The heads of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees oppose proposed new rules changing how the Pentagon compensates contractors.

Rep. Mac Thornberry and Sen. Jim Inhofe sent a letter to Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Sept. 24.

After an Air Force memo pushing back on some of Deputy Secretary of Defense Partrick Shanahan’s early plans for the Space Force hit the streets this week, Shanahan sought to smooth things over.

President Trump approved a major study of America’s national security economy last week after meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan. But Hurricane Florence might have something to say about when it’s released!

There’s no timeline, no cost estimate, and no certainty Trump’s proposed Space Force will even happen. Even the interim step of creating a Space Command is being dialed down, a significant policy shift.

A slew of new civilian officials are settling in at the Pentagon, adding muscle to promises of change in how the military develops and buys technology, and how fast it can put that gear in the field.

The “separate but equal” sixth service (don’t forget the Coast Guard) will be created in stages, because, as Pence finally admitted publicly, it “requires Congressional action.” And, as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Paul Selva, admitted today, if Congress passed the relevant laws in a year that would “unprecedented.”

Of DoD’s proposed reforms, the biggest thing not included in the NDAA is the Space Development Agency, which would appear to strike a blow at the heart of DoD space acquisition: the Air Force-run Space and Missile Systems Center. SMC has long been criticized for its slow pace, bureaucratic stovepipes, and opacity, but praised for its technical brilliance.

These single points of failure already limit military modernization and potentially could disrupt operations in a crisis. That’s especially true if production needed to ramp up urgently for a major war, a subject the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, has publicly angsted about.

“The major challenge for the US is China,” CNA analyst Larry Lewis said. “They are approaching the use of AI just like the US approached going to the moon in the sixties.”

The Pentagon wants its new AI center up and running in six months, but is taking a different track on directed energy and hypersonics, Deputy Defense Secretary Shanahan says.