COLORADO SPRINGS: SpaceX does not look likely to get what it most wants from Capitol Hill in its battle against the United Launch Alliance and the Air Force: more launches sooner. Support for competition between the two companies remains vibrant, with Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jim Clapper, director… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: This week, the House Armed Services Committee gave advocates for the Army National Guard about half of what they wanted. Next week, a staffer told me, the Senate Armed Services Committee may look at giving the Guard the other half. But because Guard backers have taken very different approaches in each chamber, it’ll be… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with comment from Seapower Chairman Randy Forbes] “This is not a slam dunk. This is really the first step.” That’s the cautiously optimistic word from retired Navy captain Brian Schires, chairman of the recently formed Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition (AWIBC), on the $800 million the House Armed Services Committee just authorized towards the… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: “Given sequestration, given all the cuts…we can have a larger force or we can have a ready force,” said Rep. Adam Smith. “I’m going to choose the latter.” But the 2015 National Defense Authorization markup that the House Armed Services Committee will pass sometime tonight raids $1.4 billion from operations, maintenance, and training funds.… Keep reading →

HERITAGE FOUNDATION, DC: Hours after the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee put out legislative language to permit a Base Reduction and Closure round, the top Republican shot him down. Rep. Adam Smith has warned his colleagues repeatedly that Congress must make “unimaginable” choices to cope with the automatic budget cuts known as… Keep reading →

This morning, a House Armed Services subcommittee passed its markup of its part of the annual defense bill that would — among many other things — freeze some funding for the Army’s Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle Program. AMPV is the service’s biggest weapons program left standing after sequestration’s budget cuts, and contractor General Dynamics had protested the competition… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with details from the subcommittee mark] WASHINGTON: Just hours before the House Armed Services Committee rolls out its mark-up of the 2015 defense policy bill, the chairman of HASC’s seapower subcommittee is vowing to save the USS George Washington from early retirement and to preserve the nation’s fleet of 11 aircraft carriers. [Updated: The seapower subcommittee’s… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with Army & Senate responses] WASHINGTON: After convening in Washington for briefings on the Army budget and how to implement it, the state-level commanders of the National Guard have instead launched a new offensive against the Army plan to cut their forces, flooding Capitol Hill with letters and PowerPoint slides (embedded below). Their immediate goal:… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: General Dynamics has pulled back from the long-shot path of formal protests over the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV), but its quieter campaigns on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon will continue — and those efforts may have better odds. At stake is the Army’s largest weapons program to survive sequestration (so far), its $6 billion replacement for… Keep reading →

Bill Greenwalt played a major role in crafting the defense policy bill — the National Defense Authorization Act — each year for almost a decade, helping to squire the bill through the personalities and politics of the ever-fractious Senate. Now the muzzle is off — he’s a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute —… Keep reading →