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08 Mar 24. Navy Clears Return to Flight for V-22 Osprey Aircraft.
Naval Air Systems Command has cleared the tiltrotor V-22 Osprey to return to flight.
The aircraft have been grounded since Dec. 6, 2023. That followed the crash of an Air Force V-22 Osprey off the coast of Japan that killed eight airmen on Nov. 29, 2023.
“This decision follows a meticulous and data-driven approach prioritizing the safety of our aircrews,” a Navy official said.
Lifting the grounding means the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force can return the aircraft to service.
The Navy grounded the aircraft when Air Force officials investigating the Japan crash found “a materiel failure of a V-22 component.” Officials used the time to do a thorough review of the mishap and test risk-mitigation controls.
All of the services worked together to ensure the aircraft is safe, officials said during a call with reporters. They would not identify the component that failed, but they said the processes they put in place will allow a safe return to flight.
The services all have different processes in returning the aircraft to the skies. “Maintenance and procedural changes have been implemented to address the materiel failure that allow for a safe return to flight,” the Naval Air Systems Command official said. (Source: U.S. DoD)
08 Mar 24. DOD Report Discounts Sightings of Extraterrestrial Technology.
The Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office today released a report detailing its review of nearly 80 years of reports on government offices and special access programs related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP—a new term for what was once referred to as unidentified flying objects.
“AARO has found no verifiable evidence that any UAP sighting has represented extraterrestrial activity,” said AARO acting Director Tim Phillips during a Wednesday briefing at the Pentagon. “AARO has found no verifiable evidence that the U.S. government or private industry has ever had access to extraterrestrial technology. AARO has found no indications that any information was illegally or inappropriately withheld from Congress.”
The 63-page “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” provides conclusions drawn following an examination of historical documents and conclusions drawn by U.S. government programs that did work related to UAP dating back to 1945.
AARO’s work also involved investigating claims that there were secret or hidden U.S. government programs related to UAP that might not have been reported to Congress. The AARO team looked into those claims to verify if such programs actually existed.
“AARO assesses that alleged, hidden UAP programs either do not exist or were misidentified, authentic national security programs unrelated to extraterrestrial technology exploitation,” Phillips said. “We assess that claims of such programs are largely the result of circular reporting in which a small group of individuals have repeated inaccurate claims they have heard from others over a period of several decades.
Also, part of the report were assessments of claims made by about 30 individuals AARO interviewed, including former and current U.S. government employees who were allegedly involved in such programs or heard stories about those programs and subsequently misinterpreted what they saw or heard.
“I wish to emphasize that we believe most of the individuals repeating these claims did so without malice or any effort to mislead the public,” Phillips said. “Many have sincerely misinterpreted real events or mistaken sensitive U.S. programs, for which they were not cleared, as having been related to UAP or extraterrestrial exploitation.”
Phillips told reporters that while researching the AARO report, his team was given an unusual level of access to programs and information, which allowed them to more easily complete the work Congress had asked them to do.
“AARO, as designed by Congress, had unprecedented access to classified programs,” Phillips said. “Nobody blocked where we could go or the questions we asked. Nobody in the government influenced the findings in the report. As a career intelligence officer, I am just amazed at the access we had to some of our nation’s most sensitive programs. Nobody said, ‘No.'”
Lawmakers directed AARO to produce the report as part of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. Today’s report is the first volume of AARO’s findings and covers a period from 1945 through October 2023. A second volume, which will be released later this year, will cover findings from interviews and research completed between November 2023 and April 2024. (Source: U.S. DoD)
08 Mar 24. DoD Announces Release of FY24 Investment Strategy for the Office of Strategic Capital.
In December 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III launched the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) to attract and scale private capital in support of national security. This week, Secretary Austin announced the release of the first Investment Strategy for the Office of Strategic Capital.
The Investment Strategy identifies priority critical component technology industries for OSC focus and describes how OSC will catalyze private investment in these priority industries. The public release of the Investment Strategy supports open engagement with public and private sector stakeholders to advance OSC’s mission.
