Legislators will probably loosen some rules on federal spending to help the Pentagon cope with Congress’s failure to pass funding bills until six months into the fiscal year. Budget dysfunction has gotten so bad it’s forcing even the famously strict appropriations committees to loosen the reins after years of resistance.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Integrating commercial off-the-shelf computing on military platforms and how to make it work
The systems may be off-the-shelf, but the packaging for integration on vehicles and ships provides cradle-to-grave resiliency.
HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The Navy’s has been forced to resort to awkward, inefficient, even dysfunctional expedients to cope with Congress’s chronic inability to pass a proper spending bill on time, the Chief of Naval Operations said here this morning. “We do need stable funding, right, but the system has adapted….I wouldn’t say in completely healthy ways,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED from hearing and House vote WASHINGTON: The Navy is doing a good job addressing the problems revealed by last summer’s fatal collisions at sea, for example by filing criminal charges this week against officers involved, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the House seapower subcommittee say. Now Congress needs to do its part and pass…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Navy and Marine Corps hit the wall in 2017 with an string of deadly accidents. The newly named Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, seems to be charting a collision course with joint commanders.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Navy’s new Strategic Readiness Review lays out a bold program to fix the fleet after a summer of deadly collisions. Commissioned and championed by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the SSR (as it’s already initialized) will shape the debate in the Pentagon and in Congress for 2018. So we asked submariner-turned-thinktanker Bryan Clark to review…
By Bryan Clark
WASHINGTON: Navy Secretary Richard Spencer has asked legislators to repeal an obscure statute that he says hinders Navy readiness in the Pacific, where accidents this summer killed 17 sailors. Armed Services committee leaders seem receptive, but it’s the appropriators who’ll have to change the provision in question, which was written by their late, great chairman…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Congress should strike a budget deal to fund the federal government for at least two years, the Secretary of the Navy said today. The armed forces and defense industry need at least 24 months of predictable, stable funding so they can make investments and operate efficiently, Richard Spencer told reporters. Right now, though, the government’s…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Capability exists to simulate the future of kill chains at theater scale
A tool to explore what-if scenarios and tradeoffs at the theater-level faster than traditional analysis.
PENTAGON: How will the new Navy Secretary get people to understand the fleet is being worked too hard? “Because we’ll start every conversation with 17 dead sailors,” Richard Spencer told reporters this morning in his first media roundtable as SecNav. The 10 deaths aboard the USS McCain last month and the seven aboard the USS Fitzgerald…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. ARLINGTON: The new Navy Secretary announced a civilian-led investigation of recent lethal accidents that will look outside the Navy for lessons, separate from the internal military investigation already underway. Richard Spencer announced his Strategic Readiness Review late Friday, but only at this morning’s speech did he divulge the key detail. His review will bring in private…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: Amidst a bipartisan lovefest of a confirmation hearing, Navy Secretary nominee Richard Spencer quietly and consistently downplayed the idea of a 355-ship fleet. The Navy now has 276 ships from supercarriers to minesweepers, President Trump promised 350 on the campaign trail, and the Chief of Naval Operations has officially assessed that he needs 355.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
