Author: alaysia.mckenzie

LYDIA ANTONIO-VILA

MAY 30, 2025

Strider Technologies and Special Competitive Studies Project report warns that China is rapidly expanding its AI infrastructure in a state-led effort to dominate the global tech landscape.

A new report developed by Strider Technologies and the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) warns that China is executing a state-directed campaign to dominate global artificial intelligence (AI) and suggests that to safeguard technological leadership, the United States must match the urgency of China’s AI strategy with a coherent, whole-of-nation response. 

The report, titled “China’s AI Infrastructure Surge: How PRC Data Centers and AI Models Bridge Military Ambitions and Global Connections,” outlines China’s AI policy and recommendations for U.S. policymakers. 

During a virtual Defense Writers Group meeting on May 29, Greg Levesque, CEO and co-founder of Strider Technologies, explained that China is investing heavily in its infrastructure base, and that they’re ahead of stated policy goals when it comes to AI. 

“It’s very clear they view this as an existential race, and they are hell-bent on being number one,” said Levesque. 

“Like in every other emerging technology, and specifically AI, China has not been standing still,” said Ylli Bajraktari, president and CEO of the SCSP. “They've had a clear vision about what they want to do, they've had clear investments, and obviously, in today's world, we wanted to look at how are they doing in building this digital infrastructure when it really comes down to data centers and the compute power.”

The report states that as of mid-2024, China has built or announced plans to build more than 250 AI data centers across all regions of the country. The report also found a massive uptick in Chinese government recruitment of AI scientists in the United States. 

“That's a core part of their broader AI strategy. And I would argue that the U.S. government has no real clear mission or strategy around mitigating that,” said Levesque. 

The report states that the implications of the People's Republic of China’s (PRC's) AI infrastructure buildout for the United States and its allies are profound. The strategy detailed in the report aims to be a state-driven, globally networked campaign to gain an enduring asymmetric advantage against China. 

On China’s AI strategy, Bajraktari explained that this is a zero-sum game. 

“Whoever ends up being the first will set the rules of the road for the rest of the world,” he said. “I think in the Chinese mindset, this is a zero-sum game as well, because I don’t think they will accept any kind of scenario in which they'll end up being the second when it comes to technology competition.” 

The report outlines the following recommendations for policymakers: 

1. Restrict Security-Relevant AI Infrastructure Developers 
2. Leverage PRC Dependence on Foreign Software to Apply Strategic Pressure 
3. Strengthen International Collaboration to Monitor and Counter PRC AI Infrastructure Expansion 

The report also includes a call to action for industry leaders. 

“My fundamental view is [that] industry has to be a part of the national security solution and strategy. There's no other way around it,” said Levesque. 

The report outlines the following recommendations for industry leaders and investors: 

1. Understand the Competitive Landscape  
2. Monitor PRC Activity  
3. Eliminate Vectors of
Technology Transfer  
4. Enhance Awareness

By Frank Wolfe 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said on Tuesday that despite rumblings about the future U.S. Golden Dome missile shield being under construction, the program is still in its early stages and that he will try to prevent the $25 billion for the program in the $113 billion DoD reconciliation bill from becoming a “slush fund.”

Golden Dome is “conceptual at the moment, frankly,” Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a Defense Writers Group breakfast. “I suspect that the DoD money in the reconciliation, which is highly unusual, about $113 billion, I think there will be a category called ‘Golden Dome,’ but that’s just potentially a slush fund. They have to identify the technologies. They have to go ahead and design an integrated plan. In my view, from what I’ve heard, unclassified, it’s more of a warning system than a firing system, although it [Golden Dome] will develop firing units to complement it. But the key now is to identify hypersonics as soon as they launch so we can engage them, but that’s still a work in progress.”

A Jan. 27 executive order from President Trump directed the development of the U.S. missile defense shield, to include space-based interceptors–a project analysts have estimated could cost trillions of dollars.

A group of five Democratic senators and 37 Democratic representatives on May 1 asked Acting DoD Inspector General Steven Stebbins to investigate the lawmakers’ conflict of interest concerns related to top Trump adviser, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, and SpaceX’s position as a front-runner for Golden Dome contracts (Defense Daily, May 1).