“I created the Office of Strategic Capital to foster U.S. private-sector investment in the cutting-edge tech that will keep America secure in the 21st century,” Austin said. “This important investment strategy will leverage America’s core advantages in innovation and free enterprise to strengthen our industrial base and invest in tech areas that are critical for national security.”
The Investment Strategy presents a guiding framework for OSC programs to complement existing DoD and U.S. government programs. It also addresses how OSC determined which technology areas to prioritize for its initial program activities, based on rigorous analysis of national security applications, U.S. market competitiveness, and capital needs for critical technology industries.
The Investment Strategy identifies initial priority areas for the first OSC program, the DoD-Small Business Administration Small Business Investment Company Critical Technologies (SBICCT) Initiative. The SBICCT Initiative pairs private capital with federally-guaranteed loans to increase investment in DoD’s critical technology areas.
OSC’s initial technology priorities for private sector investment are: Nanomaterials and Metamaterials (Advanced Materials), Bioenergetics (Biotechnology), Synthetic biology (Biotechnology), Open RAN (FutureG and 5G), Sensor hardware (Integrated Sensing and Cyber), Assembly, Testing, and Packaging (Microelectronics), Materials (Microelectronics), Quantum computing (Quantum Science), Quantum security (Quantum Science), Quantum sensing (Quantum Science), Battery storage (Renewable Energy Generation and Storage), Space-enabled services and equipment (Space Technology).
The Investment Strategy is part of the Department’s collaborative approach to working with private capital markets for national and economic security. For more information on how to participate in OSC program activities and to sign up for additional updates, please visit https://www.cto.mil.osc/. (Source: U.S. DoD)
08 Mar 24. Biden Issues Wake-Up Call for Americans on Threats to Democracy. President Joe Biden used the State of the Union speech last night to wake up Americans to the challenges against democracy abroad and at home.
Biden delivered a fiery speech at the U.S. Capitol, calling on Congress to pass legislation that will funnel weapons and ammunition to Ukraine as it battles against Russia’s illegal invasion of the country.
Biden said the times are perilous, with democracy facing attacks from Russian President Vladimir Putin and from Americans who espouse violence instead of votes.
He said that not since the American Civil War has the U.S. faced such a moment. “My purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either,” the president said.
“Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond,” he said. “If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he will not.”
Biden reiterated that Ukraine is not asking for U.S. troops to defend the nation, but tools so Ukrainian service members can repel the invaders. “There are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine,” the president said. “And I am determined to keep it that way. But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world.”
The president also highlighted the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in maintaining peace between great powers since the end of World War II. This year marks 75 years since the signing of the Washington Treaty establishing NATO, and the defensive alliance continues to grow.
During the State of the Union speech, Biden noted that Finland joined the alliance last year, and “Just this morning, Sweden officially joined NATO, and their prime minister is here tonight. Both nations joined NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“I say this to Congress: We must stand up to Putin,” Biden said. “Send me the Bipartisan National Security Bill. History is watching. If the United States walks away now, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe at risk. The free world at risk, emboldening others who wish to do us harm. My message to President Putin is simple: We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”
Biden also addressed the situation in Gaza more than five months after Hamas launched raids into Israel that killed more than 1,400 people and resulted in Hamas holding hostages in Gaza. “We’ve been working nonstop to establish an immediate cease-fire that would last for at least six weeks,” he said.
Biden said more than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, and he is working to ensure that aid gets to the civilian population. “I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” he said. “No U.S. boots will be on the ground. This temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”
The pier would complement ongoing efforts to get food and medical supplies into the embattled region via road and via airdrop missions.
The president called on Israeli leaders to do their parts in this situation. “Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip; protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority,” he said. (Source: U.S. DoD)
07 Mar 24. Commission Recommends Changes to DOD Planning, Budgeting Processes.
A congressionally chartered commission has recommended changes to bring the Defense Department’s planning, programming, budgeting and execution process into the 21st century.
