WASHINGTON: If there’s been one constant in the acquisition reform debate of the last two decades, it’s been that the Pentagon should buy more commercial items in a commercial fashion, and do it quickly and cheaply. Now, nobody argued that you could buy F-35s or ships that way, but as competitors such as China and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Despite reported differences, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees propose almost identical toplines for national security spending. In an apples to apples comparison, after correcting for discrepancies in what the two committees count, HASC’s total is $704 billion, SASC’s is $708. That’s a difference of just 0.6 percent, presenting a strong united front… Keep reading →

“Palau is indispensable to our national security and funding the compact is key to our strategic presence in the region.” That’s what the Defense Department’s 2018 budget request says — but the House Armed Services Committee disagrees, defunding a $123.9 million payment that gains us access to the islands. Why is Palau indispensable? Look at… Keep reading →

Austal’s Alabama shipyard just got the first Littoral Combat Ship contract of 2017, an award of up to $548 million to build an Independence-class all-aluminum trimaran, the as-yet unnamed LCS-28. Lockheed Martin, which builds the steel-hulled Freedom-class LCS with Wisconsin shipyard Marinette Marine, is still in negotiations with the government, a Lockheed spokesman told me.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Rep. Mike Rogers really wants an independent Space Corps, and he’s willing to take the Air Force head on to get it. “I had no illusions from the beginning that the Air Force was going to embrace these reforms,” the Strategic Forces subcommittee chairman said this morning, “but when I see arguments that are… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The nation does not need a new armed service specializing in space, the leaders of the Air Force said today in rejecting a House Armed Services Committee plan. In fact, they said, carving a “Space Corps” out of the Air Force — which handles most space missions today — would only make it… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Congress wants the Army to get its tanks in gear. Today, the House Armed Services Committee released its draft of the 2018 defense policy bill, which all but begged the Army to accelerate its air-deployable Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle. MPF would fill a void in light tanks that’s existed since the M551 Sheridan was retired… Keep reading →

        WASHINGTON: The day before an embattled president rolls out an overdue budget that defense hawks say is $37 billion short, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee counseled against despair. “As President Bush said in a different context, don’t be guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations,” Rep.… Keep reading →

Ever since the day of its creation, critics have slammed the Office of Director of National Intelligence as an expensive and unnecessary bureaucracy, a threat to the longtime primacy of the Director of Central Intelligence and a toothless tiger. Much of that changed during the joint tenures of DNI Mike McConnell and SecDef Bob Gates… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL:  Less than two hours after President Trump tweeted that a government shutdown might be a good thing, the conservative Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said, no. either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix… Keep reading →