“Every time I read about it [Golden Dome], there’s a paragraph about Elon Musk’s participation with Starlink as the communication link; etc.,” he said. “We have to be very careful of this because this is essentially a kill chain from observation to execution, and we typically don’t have non-military contractors in the middle of something like that. We have to think very seriously about how do we legally do this. Do we lease with the right to retain [data rights] or the right to prevent it from being leased to any other entity–these types of communications systems and weapons systems, and they’re doing that right now. Space Force is very much involved in that and trying to think out how do we put together a communications system and link it to the firing system.”

“The biggest part of Golden Dome, while I’m not the expert, is really the detection and communications systems,” Reed said. “The firing systems, if we can identify the target early, the easier part–and it’s not easy–will be to get the kill vehicle developed.”

By Courtney Albon

In the two weeks since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a directive requiring the use of rapid procurement methods and contracting tools for all software acquisition, military officials and industry executives have expressed a mix of optimism and angst about the mandate, while also calling for more sweeping reforms to how the Pentagon develops, tests and funds software-heavy programs.

The March 6 memo directs all Defense Department components to use DOD’s Software Acquisition Pathway, along with other authorities designed to speed up the buying process and better leverage commercial providers. The tools singled out in Hegseth’s order have existed for years, but a relatively small number of programs actually use them.

“The Department of Defense has been slow to recognize that software-defined warfare is not a future construct, but the reality we find ourselves operating in today,” Hegseth said in the memo. “When it comes to software acquisition, we are overdue in pivoting to a performance-based outcome and, as such, it is the warfighter who pays the price.”

Officials have attributed the Pentagon’s slow adoption of these processes to several causes but have primarily pointed to cultural inertia and risk aversion, both from DOD leaders and within military program offices. In interviews with Defense News and at events around the Washington, D.C., region in recent weeks, industry and Pentagon leaders said they were hopeful that Hegseth’s mandate could lead to change — if it’s enforced.

They also said they view the acquisition guidance as a first step toward broader reforms to how software is funded, tested and priced, as well as how acquisition officers and program managers are trained to manage software-heavy development efforts.

Steve Morani, the Pentagon’s acting acquisition executive, said Hegseth’s order sends a clear mandate for rapid transformation.

“That’s Secretary Hegseth’s way of, just six weeks into his tenure, introducing some change,” Morani said last week at the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference. “It’s a sign that he’s determined to drive the system to operate differently. I think we’re all on notice that, again, we’re not going to do things business as usual.”

Adjusting to cultural change

In the immediate aftermath of Hegseth’s mandate, Morani said his phone was “blowing up,” as many in the defense acquisition world were concerned about how this new way of buying software could impact their programs.

“I think there was a lot angst up front,” Morani said.

That angst is indicative of the culture change that will be required to implement Hegseth’s direction, as well as the sense that there are more changes still to come, he added.

“This is not the exception,” Morani said of the software memo. “This is going to be the standard way of doing things.”

The Software Acquisition Pathway, created in 2020, has been regarded by the department as the recommended approach for buying software. The pathway offers a tailored acquisition mechanism, recognizing that software can’t, and shouldn’t, be procured under the same process as an aircraft or ship.

Today, around 82 programs representing each of the military services are using the pathway to buy a range of capabilities — from command-and-control systems to cyber. The problem, according to one official who recently spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, is that the pathway hasn’t been combined with other authorities designed to attract and take advantage of commercial capabilities.

Those authorities include an approach championed by the Defense Innovation Unitcalled a Commercial Solutions Opening, a type of solicitation that allows startups and non-traditional defense companies to sell products and services to DOD without navigating arduous requirements documents. DIU also leverages a contracting tool called Other Transaction awards, which isn’t subject to the same regulations as a standard contract.

When combined, these authorities allow DOD to award software contracts much faster than in the past.

Justin Fanelli, the Navy’s chief technology officer, said this shift may be jarring for some acquisition officers who are used to dealing with a rigorous source selection process that can include thousands of pages of meticulous requirements. For example, the need statement for a Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO, can sometimes be as succinct as a paragraph.

