The Insider

By Christopher J. Castelli
October 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Afghanistan, Pakistan and naval matters are on President Obama’s agenda today.

This morning, Obama holds a Situation Room meeting on AfPak issues -- with fewer participants than related meetings held in recent weeks, according to the White House.

Today’s participants will include Vice President Biden (via videoconference), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Adviser retired Gen. James Jones, Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, according to the White House.

This afternoon, Obama will fly to the naval air base in Jacksonville, FL, to speak to Navy and Marine Corps personnel there.

By Jason Sherman
October 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Big news over the weekend from London. The U.K. Ministry of Defence, the Pentagon's steadfast -- and single largest -- international partner in developing the Joint Strike Fighter, is apparently having second thoughts about how many of the aircraft it can afford.

Britain's Royal Navy is slashing by half its planned purchases of the JSF aircraft, The Sunday Times reported Oct. 25, a move that would trim the size of the British Navy's JSF fleet from 138 to 50, saving 7.2 billion pounds -- about $11.8 billion.

The paper, citing unnamed senior Royal Navy officials, said the “soaring cost of the American-produced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft” has forced the sea service to change plans for how it plans to employ one of two aircraft carriers under construction to launch JSF fleets. The second carrier will be used as an amphibious commando ship, flying only helicopters.

The paper also said the Royal Air Force, which had planned to replace its frontline Tornado aircraft with JSF, “will now equip all its frontline squadrons with Eurofighter aircraft instead.”

The decision to cut the number of JSF aircraft has been agreed by senior navy and air force commanders in discussions preparing for the strategic defence review.

Both Labour and the Conservatives are committed to conducting a strategic defence review after the general election, which must be held by the late spring.

A senior Royal Navy officer said: “We always knew that the real cost of the carrier project is the JSF fleet to go on them. It would cost us at least £12 billion if we bought all the aircraft we originally asked for. We are waking up to the fact that all those planes are unaffordable. More than half of the £5 billion contracts to build the two new carriers have been contracted, so it is too late to get out of building the ships.”

By Christopher J. Castelli
October 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Gen. Xu Caihou, vice chairman of the Communist Party of China’s Central Military Commission -- the Chinese equivalent to the U.S. secretary of defense -- spoke today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The think tank promoted the event as a rare opportunity to hear from a high-ranking Chinese defense official in Washington.

The audio from the session is online.

Reuters reports he advocated increased cooperation with the Pentagon.

The general is reportedly slated to meet tomorrow with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

By Dan Dupont
October 23, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Senate Armed Services Committee has announced its revised lineup of subcommittee members for the 111th Congress.

According to a statement sent out late yesterday by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the committee chairman, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the ranking Republican, the changes "reflect the appointment to the Committee of Senator George S. LeMieux (R-Fla.) on September 22, 2009 and Senator Paul G. Kirk (D-Ma.) on September 29, 2009."

You can find the whole lineup here.

By Sebastian Sprenger
October 23, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Pentagon officials are keeping their cards close to their vests as they deliberate a strategy for combining the troubled Net-Enabled Command Capability program and the legacy Global Command and Control System family of systems, we're told. So far, officials have done "basically staff work" in the form of an overarching intergrated product team (OIPT), Defense Department spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin wrote in an Oct. 21 e-mail. She did not say when a meeting took place. A draft acquisition decision memorandum exists, but there's "nothing final at this time," she wrote.

By Marjorie Censer
October 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Pentagon announced today that Army Brig. Gen. William Phillips has been nominated for a third star and assignment as military deputy and director of the Army Acquisition Corps in the service's acquisition office.

Phillips is the commander of Joint Contracting Command for Multinational Forces-Iraq. He was on the list of brigadier generals nominated for second stars released Oct. 15, but today's announcement says he's due for three stars if he's confirmed by the Senate.

The move is "highly unusual for that position," a congressional source told InsideDefense.com today. "It means they bypassed all the current two-star acquisition officers in the Pentagon and elsewhere."

Before assuming his post in Iraq, Phillips served as commanding general of Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, commander of the Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command and the program executive officer for ammunition; and as deputy program executive officer for aviation at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL, according to the Picatinny Web Site.

He also was the director of unit set fielding for the Army G-8 from 2001 to 2004.

By Christopher J. Castelli
October 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Today, the Senate voted 68-29 to approve the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization conference agreement, sending the bill to President Obama for signature.