The commission, led by Chair Robert Hale and Vice Chair Ellen Lord, presented 28 recommendations to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. Hale and Lord spoke about the recommendations at a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday.
Hicks said DOD will evaluate the commission’s recommendations in close cooperation with Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and other stakeholders. “An especially timely recommendation from the commission is its call for on-time defense appropriations,” Hicks said in a written statement. “Today, the department is less than a week away from releasing our 2025 budget request, even as we still await 2024 appropriations — more than five months late and counting.”
Hicks called on Congress “to undertake the single most important defense resourcing reform for our generation: a return to predictable and routine resourcing to ensure the federal government can meet the nation’s national security needs.”
Hale, who served as DOD’s chief financial officer from 2009 to 2014, and Lord, who was the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment from 2018 to 2021, led 12 other commissioners in fashioning the recommendations. An interim report with 13 recommendations, released in August, is already being implemented.
The commission’s key recommendation is for the department to replace the planning, programming, budgeting and execution process—often called the PPBE process—implemented in 1961, with a new defense resourcing system.
“After 30 years of focus on regional, asymmetric threats, the U.S. now faces strategic challenges with as a pacing threat while simultaneously contending with immediate threats from Russia, North Korea, Iran and instability in the Middle East,” the commission’s report said in the executive summary. “This ever-evolving security environment demands rapid and large-scale evolution of current military capabilities.”
The current process does not give DOD leaders “the ability to implement change at the scale and speed the DOD requires,” the summary said.
“I think transitioning from the PPBE process to the defense resourcing system process is an enormous opportunity for bipartisan and bicameral activity,” Lord told the group. “We need that right now.”
Both Hale and Lord said the recommendations will depend on cooperation and communication between DOD and Congress. “Congress has got to recognize some kind of a balance between the need for flexibility to foster innovation and adaptability and oversight, and we kept that in mind — or tried to — in all of our recommendations; this … is good at the mitigating effects,” Hale said.
The recommendations can be grouped in five critical areas:
• Improving the alignment of budgets to strategy.
• Fostering innovation and adaptability.
• Strengthening relationships with Congress.
• Modernizing business systems and data analytics.
• Strengthening the workforce.
The current PPBE process came into being when there was no such thing as a computer network, and the Cold War with the Soviet Union was at its height. DOD was the driver for technological advancement in computers, data storage, satellites and much more.
“The environment in which we live right now is very, very different than 60 years ago,” Lord said. “We have a complexity of multiple, geopolitical threats emerging in different places. We also have a technology ecosystem that is very, very rapidly evolving.”
While DOD can drive technology today in some specialties, private firms are now the bedrock of innovation, and the current PPBE process makes it difficult to take advantage of those innovations, Lord said.
Both Hale and Lord said the recommendations will empower those working in program executive offices and project management offices, especially. They also said the workforce will need some formal training to get the most out of the recommendations.
Innovation, speed and adaptability are keys to almost all the recommendations, and Hale and Lord called for the department to establish an implementation team to put the recommendations in place. Some of the recommendations can be put in place immediately, some will require some time to put in place, Hale said.
Some of the recommendations the commission highlighted would increase the availability of operating funds, mitigate problems caused by continuing resolutions, create a common analytics platform, and establish continuing planning and analysis. (Source: U.S. DoD)
07 Mar 24. General Says Centcom Area Facing ‘Volatile Security Situation.’ Just a year ago the U.S. Central Command area was on the verge of “improbable, unprecedented and transformative progress,” said Army Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, commander of Centcom.
“Today, the central region faces its most volatile security situation in the past half century. This is not the same central region as last year,” he said, testifying today before the Senate Armed Services Committee about the fiscal year 2025 defense authorization request and the future years defense program.
“The convergence of crisis and competition make the most likely region to produce threats against the U.S. homeland, trigger a regional conflict and derail the national defense strategy,” he said.