“As you can image, not everyone’s comfortable with that, even inside the building,” Fanelli said March 19 during an Emerging Technology Demo Day in Reston, Virginia. “We’re saying, ‘Here are three sentences that are user-sponsored,’ and those serve as what we used to know as 3,000 pages of requirements.”

Speaking with Defense News after his presentation, Fanelli said the Navy is working to break down some of those barriers by offering examples of programs that have successfully used these tools and reaped the benefits.

“We are, right now, just using this opportunity to stockpile big success stories so that we can get more adoption and change our focus from risk avoidance when it comes to procurement to a focus on impact and outcomes and value-per-dollar,” he said.

Kori McNabb, a senior procurement analyst for the Air Force, told Defense News at the same event that while the shift to commercial-like buying is uncomfortable for some of the acquisition officials she works with, she’s noticed there’s been a greater sense of urgency to learn how to use these tools since Hegseth issued his directive.

McNabb highlighted the Air Force’s CSO Center of Excellence, which offers training opportunities for program officers who may have less experience with the source selection tool. In recent weeks, use of the center’s app has increased from around 200 users at a given time to close to 3,000, she said, adding that her team has upped its training webinar offerings since the memo’s release.

“We just slowly grab them and pull them along with us,” she said. “We’re like, ‘You have to come along because we’re all moving to this.’”

A new report from the Atlantic Council’s Software-Defined Warfare Commissionidentified workforce expertise — and the training required to achieve it — as a top need for DOD as it looks to better leverage software.

The report proposes DOD develop an “extensive, connected, layered and modular software-centric training program” that both raises awareness about the importance of software and establishes a foundational understanding of commercial best practices.

“While the DoD has taken steps to upskill its existing workforce for the digital age, a widely acknowledged software proficiency shortfall remains,” the commission found. “While the United States is the world leader in software talent and solutions, the DoD lacks the expertise to effectively acquire, integrate, and use software tools that are central to mission success.”

More reforms to come?

As acquisition officials prepare their workforces to implement the secretary’s software guidance, others in the defense community are looking ahead to further reforms — hoping that Hegseth’s initial memo is just the beginning of more sweeping changes.

Jason Brown, general manager of defense programs at software firm Applied Intuition, said he’s hopeful DOD is serious about enforcing the software directive, calling it a “long overdue” policy. But more reform is needed, he told Defense News in an interview.

Brown pointed to software pricing, workforce expertise and testing processes as areas that need further attention if the department wants to make progress in this area.

“Test and evaluation needs to be completely reworked,” he said. “It’s not feasible for the current, very bureaucratic, slow, cumbersome test and evaluation methodologies to also be applied to software. I think everybody recognizes that — even the test and evaluation community — the question is, what are they going to do about it and how do we get there?”

The Atlantic Council’s report offered a similar assessment of the software testing enterprise, pointing to lagging simulation capabilities and digital infrastructure.

Authored by a group of former U.S. military officials and defense experts, the report recommends the Pentagon empower and provide funding to the Test Resource Management Center to improve its digital testing capabilities.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday at a Defense Writers Group event in Washington, D.C., former acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox identified testing infrastructure as a key, near-term focus area for the department.

“The thing that the department has to grapple with is, in addition to buying the software, they need to provide the infrastructure to, particularly, the operating forces,” she said.

Along with those investments, the report suggests the department explore letting more mature software vendors self-certify some capabilities as a way to speed up software fielding and reduce bottlenecks in the testing enterprise.

The commission also recommends the Defense Department take a commercial-first approach to development and procurement, arguing that DOD too often chooses to develop software on its own when private-sector solutions already exist.

“When the DoD decides to develop custom software, this often results in higher costs, longer schedules, and increased risks,” the report states. “Commercial software is often updated continuously across a broad customer base, of which the DoD could take advantage. Instead, updating software to address threats and bugs or add functionality takes considerable time and funding.”

By Mike Glenn - The Washington Times - Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Washington is stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle of budgetary and appropriations dysfunction that directly threatens the country’s military, economic and technological superiority, according to an in-depth survey released this week.

