Ashley Roque covers land warfare for Breaking Defense. Over the past two decades, she’s reported on defense, US politics, and foreign policy for publications inside and outside of the United States including Janes, Roll Call, Inside Defense and Shephard Media. Ashley holds a BA in English with a minor in journalism from Florida State University, and a master's degree in conflict transformation from the University of Basel.
“If we don’t turn our recruiting situation around, I can’t guarantee you that the Army won’t have to make some more substantial potential force structure reductions,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told senators.
It’s been roughly four years since the service put the brakes on buying the CH-47F Chinook Block II configuration, but a decision is expected this calendar year.
“For the next 40 to 60 years, I see us continuing to incrementally improve [the Black Hawk fleet],” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told lawmakers on April 19.
“The milestone decision authority is following a very deliberate and rigorous review process to ensure that the 60V is ready for full-rate production,” a spokesperson for the Program Executive Office for Aviation told Breaking Defense.
“[It could become] a real waste of time and resource if every nominee for any political position is held up, but made all the more nonsensical in that uniformed service members do not set policy,” said CNAS senior fellow Katherine Kuzminski.
If the Senate approves Gen. Randy George as the Army’s next Chief of Staff, he will be overseeing the service at a time when it is dealing with recruiting challenges and shepherding weapon modernization programs to fruition.
“The bottom line is the entire joint force is required to help deliver effects to both deter and fight and win,” said US Indo-Pacific Command head Navy Admiral John Aquilino.
“Taiwan also certainly needs to be able to make sure that any invading force is caught dead in its tracks in the strait as it comes across [and] to be able to defend at the beaches and to be able to be resilient, in depth, on [the] island,” said Jedidiah Royal, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.
The review, whose initial findings are due in 45 days, involves DoD CIO John Sherman, who’s already been long at work revamping how the Pentagon protects its secrets.
The Army reasoned “Sikorsky’s proposal provided something similar to a drawing of what the house looked like on the outside…. Such a picture did not provide the functional detail that the Army required showing what the space would look like on the inside,” according to the Government Accountability Office.
“The full-rate production decision enables the US Army to set the fielding schedule for IBCS to operational air defense units,” prime contractor Northrop Grumman said.