The situation in Gaza has created the conditions for malign actors to sow instability throughout the region and beyond, he said.
Iran exploited what they saw as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East to its advantage, using its proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Yemen, he said.
“Iran knows that its decade-long vision cannot be realized if countries in the region continue to expand integration with each other and deepen their partnership with the United States,” he said.
Iran’s expansive network of proxies is equipped with advanced, sophisticated weaponry and threatens some of the most vital terrain in the world with global and U.S. implications, said Kurilla, noting some of the many flashpoints, including Houthi attacks on international shipping and attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
Iran has also developed a full-scale production pipeline for supplying weapons to Russia, fueling its war on Ukraine.
The risk of attack emanating from Afghanistan is increasing, he said.
“I assess ISIS-Khorasan retains the capability and will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months and with little to no warning,” Kurilla said.
ISIS-Khorasan’s area of operation includes parts of Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Strategic competition has also continued to evolve across the region, he said.
“China and Russia are quick to capitalize on destabilizing influences. They have shown meager interest or capability to reduce regional tensions, but rather, they have increased their efforts to pressurize regional partners across all elements of national power … and foster a chaotic landscape favorable for their exploitation,” he said.
The Centcom region remains critical to the world’s energy supply and remains essential for the flow of global commerce, he said.
Centcom provides strategic depth to the defense of the U.S. homeland, he said. “American security and prosperity are at risk if we cede this space to Iran, terrorism and China.”
Kurilla said the U.S. should remain continuously engaged throughout the region with its partners.
“Our strategic advantage remains our strong military-to-military partnerships, while our adversaries and competitors rely on parasitic, transactional relationships. We also innovate with our partners,” he said.
Marine Corps Gen. Michael E. Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, also testified.
Langley also emphasized the value of partnerships, not just military-to-military, but also interagency, such as the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.
Africa faces multiple crises, including terrorism, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and mass migration, he said. These factors sow the seeds of violent extremism and exploitation by Russia across the continent.
“In Africa, modest investments resources go a long way toward achieving our national security interests. Africa faces many challenges, while also offering even more opportunities. With our African partners at the forefront, reinforced by our efforts and the efforts of our allies, we will continue to gain ground towards achieving lasting stability, security and prosperity on this crucial continent,” he said.
Lastly, both generals advocated for passing the budget and supplemental funding request, as important to both regional security in their respective areas, as well as national security. (Source: U.S. DoD)
07 Mar 24. Pentagon Official Underscores Imperative of On-Time Defense Appropriation.
A senior Pentagon official stressed the importance today of on-time, full-year defense appropriations for maintaining national security.
Michael J. McCord, undersecretary of defense, comptroller and chief financial officer, said operating under a series of stopgap spending measures year after year poses risks to the defense industrial base and to the military’s ability to meet its mission throughout the globe.
“As we all know delayed funding means delayed contracting, means delays in training and means delays in delivery of new capabilities,” he said during the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington.
The annual conference serves as a forum for defense officials, members of Congress and industry stakeholders to discuss defense priorities.
Congress has yet to pass a defense budget for fiscal year 2024, which began in October and has instead funded the department through a series of continuing resolutions, or CRs, that keep year-over-year funding levels flat.
While operations can remain relatively constant under a continuing resolution, wider planning and modernization efforts are stymied by uncertainty over funding levels.
“National security is serious business, life-or-death business, and we need to act as if the collective “we” in this town treat that with the seriousness it deserves,” McCord said. “To me, tolerating four months, five months, six months of CRs year after year after year doesn’t meet that standard of seriousness.”
The current continuing resolution passed by Congress funds the majority of DOD through March 22.
“If we get our bill, our funding bill on March 22, or by March 22 in two weeks, we will have been in CRs just under five years out of the last 15 cumulatively,” McCord said.