Despite the dynamism of the American private sector, inefficiencies in the public sector are hindering progress toward technological superiority, according to the study by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

On Tuesday, the Reagan Institute released its third annual National Security Innovation Base [NSIB] report card, which measures the health and resiliency of the nation’s security system. It gave the U.S. government mixed grades across 10 categories, including defense modernization, manufacturing capacity and the industrial base.

“Innovation leadership” received an A- grade, the highest on the report card. The nation’s manufacturing capacity and industrial base received a D, the lowest mark.

“There has long been agreement that America’s adversaries are cooperating to undermine U.S. interests, security and prosperity. Yet, flagrant shortcomings in the NSIB ecosystem remain unaddressed,” the Reagan Institute analysts wrote.

Reagan Institute Policy Director Rachel Hoff told a meeting of the D.C.-based Defense Writers Group that the American leadership on innovation has received the top mark in the survey for three years in a row.

“This is where we assess that America is really maintaining its global leadership in innovation … and in the excellence in research on the global stage, particularly in” artificial intelligence, Ms. Hoff said.

She noted positive trends in the “innovation capital” category that present opportunities to enhance the government’s investment efficiency. Government-backed innovation funding is growing and can improve a return on investment by streamlining nonfinancial barriers, according to the report.

The Defense Department provides “significant” funding for top players and innovators to forge productive partnerships across the board, the survey said, nurturing successful defense companies like SpaceX or Palantir. However, the businesses represent a small share of total contract dollars, highlighting the need for broader outreach, Reagan Institute officials said.

“We think that this is the indicator that matters in terms of measuring the actual progress, not simply activity aimed at driving progress on the input side,” Ms. Hoff said. “There’s certainly a disconnect with a downward trend in our first couple of years and now a flat trend on defense modernization.”

One of the two D grades on the report analyzes manufacturing capacity and the industrial base. The Reagan Institute analysts said the U.S. has made “targeted” improvements in production capacity and adaptability with the establishment of new production facilities.

“Fragility persists deeper in the supply chain [for example, rare earth minerals] while stockpiles of critical weapons remain dangerously low,” according to the report. “Meanwhile, China is widening its lead, producing twice the manufacturing output of the U.S.”

President Trump said he would address at least one glaring defense industrial base shortcoming during his address to Congress on Tuesday night. He announced the creation of a White House office to promote the domestic shipbuilding industry, which has lagged badly behind both allies such as South Korea and adversaries such as China in capacity.

The Reagan Institute analysts said the trends analyzed in the latest report are not immutable.

“The United States has everything it needs to secure its military, economic and technological superiority: a free and open political system that empowers its best and brightest to innovate, a prosperous economic base, and a military that is the envy of the world,” according to the report.

“But, the trends identified in this report card highlight glaring areas of weakness that whittle away at America’s advantage and provide openings for its adversaries,” the report stated.

The Army, Defense Logistics Agency, and Pentagon are working to make data-sharing easier and improve supply-chain woes.

BY LAUREN C. WILLIAMS

JANUARY 17, 2025

Virtually all of the Army’s weapons are affected by delayed or backordered parts—and mismatched computer systems are largely to blame. And it’s only been a month since a new digital tool has started to replicate that. 

“Our supply chain is huge. The Army doesn't buy all of its own parts. In fact, 90 percent of our parts—mostly low-dollar, high-volume expendables, things that go pretty quick, consumable-type stuff—we actually rely on the Defense Logistics Agency to buy them,” Richard Martin, Army Materiel Command’s director for supply chain management, told reporters on Wednesday.

“Using a Black Hawk helicopter as an example, the Army has the lion's share. The Navy also flies a similar aircraft. The Air Force flies a similar aircraft. The Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, they all have similar-type aircraft,” Martin said, at a media event following the Association of the U.S. Army’s industrial-base readiness event on Wednesday. 

But each of those entities has their own business systems. And just over a year ago, the Army realized that DLA’s systems weren’t showing data from the service’s maintenance and supply systems—and what they did get was unreadable. 

