Coast Guard Dodges Big Trump Budget Bullet; But Coasties Fix Roofs

Coast Guard Dodges Big Trump Budget Bullet; But Coasties Fix Roofs
Coast Guard Dodges Big Trump Budget Bullet; But Coasties Fix Roofs

WASHINGTON: The White House has dropped plans for a 14 percent cut to the Coast Guard, instead promising a budget that “sustains current funding levels.” The bad news is that “current funding levels” are already too low. The Coast Guard has to give almost 600 drug shipments a pass each year because they don’t have the ships or planes to catch…

JICSPOC Funding Triples In Reprogramming Request

JICSPOC Funding Triples In Reprogramming Request
JICSPOC Funding Triples In Reprogramming Request

WASHINGTON: Funding for a new space command center will nearly triple if Congress approves the Pentagon’s mid-year reprogramming request. Propelled by personal interest from both Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his deputy, Bob Work, the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSPOC) began this year with just $16 million in 2016 funding. The reprogramming request…

Obama Keeps 8,400 Troops In Afghanistan: McCain Lukewarm, Thornberry Scathing

Obama Keeps 8,400 Troops In Afghanistan: McCain Lukewarm, Thornberry Scathing
Obama Keeps 8,400 Troops In Afghanistan: McCain Lukewarm, Thornberry Scathing

WASHINGTON: President Barrack Obama promised this morning to keep 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan through the end of his term. The relatively modest cut of 14 percent (down from today’s 9,800) is much less of a drawdown than Obama had once hoped for, especially as US commitments creep upward in Iraq and Syria. But leading pro-defense…

Navy Seeks To Boost Shipbuilding: Amphibs, Subs, Destroyers

Navy Seeks To Boost Shipbuilding: Amphibs, Subs, Destroyers
Navy Seeks To Boost Shipbuilding: Amphibs, Subs, Destroyers

CAPITOL HILL: Despite tight budgets at the Pentagon, the Navy wants to speed-up several shipbuilding programs — amphibious warships, destroyers, and submarines — and Congress seems inclined to give them the money. That’s testimony both to the perennial political popularity of shipbuilding, which employs a lot of voters, and to the rising strategic anxiety over…

Army Electronic Warfare Investment Lags Russian Threat

Army Electronic Warfare Investment Lags Russian Threat
Army Electronic Warfare Investment Lags Russian Threat

There is a great disconnect in the Department of Defense. Leaders at the highest levels realize we are falling behind — or have already fallen behind — Russia and China in electronic warfare, the invisible battle of detecting and disrupting the radar and radio transmissions on which a modern military depends. Even in the traditionally lower-tech…

LCS Cut Ripples Through Navy’s New 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan

LCS Cut Ripples Through Navy’s New 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan
LCS Cut Ripples Through Navy’s New 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter cut the Littoral Combat Ship program by 12 vessels last fall, but the surface fleet will feel the impact for decades. The long-term ramifications are laid out in detail by the Navy’s forthcoming 30-year shipbuilding plan, excerpts of which were obtained by Breaking Defense. Last year’s 30-year plan projected the…

Army To Upgun All Strykers: 30 mm & Javelin

Army To Upgun All Strykers: 30 mm & Javelin
Army To Upgun All Strykers: 30 mm & Javelin

Upgunning the Europe-based Second Cavalry Regiment against the Russians is just the first of a “lethality upgrade” for the entire Stryker force. The 30mm quick-firing cannon for 2CR’s Strykers may ultimately go on half the Army’s fleet of the 8×8 armored vehicles (not counting specialist variants). The other half would get the a vehicular version…

Congress Must Kill Sequester To Pay For Pacific Pivot: CSIS

Congress Must Kill Sequester To Pay For Pacific Pivot: CSIS
Congress Must Kill Sequester To Pay For Pacific Pivot: CSIS

WASHINGTON: If the United States is serious about “rebalancing” to Asia, it needs to invest some serious cash. Strategic small change won’t deter China or reassure our increasingly anxious allies, says a new report from the influential Center for Strategic & International Studies. And that means the CSIS study’s sponsor — Congress — must get its…

Budget Deal Shows Obama Hypocrisy On NDAA Veto

Budget Deal Shows Obama Hypocrisy On NDAA Veto
Budget Deal Shows Obama Hypocrisy On NDAA Veto

This week Congress should pass the 2016 defense authorization bill –again. It will be virtually identical to the one that President Obama vetoed just weeks ago.  The only change: a $5 billion reduction in costs so it complies with the budget deal reached last week. But passage of the up-dated authorization is no done deal. If Mr.…

Top 25 Cuts To NDAA: $5B In Fuel, People, Readiness, & Weapons Detailed

Top 25 Cuts To NDAA: $5B In Fuel, People, Readiness, & Weapons Detailed
Top 25 Cuts To NDAA: $5B In Fuel, People, Readiness, & Weapons Detailed

WASHINGTON: The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have found the $5 billion in cuts required under the budget deal. As HASC chairman Mac Thornberry promised, some of them are painful. The committees released the detailed list Tuesday after close of business, formatted into categories only a legislative aide could love, such as “Increases to…

NDAA Veto Override Vote In Doubt; CR Deadline Looms

NDAA Veto Override Vote In Doubt; CR Deadline Looms
NDAA Veto Override Vote In Doubt; CR Deadline Looms

UPDATED 4:40 pm with Bob Work comments WASHINGTON: The budget deal saved the day for defense. Now let’s never do that again. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 bought two precious years of stability, House Armed Services chairman Mac Thornberry and Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said today at the Defense One summit, but it hurt like…

House Divided: Budget Deal Passes, But HASC Leaders Split

House Divided: Budget Deal Passes, But HASC Leaders Split
House Divided: Budget Deal Passes, But HASC Leaders Split

UPDATED Deal passed, Forbes voted “no” WASHINGTON: With hours to go before the House vote on the budget deal — assuming it doesn’t get derailed — the Republican caucus is deeply divided. A central selling point is the deal ups the defense budget, but one leading legislator on national security issues, House seapower subcommittee chairman Rep.…

Budget Deal: Mackenzie Eaglen Told You So

Budget Deal: Mackenzie Eaglen Told You So
Budget Deal: Mackenzie Eaglen Told You So

The newly negotiated budget deal for the next two years is very good news, particularly for the US military and Pentagon planners. The defense budget will be funded close to the President’s request this year, there is no threat of a havoc-wreaking long-term continuing resolution, and there is predictability in funding levels for next year.…

Budget Deal Saves The Day For Defense – If It Passes

Budget Deal Saves The Day For Defense – If It Passes
Budget Deal Saves The Day For Defense – If It Passes

WASHINGTON: The budget deal announced late last night is unmixed good news for the Defense Department, our sources say — for a year, at least, and if it actually passes the ever-more-erratic House of Representatives. “This ‘October Surprise’ is a better deal for defense than I expected,” said one of Washington’s leading budget experts, Todd…