“So that’s one-third of the time that we have been sitting in the waiting room instead of moving forward,” he continued. “That’s not a problem, as you know, that our adversaries have but it is a problem that we have and, indeed, it’s a problem you have in the industrial base. And it’s certainly not a strategy to compete and win with.”
McCord said the funding delays reverberate throughout the globe. He said most visibly, those impacts are felt by Ukraine which continues to defend itself against Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Last month, the Senate approved a supplemental funding measure that would include additional funds for Ukraine security assistance in addition to providing urgent support for Israel following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists along with humanitarian support for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The measure also provides additional resources for U.S. Central Command to deter attacks by Iranian-backed militia groups and protect vessels operating in the Red Sea from attacks by Houthi rebels.
The House has yet to pass the measure.
“These delays have real world consequences, most visibly for our partners in Ukraine who are in a war today, running low on ammunition today,” McCord said. “But we have interests — no less important, no less serious or sensitive to timely action around the globe. And so, these kinds of delays that we have, sadly, become a bit used to inject uncertainty and are detrimental both to our friends and allies around the globe.” (Source: U.S. DoD)
07 Mar 24. DOD Acquisition Official Underscores Importance of Production in Keeping U.S. Edge.
The Pentagon’s top acquisition official today underscored the importance of the defense industry’s ability to produce new capabilities amid a rapidly changing technology landscape.
William A. LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said that while anticipating future requirements remains essential, the ability to prepare for rapidly emerging threats is critical.
“You can predict all you want; you need to predict, but you also have to be prepared that something, overnight, can just change,” LaPlante said during the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington.
The annual conference serves as a forum for defense officials, members of Congress, and industry stakeholders to discuss defense priorities.
LaPlante noted rapid changes in key technologies require constant adaptation by defense leaders and industry to maintain the United States’ edge.
“Particularly in areas like counter right now,” he said. “It’s rapidly changing overnight.”
He said new UAS systems being fielded by adversaries are often platforms that can be fielded quickly, adding to the challenge in fielding systems to counter them.
“It’s not necessarily high tech,” LaPlante said, adding that UAS platforms often are low-tech solutions.
“That’s why it’s hard,” he said. “The defenses may be higher tech, and we’re having to adjust them all the time because the adversary is adjusting.”
LaPlante said that it is not only critical to prototype new technology in response to quickly evolving threats, but to quickly scale production of those new systems.
“I’m trying to make sure that we’re always thinking about this production part of things,” he said. “Because, actually, in the prototyping and the ideas part, we’re actually doing pretty well.”
LaPlante said succeeding in the emerging national security environment and meeting the pacing challenge of China, requires pivoting away from manufacturing models that don’t allow for buffers against potential need and focusing on building production capacity.
That pivot will require a steady demand signal from the Defense Department and collaboration between the government and industry.
“We need your help,” LaPlante said, adding that adversaries are watching how the Pentagon and industry come together to meet future demands.
“What I do, and I know all of us do, is we watch from or from other sources how quickly our adversaries are able to spin up their production,” he said. “They’re watching the same thing with us.” (Source: U.S. DoD)
06 Mar 24. ‘Big changes’: Congressional panel proposes new defense budget system. The Pentagon needs to replace its entire resourcing process or it risks falling behind its top adversary: China.
This was the assessment of a group Congress mandated to study the Defense Department’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution system, better known as PPBE.
The process has been in place since the 1960s and guides how the Pentagon requests and spends money. After studying it for two years and conducting more than 400 interviews, the commission found the current system doesn’t meet the Defense Department’s needs.
“Given strategic adversaries, given the posture around the world right now, I’m not sure our current system is able to meet the current threats,” said Ellen Lord, the commission’s vice chair and the Pentagon’s former top acquisition official.
The opinion rests on two pillars.
First is America’s competition with China, which the Pentagon says is moving at a pace it needs to match. In the last 20 years, China has massively built up its military and invested in strategic sectors of its economy, such as drones and artificial intelligence. The Defense Department’s resourcing system can’t move at the speed required by this threat, especially when considering the other ones America faces around the world, the report argues.
