Author: alaysia.mckenzie

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.”

By CAITLYN BURCHETT 

September 10, 2024

WASHINGTON — Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki is taking aim at the U.S. military for failing to notify his government of sexual assault cases involving service members as he lobbies lawmakers to curb misconduct among troops stationed in his prefecture. “As good neighbors in the same region, we need to know what is going on in the military side. … At the same time, we as our prefectural government, need to assure our citizens that we are actually protecting their lives and safety,” Tamaki said Tuesday at a Defense Writer’s Group discussion with reporters.

In recent months, two service members have been indicted on sexual assault or attempted sexual assault charges. Japanese prosecutors withheld information about the charges from the public and prefectural government until June, weeks after the troops were charged. “The biggest issue that we need to face here is the fact that we weren’t [notified] of this. The information sharing system did not function at all,” Tamaki said. Specifically, he said, the prefecture wants to know how the U.S. military confirms such cases, how accused troops are disciplined, and the contents and the frequency of sexual assault training U.S. troops receive.

The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, led by Tamaki, approved a petition in mid-July calling for changes to the U.S.-Japan status of forces agreement, the legal relationship between the U.S. military and the Okinawa population. According to Tamaki, the agreement excludes prefecture governments from receiving information about crimes involving U.S. service members on the island and gives prefectures no say in how such cases are handled.

A third case came to light last week. A 20-year-old U.S. Marine is suspected of sexually assaulting and injuring a woman in Okinawa in June, according to Okinawa Prefectural Police. The Marine is not in Japanese custody but is confined to military installations in Japan, a spokesman for the III Marine Expeditionary Force wrote last week in an email. The Japanese government, the U.S. government and the U.S. military each have differing judicial systems, Tamaki said. “The judicial systems should work hand in hand to punish these suspects. This should be a fair judicial system,” he said.

Tamaki declined to say whether the prefecture was notified of the third case in a more timely manner. The case, he said, had not been made public to the Okinawa community at the request of the victim. In July, U.S. Forces Japan outlined steps the U.S. military would take to combat misconduct, including increased police patrols and sobriety checks and reviewing liberty policies.

“Recently, there have been allegations of misconduct that stand in opposition to who we are, what we stand for, and our commitments to the U.S.-Japan alliance. These incidents overshadow the friendship and professionalism we exhibit daily and do not reflect the intentions or actions of the preponderance of U.S. service members who serve honorably in this country,” read a prepared statement from Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, commander of U.S. Forces Japan. U.S. Forces Japan is also working with the Japan and Okinawa governments to hold forums in which leaders and community members can voice concerns. The prefecture believes such steps will be effective at preventing further misconduct by U.S. troops, Tamaki said. “But transparency is important — that they share what is going on with us,” he said. Tamaki’s visit marked his fourth to Washington to voice Okinawan concerns to U.S. lawmakers.

“This is something that is very inhuman and is trampling the dignity of a person. Such inhumane and despicable crimes and heinous crimes that have happened are giving a high concern and anxiety to the people of Okinawa,” he said.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC Christopher Maier briefed reporters on recent pursuits.

By: BRANDI VINCENT

AUGUST 23, 2024

As the U.S. military prepares for future fights and simultaneously confronts intensifying conflicts in multiple regions of the world, Pentagon leaders are advancing efforts and technologies that promote civilian harm mitigation, according to a senior official deeply involved in that work.

“The world has gotten much more complicated, and we often think about how certain domains we’re now operating in routinely never existed a couple decades ago — cyberspace, electronic warfare. So these are important elements that we need to factor in as we think of the civilian environment, well beyond the sort of traditional kinetic effects that often are most highlighted as affecting civilians in a negative way,” Christopher Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told reporters at a roundtable Friday hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

In his current role, Maier oversees a broad portfolio of activities including counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, civil affairs, information and psychological operations, among others.

Right now, his team has “a lot to focus on,” Maier noted. He pointed to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, multiple conflicts in the Middle East that “are intertwined and certainly are more complex,” and preparing for what may come with China as the DOD’s top threat.

“In all those cases, I think we are looking to raise our overall sophistication of how we think about warfighting, and civilian harm and the associated mitigation of it, which often is a big term to say — understanding how the civilian ecosystem works in conjunction with potential military operations in the future,” Maier said.

