WASHINGTON: In a sign of how strange the budget process has become, the House Appropriations Committee has approved a defense spending bill that basically gives Secretary Jim Mattis a $28.6 billion blank check. Scattered across seven different accounts in the base and Overseas Contingency Operations budgets, it’s called the National Defense Restoration Fund, and it makes… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Heather Wilson began her first public speech as Air Force Secretary with a paean to technology, highlighting the service’s history of innovation from the B-29 to the F-117 to the F-35. It would have been an unambiguous signal of administration priorities, except the budget doesn’t really back her up. Research and development funding… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: New aircraft make up half the Navy’s $5.3 billion unfunded requirements list of items that didn’t fit in the 2018 budget request. But while the wishlist includes several upgrades to existing vessels, as well as new landing craft and barges, it doesn’t ask for any new warships. Instead of ships, the unfunded requirements list prioritizes… Keep reading →

If Congress enacts the Trump administration’s 2018 budget request, many in the Army will be ecstatic. Weapons contractors, maybe not so much. The $137.2 billion request ($166.1 billion including overseas contingency operations funds) is up by 5 percent from a year ago. It would be the most money the Army has gotten since 2012. The budget… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Pouring hundreds of billions into pay and benefits has not and cannot solve the military’s personnel problems. Despite spending 50 percent more per servicemember since 9/11, the services are short everything from cyber specialists to pilots, medics, nuclear engineers, and Arabic speakers. Spending more and more isn’t just unsustainable: It’s ineffective. Instead, argues a… Keep reading →

SAN DIEGO: Trump’s promised defense budget boost probably won’t materialize, the former Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today, so we can’t afford to grow a larger military. Instead of more ships and troops, retired Adm. James Winnefeld said in a rare public appearance, the military should prioritize investment in new ideas. His own service,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: After a decade of debate, the US Army is finally creating permanent units dedicated to advising foreign forces. The six new Security Force Assistance Brigades will be a marked departure from the ad hoc training teams used throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They would also be well suited to build up local… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Army is ahead of schedule building cyber teams — but its equally essential electronic warfare branch is lagging badly. Like a fiddler crab, one arm is much more developed than the other. While effective in the current fight against Daesh (aka ISIL), this unbalanced force would be at a severe disadvantage in future Multi-Domain Battles… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has laid out a measured and cautious spending plan that puts near-term readiness needs first in his first budget guidance memo. The memo, out this morning, largely defers major equipment modernization until 2019 and limits increases in the size of the force to “the maximum responsible rate” (emphasis ours). So,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: With one eye on China and another on North Korea, US Army Pacific is injecting cyber warfare and new joint tactics into every wargame it can. At least 30 forthcoming exercises — culminating in the massive RIMPAC 2018 — will train troops on aspects of Multi-Domain Battle, the land Army’s effort to extend its reach… Keep reading →