Insights on digital transformation following successes on B-21 and Sentinel
Customers and employees are experiencing the ‘Butterfly Effect’ of digital transformation from key national security programs.
WASHINGTON: The fleet needs smaller, cheaper aircraft carriers than the badly over budget, behind schedule Gerald Ford, ex-Navy pilot John McCain has long argued. No way, “Bigger Aircraft Carriers Are Better,” declares a recent National Interest article – widely publicized by the carrier industry’s advocacy group, ACIBC – citing a study that RAND did for…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
AUSA: Ellen Lord, the former Textron executive now heading the Pentagon’s acquisition shop, revealed today in her first public appearance since her confirmation that she is making fundamental changes in how the Office of Secretary of Defense starts and manages military weapons programs. This comes on top of internal Army reforms announced here by the…
By Colin Clark
Once again, America faces the prospect of a budget showdown come September. Defense companies are getting ready for the possible disruptions that attend. And, of course, Pentagon budgeteers, led by new Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, are rebuilding the fiscal 2018 request and preparing for disruption to the last of the 2017 spending. One of…
By Terry Marlow
The Trump administration’s long awaited “skinny budget”, officially named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again”, has arrived. It confirms the $54 billion increase in defense, and proposes to add $30 billion to this year’s (fiscal 2017) budget. It provides a description of what the Trump administration hopes to achieve in defense…
By Mark Cancian
UPDATED with McCain praise WASHINGTON: The Navy needs a bigger fleet of smaller ships than envisioned in its official Force Structure Assessment, says a congressionally-chartered study from the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments. CSBA emphatically agrees with the Navy that the focus needs to shift from day-to-day counter-terrorism and presence operations to deterring (and if need be,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
This year saw the first test of a major shift in acquisition law, pushed by Sen. John McCain, to place more power in the hands of the four armed services. When the bill was still being debated, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Frank Kendall, warned that McCain’s move to boost the power of the service chiefs to…
By Colin Clark
New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
After two decades of canceled combat vehicles, the Mobile Protected Firepower program is a crucial test for the Army’s new approach to acquisitions. The service is seeking off-the-shelf technology instead of gambling on breakthroughs. It’s bringing together industry, combat officers, and acquisition professionals together at an earlier stage than ever before. And it intends to rein…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, believes fervently in the importance of the authorizing committees, those bodies charged with making congressional policy and placing restrictions on weapons program spending. Today, McCain lost a battle against the appropriators, that small group of powerful legislative leaders who decide how much money the executive branch…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: The F-35, protected fiercely by senior Pentagon, Air Force and program officials for the last few years, is no longer safe from possible budget cuts as the 2017 budget is finalized, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics said this morning. “It’s impossible in these budgets to entirely protect it,” Frank Kendall…
By Colin Clark
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.…
By Justin Johnson
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
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…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Bill Greenwalt is sort of the Pied Piper of military acquisition policy. Where he leads, others often follow. After he wrote a series of op-eds for Breaking Defense recommending major changes to the Pentagon’s acquisition system, Sen. John McCain lured Bill back to his old job at the Senate Armed Services Committee. Greenwalt rewrote the laws, shaking up Defense Department acquisition. Bill is back, pointing to new acquisition problems, this latest one with his former employer — the Government Accountability Office. It’s a doozy, as you’ll see.
By Bill Greenwalt