact, officials have said energy and related issues will get priority treatment, probably at a macro level. Still, the deliberations will happen without a person at the table whose single focus is making the U.S. military more energy efficient and, thereby, more effective on future battlefields.

Burke, or whoever ultimately gets the job, also will miss much of the the crucial design phase of the Army's Ground Combat Vehicle, whose fuel efficiency is yet to be determined. All officials have said about the requirement is that the GCV should consume less fuel “than current vehicles of the same weight.”

The director of operational energy plans and programs owes Congress a report by Feb. 1, 2010, laying out steps DOD is taking toward improved fuel management at forward-deployed bases, according to the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization legislation, enacted in late October.

Lawmakers apparently had a hunch that the director post may still be vacant when the report is due. In that event, the document must be submitted by the defense secretary, the legislation states.

The White House Office of Management and Budget today released a report highlighting the government's efforts to reduce the money it spends on contracts, with federal agencies being "on track to save $19 billion through improvements to their contracting and acquisition practices."

The Pentagon was one of the highlighted departments:

The Defense Department hired a contractor to create the next-generation shoulder-fired missile, the Javelin. The missile proved successful but expensive. Its early use resulted in cracked launch tubes that cost approximately $25,000 each to repair. An in-house team of Pentagon engineers took a close look at the problem and recommended specific improvements to “ruggedize” launch tubes to make the tube less susceptible to cracks and abrasion damage in combat environments. The team designed and qualified a protective urethane coating for the Javelin launch tube. The Defense Department’s contracts now include the design change, and, as a result, taxpayers will save an estimated $10 million in hardware costs alone over the five-year life of the contract.

Additionally, the report highlights actions DOD and other government agencies have made to reduce "high-risk contracting," including the Pentagon's use of "peer-review teams":

No federal department contracts as much as the Department of Defense. Secretary Gates is adamant that dollars be spent effectively and efficiently and that they deliver quality services for our troops and our country. As a result, a new system of high-level peer reviews is in place to ensure consistent policy implementation, to improve the quality of contracting processes, and to facilitate cross-sharing of best practices and lessons learned throughout DOD, including for the purpose of mitigating the use of high risk contracts.

For larger contracts, a Deputy Director for Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy leads the peer review team, which is comprised of senior leaders from outside the agency with experience in the type of procurement being reviewed. For smaller contracts, the Services and agencies are responsible for implementing internal peer review programs.

Already, the Defense Department has conducted reviews on 40 different supply and service acquisition programs, with several having undergone as many as three phases of peer review. Contract solicitations have been simplified and improved. In addition, the interchange between the peer review teams and the host teams has enabled invaluable mentoring opportunities to develop future senior leaders. Overall, these efforts are bolstering the quality of contracting processes and the resulting contracts. To date, programs that have undergone all three phases of peer review have not had a sustained protest. In this way, peer reviews are helping the Pentagon to achieve more effective and efficient contracting.

Proponents of the High-Integrity Global Positioning System argue that it would deliver a much-needed defense against GPS signal jamming within a year (see our new story on the program here).

But how pressing is the need for such a device, and how widespread is the jamming tactic among the usual of suspects of rogue nations and potential peer competitors?

According to Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Russians, the Chinese and probably the Iranians have the capability right now.

"Everybody who has a brain is trying to figure out how to do this," he told us.

Commercially available Russian-made technology is available today that could be used to "jam your entire neighborhood," Lewis said.

(It is unclear how useful these devices would be in military operations, however, given that anti-jamming technology exists already to account for attempts to scramble the signal.)

"Jamming of electromagnetic signals is fairly widespread and conducted by a number of nations," one defense official wrote in an e-mail. "It is a widespread enough practice that the U.S. believes we need a robust capability to operate in a jammed environment as soon as possible."

As for HIGPS, officials will conduct initial operational tests with the technology in the U.S. Pacific Command area of responsibility next year, Alan Shaffer, the principal deputy director of defense research and engineering, told us yesterday during a brief telephone interview.

He declined to narrow down where exactly the tests would take place. (The PACOM area, of course, is enormously large. It includes China.)

But the secrecy surrounding the test location doesn't mean the gear will be used as part of some classified operation, Shaffer maintained. It's just that "we don't typically go ahead and talk about specific things we're doing ahead of time," he said.