The second change is in technology. Specifically, the commission says the defense sector no longer leads innovation; instead, the commercial sector does, especially in fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics. That shift makes it more important to have a resourcing process that can adopt commercial advances, something the commission says PPBE does poorly.
The result, per the report, is a process both antiquated and cumbersome.
“One of the most consistent concerns the commission heard over the past two years is that the current PPBE process lacks agility,” the report reads.
Instead, the commission proposes scrapping the old process in favor of a new one, which they call the Defense Resourcing System. It would have three parts: strategy, resource allocation and execution.
Most changes would occur in how resources are spent, organizing the budget around capability areas — such as tactical aviation — rather than spending categories like research and development. The intent is to create a more nimble system that better matches the Pentagon’s strategy.
The almost 400-page report covers five core areas: better matching budgets and strategy, faster innovation, improving the Pentagon’s relationship with Congress, updating business and data systems and a better workforce.
These areas include a further 28 recommendations, which sit on a spectrum from easy to adopt to aspirational.
On the easier end are changes that sit within the Defense Department’s control, such as improving the department’s plodding data systems that make it difficult to answer questions from Congress, said Lord. Improved data systems overall were one of her top priorities, she said.
On the other are recommendations that would require the approval of all the stakeholders in PPBE, such as changing the process altogether. That reform, even if it gets the necessary support, could take around three years, the commission estimated.
Implementation
“I am a huge advocate of making big changes,” Lord said, speaking at a Wednesday breakfast hosted by the Defense Writers Group.
To do so, she and the panel’s other members are calling for Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks to issue a memo with implementation guidance — outlining what can be accomplished in the short, medium and long terms.
Hicks already issued such a memo last year, covering initial recommendations, after the commission submitted an interim report to Congress. The department released an implementation plan for those early recommendations Wednesday.
To fully implement their recommendations, the panel says Hicks should form a team across the department that reports directly to her and is staffed for the next three to five years.
“The Department looks forward to evaluating the additional recommendations released by the PPBE Reform Commission today, in close cooperation with Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and other stakeholders,” Hicks said in a statement, also calling on lawmakers to pass a full Pentagon budget.
Congress too has already shown signs of support for some of the panel’s work. As an example, said commission aide Rachel Conway, the House and Senate appropriations committees on defense proposed higher thresholds for the Pentagon’s below-the-threshold reprogramming requests, which allow the department to shift around money without approval from Congress. The proposals aren’t yet final, but doing so is among the commission’s recommendations.
“These findings should help the Department develop new technologies in a streamlined, agile manner. We appreciate the Commissioners’ expert, bipartisan work, and we look forward to reviewing their findings,” the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said in a joint statement Wednesday.
Congress still has yet to pass a defense budget, now six months into the fiscal year. To improve the relationship between the department and Capitol Hill, the report recommends more face-to-face communication between the two and a common set of data reports that both sides can access.
Ultimately, said Lord, the challenge in implementing the report will be that relationship, and the longstanding balance between oversight from Congress and freedom for the Pentagon to make changes.
“We believe we have a substantive document here with 28 very important recommendations,” she said. “That will all be for naught if we do not have implementation guidance from the department as well as language from Congress.” (Source: Defense News)
04 Mar 24. Drones, robotic tech pose threat to US nuclear security, general says. The ballooning use of unmanned technologies including drones has consequences for the U.S. nuclear stockpile and associated infrastructure, according to the leader of Strategic Command.
Militaries and extremist groups around the world are deploying drones and other robotic technology to collect intelligence, aid targeting and even attack from relative safety. Learning how to intercept and neutralize them has quickly become a priority for Defense Department officials, who are monitoring skirmishes across Ukraine and the Greater Middle East.
The proliferation of sophisticated uncrewed systems “poses a challenge to the department and our nation’s nuclear enterprise,” Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton said in his 2024 Strategic Posture Statement, which was sent to Congress on Feb. 29. The matter is further complicated by an “accelerating technological race with our adversaries,” namely Russia and China, he said.