Over the last year, the service developed a tool—Army Materiel Command Predictive Analysis Suite, or APAS—that allows them to share information back and forth with DLA. They started using it in December.

“There's still some bugs in it, if you will. But it's definitely allowing them to see…the depth [of detail] that we're trying to get to and lets DLA make that procurement decision,” he said. 

“It lets DLA recognize what we are ultimately consuming,” he said. Before the systems were properly connected, the Army would need 20 of a particular part for a weapon every month, for example, but DLA would receive that data as needing 20 every few months. This created a backlog. 

“They would see, ‘hey, I need 100 [of this part]’ and the reality was I not only needed 100 immediately, because there are weapon systems down for that part, I actually needed another 200 to replenish my stocks,” he said. 

APAS also lets the Army see DLA’s lead times for part delivery and how much the agency is buying, enabling the service to manage the parts needed to make weapons operational and replenish stockpiles.

The Defense Logistics Agency handles about 5 million national stock numbers—that is, individual parts—across the military services. 

“We've started with DLA and the Army because we found that all the services we're doing forecasting separately and differently and managing their systems differently, and we needed to have a way to share the data so we could see what they were consuming and have predictive analytics we could look at where we need to have parts bought ahead of need,” Kristin French, DLA’s deputy director for logistics operations, told reporters on Wednesday. 

This accountability is crucial for industry to have enough time to configure and startup manufacturing lines, French said. 

“It takes them, sometimes a year, 18 months—in munitions, two years or more—to get parts or items,” she said. 

The DLA and the Army started a data-sharing working group, and now uses a system with API interfaces that allows the two organizations to see supply needs and availability. 

“We have to do it through protocols, because the systems are different, but we do it through API Interfaces where we can talk to each other and see what they're consuming so we can predict what we will need to procure the future requirements,” French said.

Sharing data is one of the biggest challenges in sustainment and logistics, said Steven Morani, the acting secretary of defense for sustainment. The Pentagon has been using its main data analytics platform, ADVANA, for logistics data from across the services. 

“And that actually accelerated our ability to get the weapons systems performance data into a shared environment. And it allowed us to make progress on an area that we had been quite honestly struggling to get agreements on, and that was performance metrics,” which details the health and status of various platforms, Morani told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event on Friday.  

Today, all services are putting in that data in the same way thanks to guidance issued last year. “We’re using that data to see ourselves better,” Morani said. In 2025, the Pentagon plans to add supply data metrics in hopes that it will “move us from this pool system, where the units are having to send that demand signal, for us to see the demand signal through data, understand consumption rates, and now push materiel there before you know a unit runs out. And that's really the goal of what we're trying to do.”

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said that plans to move 4,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam will put those forces far from where they are needed.

JEFF SCHOGOL


Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith cautioned on Wednesday that ongoing efforts to relocate Marines from Okinawa to Guam will move those forces away from where they are most needed.

“Frankly, Guam puts us going the wrong way,” Smith told reporters at a Defense Writers Group Breakfast in Washington, D.C. “Guam puts us on the other side of the International Date Line, but it puts us a long way from the crisis theater, from the priority theater.”

About 19,000 Marines are currently stationed in Okinawa. The United States and Japan agreed in 2012 to move about 9,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam and other locations in the Pacific, including Hawaii. About 4,000 Marines are expected to be stationed on Guam, where Camp Biaz will serve as their primary installation.

Although the Marine Corps is committed to drawing down to about 10,000 Marines on Okinawa, the move to Guam is a “challenge,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday.

For example, the Army also expects to deploy forces to Guam, and that would limit the space available for the Marines, Smith said. Apra Harbor, where aircraft carriers and other Navy ships can dock, is also undergoing infrastructure updates. In April 2023, a $106.9 million contract was awarded for an embarkation and debarkation facility for Marines.

“So, I’m not sure that is in the best strategic interests of America, to be honest with you,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday. “But it is a treaty obligation we have with Japan, which we’re going to comply with unless, and until, it changes.”

Roughly 100 logistics support Marines with III Marine Expeditionary Force began moving from Okinawa to Guam in December.