By Marjorie Censer
October 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Facing similar problems to those of General Motors a year ago, the Defense Department should begin reining in personnel costs and rethinking the way it buys weapons, according to a report released today.

Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments writes in a report titled "Avoiding a DOD Bailout" that DOD's problems are "eerily similar" to those of GM a year ago.

Both saw high rates of growth in healthcare and retirement pension costs, he argues, while both also found themselves "in a period of disruptive change in the competitive environment."

For GM, this meant increasing fuel prices coupled with a declining economy and growing interest in fuel-efficient cars, while DOD "now finds itself saddled with a number of weapon programs whose capabilities are ill-suited for the types of conflict the military currently faces and whose costs have risen beyond what the Department can afford."

"The challenge for DOD, as it was for GM, is that the competition is adapting faster than it can keep up," Harrison writes.

But with budget challenges ahead, he argues the Pentagon cannot spend "its way out of these problems" and must make tough choices. Harrison calls for the Defense Department to rein in personnel costs by changing its pensions and healthcare benefits and reducing the number of troops. Additionally, he writes, DOD could save money by moving fewer families between bases.

In weapons acquisition, DOD must learn to control research and development costs as well as its "appetite for 'exquisite' systems," he contends.

"The Department is fundamentally on an unsustainable path, and a sharp change in direction is needed to correct its course," Harrison finds. "A massive infusion of funding in excess of the current defense plan -- a DOD 'bailout' of sorts -- would only delay the inevitable day of reckoning, much like giving more loans to GM without restructuring the company."

By Sebastian Sprenger
October 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, has been thinking about the implications of the Internet on national security for some time. He is perhaps best known for advocating the military strategy of “Netwar” against terrorist groups, which he says can be waged in cyberspace and on real-world battlefields.

At the core of the “Netwar” concept lies the oft-cited idea that “it takes a network to fight a network.” In other words: The U.S. military should adopt some of the characteristics of what Arquilla calls “dark networks,” particularly with respect to organization, and beat al Qaeda et al on their own turf.

In a new report sponsored by the Pentagon, Arquilla lays out a few recommendations for how defense officials should wage “Netwar” in the virtual domain.

One idea is for the government to mobilize “cyber militias,” he writes.

This action would consist perhaps of setting up Web sites from which interested “netizens” could download search and other sorts of tools that they could then employ against targets that had been illuminated by the cyber command. This could be done by either overt or covert means and, given the usual sensitivities of senior American political leaders, would take a very steely resolve to pursue as a viable option.

A variant of this approach could be to recruit a smaller number of “master hackers” who would use their skills to track the activities of terrorists in cyberspace, Arquilla writes.

The basic design of this strategy would be very much like earlier efforts in history to use privateers to strike enemies at sea, sometimes even to hit them from the sea, as Queen Elizabeth I had Sir Francis Drake and other “sea dogs” do in the 16th century. The institutional basis of this approach is the “letter of marque” providing authorization for such action and distinguishing it from common piracy.

Arquilla also would like to see an intelligence and technology hub emerge akin to the World War II “Bletchley Park” in England. Analysts at ueber-secret facility developed code-breaking capabilities for the Allies that led to a series of decisive wins over Nazi Germany.

Meanwhile, defense officials continue to wrestle with some fundamental questions relating to war in cyberspace. For example, the question of how to practice deterrence in the virtual domain has been simmering in defense circles for some time. We had the chance to ask Rear Adm. Dan Davenport of U.S. Joint Forces Command recently whether a key command-sponsored war game staged in early summer brought participants any closer to an answer.

“Not really,” he replied.

By John Liang
October 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Vice President Biden is in Eastern Europe this week, and one of the discussion topics with Polish and Czech leaders is the Obama administration's policy shift to sea- and land-based Standard Missile-3s to protect the region from the Iranian ballistic missile threat.

According to a just-released White House transcript of Biden's remarks today at the Polish prime minister's chancery in Warsaw, the vice president said:

As one who championed the admission of Poland into NATO, I would also point out that we take not only our mutual commitments seriously, but I take it very, very seriously. President Obama and I consider this to be a solemn obligation. President Obama has said, and this is a promise he said not only for our time, but for all time. We appreciate Poland has stepped up and agreed to host an element of the previous missile defense plan.