Cotton’s command, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal and supports electromagnetic operations and missile threat assessment.
STRATCOM in 2022 and 2023 tested counter-drone weaponry to better understand its effectiveness and inform future investments, Cotton said in his statement. He did not disclose results.
So-called “no drone zones” were established years ago at military bases and nuclear weapons sites, including where parts are made and maintained. A provision in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act empowered the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to protect its facilities from drones considered hazardous to safety or security.
The zones cover sensitive compounds such as Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where nuclear-weapon cores known as pits are expected to be manufactured; the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, where uranium-processing facilities are being built; and the Nevada National Security Site, where subcritical experiments and nonproliferation research are conducted.
NNSA leadership in December visited the Nevada site, where they were shown counter-unmanned aerial system technologies.
“These capabilities are applicable across all of NNSA’s sites,” Frank Rose, the administration’s deputy, said in a statement at the time. “We are developing the tools we need not only to counter the UAS of today but also to defend against evolving threats.”
Among the equipment showcased was the Anduril Industries-made Anvil. Anvil drones zip toward a target on a collision path with the goal of knocking threats out of the sky. An explosive variant dubbed Anvil-M offers the same sort of countermeasure, but instead relies on a fire-control module and munitions payload.
Rose was also pictured in front of a screen displaying Anduril’s command-and-control Lattice software. (Source: Defense News)
04 Mar 24. The Pentagon’s budget season is approaching. Experts say buckle up. Six months into the fiscal year, the Pentagon still doesn’t have a full budget. Last week, service leaders warned of catastrophic effects were there to be a yearlong continuing resolution. And on March 11, the administration plans to introduce its FY25 budget request.
Welcome to budget season 2024, the government’s split-screen effort to secure spending deals for two fiscal years at once. For the Pentagon, the moment is one of almost unique uncertainty.
“We’re in this bizarro world where there’s no budget, but amendments are [being] submitted” for the 2025 defense policy bill, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
Looming over the budgeting process for the Pentagon is the threat of a full-year continuing resolution, or CR.
In a briefing with reporters last week, the undersecretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force warned that such a scenario would hamstring their efforts to upgrade weapons systems and ramp up production.
“There is no playbook” if that occurs, Eaglen said, noting the Pentagon has never before operated under a yearlong CR.
The second threat is possible sequestration. If Congress doesn’t pass all its spending bills by April 30, there will be automatic 1% across-the-board budget cuts, per the terms of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a deal struck last year to avoid a government default.
The president can choose to exempt military personnel spending — about a quarter of the Pentagon budget — from those cuts, said Seamus Daniels, who studies defense spending at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That would mean sequestration would actually trim more than 1% for the other areas of defense spending, such as procurement.
Last week, Congress passed its latest short-term spending bill, which extends the deadlines to fund the government to March 8 and 22, leaving little more than a month of cushion before the April 30 deadline. Over the weekend, members of Congress released the text of a deal for six of its annual spending bills, which could pass by the end of the week.
‘No building here’
Still, the issues surrounding the FY24 budget will cloud the White House’s FY25 request, multiple experts on the defense budget told Defense News.
“It makes it difficult for the Biden administration to plan, not knowing what the final appropriations levels are going to be for defense programs in 2024,” said Daniels.
A full spending bill for one fiscal year and the administration’s request for another are meant to be staggered six months apart. This allows the White House to factor in Congress’ preferences from one budget cycle into another.
“They need to be six months apart so that one can build on the other,” said Mark Montgomery, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Pentagon official. “We’re having no building here.”
The Fiscal Responsibility Act capped spending increases for the entire government, including the Defense Department. In last year’s budget request, the administration projected the Pentagon’s overall funding would rise to $860bn in FY25. Instead, its cap will be $850bn, a 1% year over year decrease in spending, when adjusted for inflation, said Daniels.