The Marine Corps supports the 2012 agreement between Japan and the United States and the planned relocation of forces to Guam or Hawaii, a spokesperson for the service told Task & Purpose on Wednesday.

“The Marine Corps will continue to explore options for the best location for the future force in the region,” they said. “The realignment of Japan-based Marines is the result of nearly 20 years of bilateral policy negotiation reflected in multiple international agreements and arrangements. This laydown honors an international agreement with the [Japanese government].”

Okinawa is part of the “first island chain,” which refers to a chain of islands in the Pacific that includes Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, which would be the front line in a war with China. U.S. military leaders have speculated that China could attempt to invade Taiwan by 2027. Although the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 is vague about how the United States would respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, President Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to defend the island nation.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, testified during his confirmation on Tuesday that the incoming administration will make deterring China a top priority.

“We’re going to start by ensuring the institution understands that as far as threats abroad, the [Chinese Communist Party] is front and center — also, obviously defending our homeland as well,” Hegseth said.

China’s aggressive claims that it controls waters administered by other countries in the Western Pacific and the Defense Department’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region provide an argument to possibly consider relooking at the agreement to move Marines from Okinawa to Guam, Smith said.

“That’s obviously a domestic issue for the Japanese government to decide,” Smith said. “But what I do know is every time you give China a foot, they take a mile. They only understand one thing, which is a credible deterrent force. And that credible deterrent force has to be present to win, which to me means being in the first island chain.”

BY MEGHANN MYERS DECEMBER 10, 2024

The second Trump administration will have to address climate realities one way or another, according to a deputy assistant defense secretary.

Extreme weather is creating fertile ground for conflict in multiple regions of Africa, the Pentagon’s top Africa official said Tuesday.

It’s also threatening the U.S.’s ability to maintain military bases like Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, on the continent’s central east coast, said Maureen Farrell, deputy assistant defense secretary for African affairs.

“Djibouti is one of the hottest countries on earth, and our ability to operate and engage in Djibouti is significantly affected by climate stressors in the Horn of Africa,” Farrell told reporters at a Defense Writers Group meeting.

For example, high temperatures regularly force sailors stationed at Camp Lemonnier—a Navy expeditionary base of roughly 4,000 uniformed and civilian personnel that stages troops for missions in Africa, Europe and Asia—to suspend physical training to prevent heat stress.

At the same time, “there's a number of African conflicts that we could point to that are over water and land rights,” Farrell said.

That includes competition between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan for fresh water. And in countries like Somalia, drought is pushing devastated farming communities into the arms of al-Qaida’s most well-funded affiliate.

“So we see climate-stressed areas to be a wonderful recruiting opportunity for terrorist groups,” Farrell said. “And some of the previous droughts that have taken place in Somalia, we have seen an uptick in al-Shabab recruiting, for example, which we correlate directly with the lack of other livelihood opportunities for the communities there.”

The U.S. military has taken steps to alleviate some of the challenges, she said, such as in Chad, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has helped local forces floodproof their bases, after years of drought hardened the soil to the point that heavy rains will immediately accumulate rather than soak into the earth. 

But while the Biden administration has embraced climate change policy in its work to deter conflict in African nations, there are questions about how a second Trump administration—with a president who has dismissed climate concerns in the past—will approach U.S. engagement in Africa.

“The consequences of not engaging on climate issues are quite serious and far reaching that affect not only U.S. interests, but also those of our allies and partners,” Farrell said.

And whether the Trump administration wants to call it climate change or not, she said, the consequences are unavoidable. 

“These are all the same issues. Every administration has the prerogative to put whatever branding on their special initiatives,” she said. “So whatever you call it, these changes in the environment, in the terrain, and the challenges resulting from regional conflicts are unchanging.”

Farrell did not indicate a concern that current Africa policy will be gutted, instead pointing out that Congress has funded the Biden administration’s efforts in a bipartisan manner.

“You'll notice the way that I'm talking about this is in terms of our strategic resilience, changing strategic environments,” she said. “All of those are facts. Those have nothing to do with the political branding that we decide here in Washington to place on some of these interests.”