And we now appreciate that Poland's government agrees with us that there is now a better way, a better way -- with new technology and new information -- to defend against the emerging ballistic missile threats. Our new phased adaptive approach to missile defense is designed to meet a growing threat not only to the United States, but first and foremost to Europe. It's going to meet it with proven technology that will cover more of Europe, including Poland, and will do it more efficiently than the previous system could have, or did. It strengthens missile defense for Europe, it strengthens Article 5, and it strengthens the alliance’s deterrent capability. Mr. Prime Minister, we have -- we have a lot to do. Simply put, our missile plan is better security for NATO, and is better security for Poland, and ultimately better security for the United States of America.

Mr. Prime Minister, you and I affirmed our commitment to the declaration on strategic cooperation in 2008. And we discussed additional practical opportunities to strengthen our bilateral security cooperation beyond what we already have done. I welcome the Prime Minister's affirmation that Poland stands ready to host future elements of proposed missile defense.

But as Inside Missile Defense reports today, missile defense is only one of a myriad of issues Biden will cover during his trip, according to Tony Blinken, the vice president 's national security adviser:

"In terms of missile defense, I think it’s going to be an important item on the agenda in all of the meetings that we have in all three countries," Blinken said in an Oct. 19 conference call briefing. "But the agenda is much bigger than missile defense. And I touched on a number of the issues, whether it’s what we’re doing together in Afghanistan; whether it's the work we’re doing together actually to reform NATO, going forward with a new strategic concept; energy security, climate change, the economies in all these countries. There is a very full and broad agenda -- the advancement of democracy. And so missile defense will be part of it, but the trip is not focused on missile defense per se."

By Marjorie Censer
October 20, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The Army -- incorporating soldier feedback -- has successfully adapted the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle to meet ever-changing theater requirements, Brig. Gen. Robert Brown, deputy commanding general for Multinational Division-North and the 25th Infantry Division, said today.

For instance, a "young soldier" came up with an MRAP modification intended to protect against RKG-3 anti-tank grenades, Brown said, speaking by teleconference at an Oct. 20 Pentagon briefing.

He described the change as "a screen that goes on the outside and causes the RKG-3 to bounce off it and become ineffective." According to Brown, the idea was sent back to the United States, where a counter-IED task force tested it.

"I think we've got about 40 of them right now on MRAPs," Brown said today. "And one attack we've had since then. Can't verify, but it was ineffective. And we think the screen had something to do with it."

Another example, Brown added during today's briefing, was a modification to a counter-sniper screen meant to protect gunners in MRAPs. Though the screen was effective, it "distracted ((the gunner)) from looking, having good observation and being able to stop somebody throwing an RKG-3. There were blind spots."

In response, soldiers devised a system using "a series of fiberglass poles" to allow them to see RKG-3 gunners but still have protection, Brown said.

By Jason Sherman
October 20, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale have postponed their scheduled appearance before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday. The reason? According to a source familiar with the situation: Lynn needs to be in the Pentagon because Defense Secretary Robert Gates is traveling in Asia.

No new date is set for the hearing, which was billed as an opportunity for the senior Pentagon officials to discuss “Defense Costs and Long-Term Fiscal Challenges."

By Sebastian Sprenger
October 19, 2009 at 5:00 AM

It's official -- President Obama has nominated National Security Agency Director Army Lt. Gen Keith Alexander to lead the recently created U.S. Cyber Command, the Pentagon announced on Friday. The job would come with a fourth star.

The new Cyber Command, at least initially, is part of U.S. Strategic Command. As in the case of other combatant commands, it will consist of several service component commands. The Army, for its part, recently agreed on an organizational construct for an Army Cyber Forces Command, as Inside the Army reported earlier this month.

By Christopher J. Castelli
October 19, 2009 at 5:00 AM

Adm. Robert Willard is slated today to assume Command of U.S. Pacific Command from Adm. Timothy Keating in a ceremony at the command's headquarters in Hawaii. Keating has held PACOM's top post since March 23, 2007. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen are scheduled to speak at the event.

By Jason Sherman
October 16, 2009 at 5:00 AM

The 10 additional C-17s Congress wants the Pentagon to buy in fiscal year 2010 will cost $100 million annually to operate, a sum that will “invariably reduce critical warfighting capability somewhere else in the defense program,” White House Office of Management and Budget Director Pete Orszag, argues in an Oct. 13 letter to key members of the House and Senate appropriations committees.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterates many points in Orszag's missive in a heartburn appeal to the same lawmakers dated Oct. 14. Both letters warn that President Obama will likely veto the FY-10 defense appropriations bill if it in any way funds the VH-71 presidential helicopter program or the Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine program.