His office is working to provide warfighters on the ground with more capabilities, support and data analytics tools to understand their strategic environments — and how the civilians who live in those places operate.

“We put almost 170 people that have been resourced across the combatant commands, across the intelligence enterprise, and across elements of the Joint Staff and the Office of Secretary of Defense. And we’ve tried to emphasize people who are experts in this space, but also can speak to commanders in military terms that they can benefit from. So this includes putting — we call them CHMROs — civilian harm mitigation and response officers that focus on security cooperation and helping our elements that do that in the department,” Maier explained. 

A new Center of Excellence was also recently established to enable more resources for the commands.

“As we’ve started to exercise this and build the emphasis on [mitigating] civilian harm into large-scale exercises it becomes particularly daunting when you think of, if you will, the scale of that type of [future] conflict where we’ve talked openly about thousands of strikes in an hour,” Maier said. “And now we’re talking about very advanced precision weapons at long range that you’re just not going to be able to use the manual processes of the past. And so you’re going to really have to have a particularly strong focus on the data analytics to help us understand what we’ve hit, has there been an impact, and where do we see changes in the overall environment, including the civilian environment.”

Cutting-edge tech could help the department address those issues.

“That’s not going to be something we’re going to be able to do with humans alone. So we’re going to need the automation and aspects of artificial intelligence and machine learning and all those things that we talk about all the time on the targeting side and the operational side, but are going to have to be built in and baked into that with a focus on civilian harm,” Maier said. 

Looking to the future, he argued that it’s imperative for DOD to further invest in who he called the “critical enablers” within special operations units.

“If you’ve got [Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha], the kind of core 12-man Green Beret team, they’re going to have to go out and understand how to do cyber and get in a beam for a potential adversary satellite and understand how to operate in the environment of ubiquitous technical surveillance, just as much as they’re going to have to be able to 10-times-out-of-10 hit the target they intend to hit if they’re going kinetic,” Maier said.

In response to questions from reporters, he also acknowledged reports of Israel causing drastic civilian harm in Gaza using U.S.-supplied weapons. 

“How the Israelis are conducting the operation in Gaza, I think we’ve been very open, has concerned us at times. Probably as I’m speaking to you right now, there’s a conversation going on with the senior Israeli official. I think the secretary of defense has had, I don’t know, many, many, many, dozens of conversations with his counterpart — and civilian harm is always a feature of this, because we think it has big strategic implications,” Maier said. 

During the discussion, Maier also briefly addressed questions about how the U.S. Special Operations Forces community will play into the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for Replicator. Through that initiative, the Defense Department hopes to counter China’s ongoing military buildup by fielding thousands of autonomous systems through replicable processes by August 2025.

“I think from the SOF perspective, because we often are the ones that are able to do smaller projects, work them more quickly, test them with operators, in some cases, actually in an operational context. Then we can, in some cases, be proof of concept for Replicator that then, if something works, can be scaled up much more quickly through Replicator than it might have been through a standard prime that we would have as a contract,” he said.

By Bryant Harris of Defense News

Canada is seeking to increase its munitions stockpiles amid shortages highlighted by the war in Ukraine. But to bolster production, it first needs to expand its supply chain, particularly for the critical minerals ubiquitous in defense equipment and consumer electronics alike.

To do this, Ottawa hopes to tap further into its vast critical minerals reserves, lessening its reliance on China which dominates much of the global supply chain.

“We have an increasing dependence on Chinese critical minerals,” Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair told Defense News Monday at a Defense Writers Group event in Washington. “Certainly in my country, we have actually a lot of those assets in the ground. But we have to extract them and we have to process them,”

“Canada can be helpful to our allies by actually creating a viable source of some of those critical minerals,” he said. “And if we work very closely with our allies we can secure broadly what we all will need in the future and we won’t be potentially disadvantaged by an adversary.”

Blair raised Canada’s efforts to become a critical minerals wellspring for NATO during a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday.

“It’s particularly acute, in my opinion, in the defense industry,” Blair told Defense News. “We rely on aluminum and titanium for the planes we’re building and put in the air. Tungsten is an essential mineral for the production of munitions because of its hardness. Cobalt, rare earth minerals, all of the very technical systems that we are developing have a disproportionate reliance on minerals which are not entirely at this present time secure and under our control.”