The next administration might shift to buzzwords like “sustainability” and “resiliency” rather than focus on man-made climate shifts, she said. 

“What we are doing in terms of the way we are engaging on it, I would expect to continue, but perhaps just with a different talking point around it, because the challenges are the same,” Farrell said.

The service has never confirmed putting companies on the blacklist until now.

By Audrey Decker

The Space Force has put a defense contractor on a blacklist intended to hold companies accountable for poor performance and program delays. 

“There is a company on the watch list today. I won't say who it is,” Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, commander of Space Systems Command, told reporters at a Defense Writers Group event. 

The Contractor Responsibility Watch List, or CRWL, was created in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act to give Space Systems Command the power to stop underperforming contractors from getting new contracts. Until today, the service has never confirmed if it has used the list. 

The list “has absolutely worked as intended. We've seen significant improvement in performance and attention at the most senior levels of the corporation,” Garrant said. While Garrant didn’t name the company, he said the contractor works on high-priority space programs. 

The service wants to expand the tool in the 2025 NDAA and move the authority to blacklist contractors to Air Force space acquisition chief Frank Calvelli. Calvelli has been known to publicly call out defense contractors for schedule delays, and has emphasized the need to hold industry accountable. 

Once the authority is moved, Calvelli will likely use it “more frequently,” Garrant said. 

Calvelli has been trying to address long-delayed “problem children” programs in the Space Force, including an RTX program called GPS Next Generation Operational Control Segment, or OCX, which are ground stations that will control the Pentagon’s constellation of GPS satellites, as well as an L3Harris space command-and-control system called Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System, or ATLAS. 

The Space Force recently booted RTX from a contract to develop new missile warning and tracking satellites due to cost overruns and schedule problems—an example of how the service is keeping contractors accountable, Garrant said.

“[Calvelli] has talked a lot about holding people accountable, whether they're in the government or in industry. Without particulars, in my tenure, we have relieved program managers that work for me, holding them accountable. I would offer that removing one of the industry partners was holding them accountable to what they proposed to us from a cost, schedule, performance perspective. That’s the indication,” he said. 

The Navy's top officer described lessons learned from ships countering drones and missiles fired by Houthis in the Red Sea.

ByMark Pomerleau

October 2, 2024

One of the key lessons from the Navy’s recent engagements with Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea is being adaptable on the battlefield to use existing systems differently.

Over the last year, Navy assets in the region have come under fire from a barrage of systems launched by the Houthis — a group backed by Iran that has controlled portions of Yemen, including the capital, since 2014 — to include one-way drones and missiles. Navy ships have used a variety of expensive missiles to shoot down these assets, leading many outside experts to ask if the sea service and the Department of Defense are on the wrong side of the cost curve, shooting down inexpensive projectiles with million-dollar ammunition.

“The other lesson learned … is really using what you have differently. Using Hellfire against unmanned surface vehicles, air-to-air, aviation platform shooting down UAVs,” Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, told reporters during a roundtable Wednesday hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “These are things where we’re really learning. I think that Ukraine has shown us that you can innovate on the battlefield. I want to innovate before the battlefield, so we can stay ahead of any adversary any time.”

Navy aircraft had previously been used to shoot down several missiles and drones fired by the Houthis.

Franchetti noted that there isn’t a price tag for the lives of the sailors being targeted by the Houthis, a refrain echoed by top officials alluding to the fact they will use whatever capabilities at their disposal — regardless of how expensive — to protect personnel.

“I’m very proud of them, speaking with them directly. They have been in a weapons engagement zone and working at a level of intensity really never seen in my lifetime and really since World War II. I am very grateful for the weapons systems we have and for their ability to deploy them,” she said. “We’ve learned [that] conventional platforms [are] defeating unmanned platforms. We see that again every day that our ships are there and that our weapon systems and our training process that we’ve invested in over the last 10 to 15 years has really paid off. Our weapons are working as designed, our people know how to use them as designed and I think that confidence is really important as they integrate our capabilities along with the capabilities of the Air Force with allies and partners there.”

