WASHINGTON: What will happen if President Obama vetoes the National Defense Authorization Act? No one really knows. We’ve pinged a number of experienced staff and other experts and no one really knows the likely consequences of a veto. It looks likely that troops will get paid, weapons bought, and operations paid for, albeit at lower…
By Colin Clark and Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.A major overhaul is coming in software for missile warning
Space Systems Command’s FORGE program is the first, major missile-warning software modernization effort in 20 years.
WASHINGTON: Congress hates base closures, known as BRAC. But it turns out you don’t need a Base Realignment And Closure round to hurt homestate economies. If you cut the Army by 120,000 (from a wartime peak of 570,000 to 450,000), and prohibit the Pentagon from closing bases, what you get — instead of wholesale shutdowns…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees made a rare joint appearance today and urged President Obama not to veto their policy bill for 2016. But Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mac Thornberry held out little hope Obama would back off, and if they have a plan for what to do if he…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
AUSA: If Congress can’t pass proper spending bills for 2016, it will hurt more than 400 Army programs and damage combat readiness, two senior officials said here today. “I have a binder yea-thick of impacts,” Heidi Shyu, the Army’s senior acquisition official, told reporters today, holding her fingers several inches apart. “Over 400 programs are impacted if…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Updated with Loren Thompson & Byron Callan comment WASHINGTON: Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s sudden exit from the House Speaker race raises the chance of a fiscal disaster — but it also raises the odds of a desperate budget deal. Both extremes just got more likely. Ironically, this deepening leadership void elevates the role of Rep. John…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The annual defense bill authorizes $411 million to upgun the Army’s Stryker vehicles. The compromise goes with the Senate’s higher funding levels: $314 million for modification work and $97 million for R&D. That’s a heady increase from the $0.00 the president’s budget included for the initiative, which emerged mid-year as a response to Russian aggression…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: One day after House and Senate conferees finally came to agreement on the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, President Obama appeared ready to make good on half a decade of threats to veto the annual defense policy bill. Hours after that bad news hit, Congress cleared a Continuing Resolution this evening, allowing everyone to breath for a…
By Colin Clark
Enterprise-wide training: the Army’s $3.5B program for multi-service combat readiness
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
WASHINGTON: The conference version of the defense policy bill for 2016 puts the Navy on notice in multiple high-priority programs. In three areas — carriers, the UCLASS drone, and LCS — Sen. John McCain‘s tough positions prevailed over the House, albeit with some compromises around the edges. In a fourth — Ticonderoga-class cruisers — it was a House leader,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Under intense budget pressure, a Pentagon cost-cutting team is pushing the Navy to cancel its third and last Zumwalt-class destroyer, the Lyndon Johnson (DDG-1002). But two sources familiar with the program say this cost-cutting measure just doesn’t add up. The DDG-1000 Zumwalts are expensive; three ships will cost almost $13 billion. About $9 billion of that…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The former top budgeteer at the Pentagon says he’s clinging to hope for a sequestration deal this fall — but he admitted the signs so far aren’t looking good. “I’ve got my fingers crossed for when Congress come backs next week,” Bob Hale told me this morning. Yesterday, the former Pentagon comptroller starred at…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
PENTAGON: This may be one of those stories that turns on phrasing, but the Pentagon’s new spokesman, Peter Cook, said during yesterday’s briefing — his first — that the military is not reviewing how many F-35s it plans to buy. “Obviously, the budget situation here in Washington will have a big impact on that, but…
By Colin Clark
PENTAGON: The US Army is struggling to fund the increasingly crucial capabilities it fields for electronic warfare, which it largely abandoned after the Soviet Union fell. The Army has over 32,000 short-range defensive jammers to stop roadside bombs, but on current plans, it won’t have an offensive jammer until 2023. “Can that be accelerated? Yes,” said…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James warned Congress today that its effort to stop the retirement of the A-10 Warthog and other aircraft could hurt the service’s modernization plans. In a speech before the National Aeronautic Association, James noted the service wants “to transfer and divest some older aircraft in order to free up…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: This afternoon, the Army announced the painful details of long-awaited cuts. The service must shed 40,000 active-duty troops between now and October 2017, with almost half of them coming from 26 installations across the country. The hardest hit: Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Hood, Texas; and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska — all of which…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