The Minerals Security Partnership, a recently established consortium that includes Canada, the U.S. and other NATO-aligned countries met in Toronto in March.

Canada released a critical minerals strategy in December. It identifies 31 minerals Canada deems critical, including several crucial to the munitions supply chain like antimony, aluminum, copper and magnesium.

It comes as Canada seeks to bolster its munitions stocks, which Blair called “woefully inadequate.”

For instance, he noted Canada only has two facilities making 155mm artillery rounds, which are seeking to expand production and supply chains.

The shortages have also limited Canada’s ability support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Ottawa has committed roughly $14 billion in aid to Ukraine so far, according to Blair.

“Our responsibilities to continue to support Ukraine really requires that we build up domestic capacity,” said Blair.

The effort to expand munitions lines and supply chains comes as Canada seeks to increase its defense budget, in large part through additional equipment purchases.

The defense spending increase will increase Canada’s military funding from 1.3% of GDP to 1.76% of GDP. However, that still falls short of the 2% of GDP benchmark for defense spending that NATO allies have set.

Blair said that major defense purchases that have not yet been fully funded, including a replacement for Canada’s aging submarine fleet and an integrated air and missile defense systems, would bring Canada closer to the 2% of GDP benchmark.

He noted that Canada has discussed modernizing its underwater surveillance capabilities with allies, including the U.S. and Germany.

“There are a number of options available to us,” said Blair. “But we’ve got some work to do in both determining what are requirements are, what choices are available on the market, and we’re beginning those processes right away.

“And once we’ve done that work, I’ll be in a much stronger position to go back to our government and say ‘We have a very clear path to this new capability acquisition’ and then seek the funding for it.”

Ottawa and Washington are also working together to modernize NORAD, with Blair noting that at least one over-the-horizon radar will be based in Canada.

“We’ve made commitments on getting that delivered,” said Blair. “An integrated, fully communicative systems requires consensus requires consensus and agreement on what we’re going to build and where we’ll build it.”

Assistant Secretary John Plumb: “Now space is constantly a topic at the White House and at the Pentagon.”

By: Sandra Erwin

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is prioritizing space like never before, assistant secretary of defense for space policy John Plumb said April 5.

Plumb, who recently announced he will step down after two years on the job, previously served in the Pentagon during the Obama administration, and he noted the stark contrast in how space issues are now being handled compared to a decade ago. 

Back then, space policy “was a hobby shop” and few people talked about space or discussed it in meetings, Plumb said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast meeting.

“Now space is constantly a topic at the White House and at the Pentagon,” he added. “It’s a very different situation.”

Rapid advancements in commercial space technology, coupled with the growing threat of adversaries’ space-based capabilities, have thrust space into the spotlight and is now viewed as fundamental to every aspect of national security, from communications to missile defense. 

Additionally, there is a growing number of nations and private companies with spacefaring capabilities, creating a more competitive environment. This spurred DoD to develop a strategy document released April 2 outlining how it would harness private sector innovation and integrate commercial space capabilities into military systems.

Plumb noted that various agencies across the military and the intelligence community have rolled out initiatives to increase use of private sector technology, but Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wanted a more comprehensive blueprint for the department to convey the message “that we have to move faster,” he said. 

DoD has traditionally moved far too slowly when it comes to space innovation, Plumb noted, often taking five years to develop requirements and up to a decade to field new satellite constellations that then remain in service for 20 years without any meaningful technology refresh — a pace that is unsustainable in the face of rapid advancements by competitors like China. 

To solve that problem, DoD has to leverage private sector innovation, Plumb added.

Unfinished business

As Plumb prepares to depart the administration, there remains a significant amount of unfinished business within DoD’s space policy office.

More work is needed to figure out how to work more closely with allies on space security and how to share intelligence with private companies whose satellites could become targets during conflicts, he noted. 

More broadly, there is a need to press forward with a space policy that safeguards national interests while fostering responsible behavior in the space domain. There are norms that the U.S. and other countries have adopted to prevent the creation of space debris, for example. “But norms are not treaties, they are not laws,” said Plumb. “More work is needed” in the realm of international norms and collaboration to establish clear rules of the road.