That topline will likely compound the pressure on the Pentagon’s procurement accounts created by the delay in this year’s funding, said Eaglen.
Assuming Congress passes a defense budget in March, the department would have about six months to spend new money that was meant to be spread over an entire year. Because the Pentagon won’t dock personnel pay or lower readiness, that means the procurement accounts will probably suffer disproportionately, she said.
In the meantime, that account has been a major concern of Congress. Since FY16, lawmakers have been adding more money to the Pentagon’s procurement budget than the administration requested.
They’ve been doing so, in large part, to prepare for competition with China, which has been conducting an enormous military buildup in the last 20 years and now surpasses America’s ability to manufacture many major weapons systems.
The Pentagon’s guiding strategies in the last three administrations have focused correctly on this challenge, said Mark Cancian, also of CSIS. But the department doesn’t have enough money to properly execute that strategy, he said — and the budget delays and uncertainty this year don’t help.
On March 11, Daniels said he’ll be watching the budget request’s forecast for future years. The caps instituted by the FRA only last this coming fiscal year, which means the administration could project funding increases more in line with the estimates from previous budgets.
There’s also the question of the White House’s massive national security supplemental request, which passed the Senate in February, but has since stalled in the House. Because of the size of that bill — $95 bn — the Pentagon’s budget is unusually connected to a separate piece of legislation, Montgomery said.
Cancian said he doubts any of that funding will make it into the FY24 Pentagon topline, but the Defense Department has outstanding bills for its surge of support after the wars in Ukraine and Israel in the last two years and those bills need paying.
It’s not yet clear Congress will be able to pass a full appropriation this year. Because all of its funding bills need to be passed in order to avoid a sequester, the Pentagon needs to plan for that possibility even if it gets an FY24 budget, said Daniels.
“You don’t know necessarily what the sequester is going to be, if there is one,” he said. “So you’re just injecting a lot of uncertainty into the planning.” (Source: Defense News)
04 Mar 24. Deteriorating global security environment to spur US defense expenditure to $931.6bn in 2028, forecasts GlobalData. The US aims to improve military readiness and strengthen deterrence in an era defined by rising aggression from authoritarian governments and non-state actors. Faced with growing concerns about the stability of the rules-based international order, the US is forecasted to further increase defense spending to $931.6bn in 2028, up from $818.8bn in 2023, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
GlobalData’s latest report, “United States (US) Defense Market Size, Trends, Budget Allocation, Regulations, Acquisitions, Competitive Landscape and Forecast to 2028”, reveals that the US defense spending will increase again in 2024 to $841.4bn. The country’s expenditure on acquisitions is set to grow at a steady compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.0% during 2024–2028. During the same period, total defense expenditure is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 2.6%.
Fox Walker, Defense Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “In an era of increased competition with large military powers and other national security threats, the US is strengthening its defense posture to operate in a more uncertain geostrategic environment. In addition to a robust 10.7% year-over-year increase in spending in 2023, the forecasted spending will bolster US capabilities in a time of global conflicts. Major investments across the breadth of the defense sector convey America’s strategic aim to be capable of responding to major conflicts on multiple continents and in emerging domains such as space and cyberspace.”
Defense spending in the US is driven primarily by the continued modernization of defense technologies globally and the outbreak of armed conflict in areas critical to American strategic aims. Through 2028, the three largest sectors in terms of total cumulative spending are military simulation and training, military fixed-wing aircraft, and missiles and missile defense systems—including $159 bn on military simulation and training alone. Some of the top ongoing programs in these sectors include Maxar Technologies One World Terrain training software, Lockheed Martin’s F-35, and the Patriot Missile Defense System.
Walker concludes: “Though the US commitment to the rules-based international order hinges on the results of this year’s presidential election, American investments in defense technology are unlikely to decline as tensions with China, Russia, and Iran continue to escalate. No matter the results in November, the defense industry should expect reliable growth of American investment and procurement initiatives.” (Source: GlobalData)
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