Though she declined to offer specific lessons and applications for assets currently deployed to avoid touching on ongoing operations, Franchetti acknowledged that the joint services along with allies and partners will all continue to contribute capabilities to thwart these types of threats in the future.

“You learn a couple things from that [engagement]. One is the power of allies and partners being able to work together. Like-minded nations to stand up again for that rules-based international order … it just reiterates the value of allies and partners, which our adversaries simply don’t have,” she said. “It’s clear that unmanned platforms are part of that changing character of war … you also need to be able to defeat them. This is a strong area of focus for our secretary of defense. He’s really put a lot of emphasis on counter-UAS and using creative solutions to get after that. We’re focused on that too. I think there’s some – all five services, are working on that, so there’ll be some integrated capabilities that we’re able to come up with.”

One of the biggest lessons Franchetti touted was the ability to take data from weapon systems to learn and improve tactics. Engineers can work with industry to devise fixes against these capabilities the Houthis are employing — which includes the best Iranian technology the Islamic Republic is supplying — in an ongoing cat-and-mouse game.

“We’re continuing to learn,” Franchetti said. “We know that this change in the character of war is that we are going to have to be able to defeat those types of technologies, whether it’s kinetically or non-kinetically or … farther left of launch and look forward to working on that.”

Others:

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/10/navys-80-percent-surge-readiness-target-is-a-stretch-goal-says-cno

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/2/navy-investing-in-industrial-base-to-fix-sub-programs-cost-schedule-challenges

Mike Glenn September 17, 2024

The war in Ukraine has shown that the U.S. must prepare for new forms of conflict and do a better job rapidly integrating new technology and capabilities with older systems, the chair of a panel examining the National Defense Strategy said Tuesday.

Former Rep. Jane Harman, chair of the congressionally mandated Commission on the National Defense Strategy and a California Democrat, said she visited a drone factory during a recent visit to Ukraine. The workers constructed drone casings using a 3-D printer and ordered the software from Amazon. 

“They can produce a drone for $350. I don’t think the Pentagon can produce a cup of coffee for $350,” Ms. Harman said.  

Ms. Harman and the commission vice chair, Ambassador Eric Edelman, spoke about the commission’s report with the Defense Writers Group a day before their Wednesday testimony to the House Armed Services Committee about the National Defense Strategy.

Their bipartisan commission, in a scathing report released in July, said the U.S. is not prepared for the large-scale war it waged against Germany and Japan nearly 80 years ago.

And China is outpacing the U.S. and has largely negated its past military advantages in the Western Pacific, the commission argued.

“The U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat,” the report stated. “It needs to do a better job of incorporating new technology at scale; field more and higher-capability platforms, software, and munitions; and deploy innovative concepts to employ them together better.”

Drones have proven to be vital for Ukraine in its war against invading Russia, both in providing Kyiv with a low-cost aerial intelligence-gathering capability and in destroying Russian military targets. They plan to eventually produce at least one million drones every year, Ms. Harman said.

“That’s the standard we have to be moving toward,” she said.

Executives from top defense technology companies warned Congress this week that China is outperforming the U.S. in mass production of drones. Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing about 10,000 small intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones every month. 

“When I look at what they’re losing per month and what we currently have in our inventory, I think ‘My goodness, we would last less than two months in a great power conflict,” Skydio global government president W. Mark Valentine told lawmakers on Monday. “And I just personally think that’s unacceptable.”

Mr. Valentine, whose company says it is America’s leading drone manufacturer, called for a surge of American drones into Ukraine, which he said would enhance the industry’s ability to meet U.S. requirements in the event of a future conflict. 

However, the National Defense Strategy Commission warns that the U.S. defense industry can’t meet the vital equipment, technology and munitions needs of the United States, its allies, and partners. A protracted conflict — especially in multiple regions — would require a much greater capacity to produce, maintain and replenish weapons and munitions stocks, and drones.

“We just don’t have the defense industrial base to sustain that kind of production. We need major investment in the defense industrial base to be able to surge production when we need it,” Mr. Edelman said. “We should be the ‘Arsenal of Democracy,’ but I don’t think we can be the Arsenal of Democracy alone.”