Surprising developments in space

Plumb highlighted two developments that surprised him the most during his time in office: the rapid rise of low Earth orbit satellite communications as a game-changing technology in commercial and military applications, and the pace of China’s advances in both space and nuclear capabilities.

As he prepares to leave DoD, Plumb offered a piece of advice for his successor: “Pick an area to focus on and push, push, push.”

“Results matter,” he said. “Find things where you think you can make a difference. Otherwise the building tends to spread you thin. You just go to meetings all the time but never actually accomplish things.”

Others:

Results Unclear So Far For U.S. Pressure On Russian Space Weapon | Aviation Week Network

Space policy chief urges DOD to solve over-classification issues for commercial integration | DefenseScoop

But a spokesperson clarified that America continues to support "our ally."

ByLuis Martinez and Chris Boccia

The United States hasn't given Israel every weapon it has asked for as it continues military operations against Hamas in Gaza, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters on Thursday.

"Although we've been supporting them with capability, they've not received everything they've asked for," Gen. CQ Brown said at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group,

That is partly "because they've asked for stuff that we're -- either don't have the capacity [for] or not willing to provide, not right now, in particular," said Brown, America's top military officer.

He did not provide details about what weapons systems are not being given to Israel: "I don't make those kinds of those decisions on what goes or doesn't go."

When asked if the U.S. has been withholding some aid to in order to get Israel to focus more on humanitarian aid or protecting civilians -- something the White House has criticized Israeli forces for, though Israel maintains it takes such steps despite the high death toll in Gaza -- Brown responded that the Israeli requests are seen through the same prism used for requests from other countries: how they could impact U.S. military readiness.

"It is a constant dialogue," he said.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, wouldn't elaborate on Brown's comments during a separate briefing on Thursday, saying only that the U.S. remains committed to its "longstanding efforts to ensure Israel's qualitative military edge."

A spokesperson for Brown subsequently issued a statement clarifying that his remarks about Israel were "solely in reference to a standard practice before providing military aid to any of our allies and partners."

"We assess U.S. stockpiles and any possible impact on our own readiness to determine our ability to provide the requested aid," said the spokesperson, Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey. "There is no change in U.S. policy. The United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas."

Earlier this week, Brown participated in Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's meeting at the Pentagon with Austin's Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant. But Brown on Thursday declined to provide full details of that discussion.

He said that the Israelis had provided "broad concepts" of their operational plan for an expected incursion into the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza next to Egypt.

"We got a little more detail on some of the broad concepts of the humanitarian [plan] and moving civilians than we got on the operational piece," Brown said. "So I'm anxious to hear both of those and how that all comes together."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to go into Rafah to target Hamas fighters, despite U.S. concerns about the potential civilian casualties, some six months into a war that was sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack.

Approximately 1.4 million Palestinians are thought to be taking refuge in the city.

More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a trip to the Middle East last week, said a major military operation in Rafah would be a "mistake" that would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.

Netanyahu has said going into Rafah is crucial for victory over Hamas and to prevent future terror attacks. Israeli forces have also said they plan to push civilians toward "humanitarian islands" in the center of Gaza in advance of an offensive in Rafah.

Brown said on Thursday that he would like to hear more details of the Israeli plans that "will help tell us a bit more of the feasibility of their plan and how they're going to execute."

Others:

The INSIDER daily digest -- March 29, 2024 | InsideDefense.com

BY JON HARPER

A commission on reforming planning, programming, budgeting and execution recently delivered its final report to Congress.

Trying to improve acquisition processes to help the Pentagon modernize its forces isn’t a new item on Congress’ agenda. But the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee told reporters that he expects lawmakers to move more aggressively to institute major reforms in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill.

A commission on reforming defense planning, programming, budgeting and execution recently delivered its final report to Congress, a nearly 400-page document that recommends a slew of changes in these areas.

“We are thinking … very seriously about that. The PPBE panel was extremely well done, the report was excellent,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told reporters Monday during a Defense Writers Group meeting. “Frankly, we have been trying to reform the acquisition and budget system of the Department of Defense since I got here, and we make incremental progress. But we’re recognizing now that time is really not on our side, that we have to move much more aggressively. We have to be more responsive and flexible. And so … you’ll see a much more keener interest in trying to streamline how DOD develops and acquires equipment, how they deal with these new emerging technologies, which are changing so quickly. So we’re really interested in moving forward with significant reforms.”

On Wednesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee will be holding a hearing with leaders of the PPBE commission to discuss their findings and recommendations.

“The U.S. risks losing more of its already diminishing technological edge without immediate transformational changes in resourcing, especially in the year of execution. The Commission’s recommendations include much-needed changes to the period of availability of funds, account structures, reprogramming processes, and data sharing with Congress. These reforms also leverage modern business systems and data analytics to better manage resourcing and communications,” the report stated.

“One of the most consistent concerns the Commission heard over the past two years is that the current PPBE process lacks agility, limiting the Department’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to evolving threats, unanticipated events, and emerging technological opportunities,” it noted.

The panel’s recommendations for changes to help foster innovation and adaptability include allowing new-start programs and increased program quantities in certain cases when the Pentagon is operating continuing resolutions.

“The CRs generally include a provision prohibiting new start activities, which can slow efforts to insert innovative technology in both new and current programs,” the report noted.

The commission also called for increasing the availability of operating funds and raising dollar amount thresholds for so-called below threshold reprogramming (BTR), among other recommendations.

“Ultimately the Commission proposes eliminating BTRs and allowing a small percentage of an entire appropriation to be realigned with appropriate congressional briefings and oversight,” per the report.

Reed did not identify which of the recommended reforms he wants to implement, but he said including some of them will be a top priority when his committee takes up work on drafting the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.  

The SASC wants to move forward in its quest to streamline the acquisition process and enable promising capabilities and technologies to cross the so-called “valley of death” between research and development and large-scale production, he said.

Reed noted that he’s visited Ukraine and seen how Ukrainian forces have been able to quickly adapt commercial, dual-use technologies for military purposes in their fight against Russian invaders.

“We have to have the same type of resiliency. So that’s one thing we want,” he said.

Tech from the commercial sector, such as artificial intelligence and cyber capabilities, can help fuel military modernization in areas such as robotics. However, current budgeting and execution processes don’t give the Pentagon sufficient agility in adopting them, the PPBE commission said.

Meanwhile, the department last week submitted its fiscal 2025 budget request to Congress, which lays out plans for its modernization programs.

On Monday, Reed was asked to comment on the budget submission.

“Every budget is a work in progress. And we’re going to look very carefully at what the services need. We’re particularly waiting for their unfunded priority list so we can take a look at them. And then we’re going to make judgments, some of them independent of the administration’s proposal. But generally, I believe the … proposal sent out was thoughtful. It emphasized the need for innovation and it put pressure on the Congress to retire some systems that are no longer as functional as necessary. And we have to take our [legislative] responsibility too. And so I think we’re in a good position to begin this debate and get it done — hopefully this year, not next year,” he said.

Pentagon officials suggested that the DOD trimmed some of its requests for research, development, test and evaluation efforts — such as the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve — due to budget caps stemming from the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) caps are mandatory and, if disregarded or exceeded, would be enforced by sequestration. Understanding those fiscal constraints, the Department made responsible choices to prioritize readiness and take care of people but make targeted reductions to programs that will not deliver capability to the force until the 2030s, preserving and enhancing the Joint Force’s ability to fight and win in the near term,” a DOD spokesperson said in an email to DefenseScoop.

Reed was asked how politically feasible it would be to lift the FRA caps, which set limits for defense and non-defense discretionary spending that vary depending on whether Congress passes full-year appropriations bills or CRs.

“We’re stuck with them right now. And it was really a quid pro quo for saving the country from an economic collapse if we hadn’t increased the debt ceiling. And now, it’s somewhat ironic that many of the folks that were insisting on that are now saying that the ceiling is terrible,” Reed said.

He noted that funding for border security has been one of the major sticking points in recent budget negotiations.

However, Reed suggested that he sees a potential opportunity to reach a deal on increasing spending for the Pentagon and other agencies in the future.

“I think what could drive an increase is recognizing that our national security is not simply the DOD budget, that there are other aspects [such as] our research in the sciences, our education activity, or health care activities,” he said.

“To me, one of the recruiting problems we’ve had in the military is because some young people would like to serve, but their education is such they can’t pass this very straightforward test to get in. That’s the reflection of our education system, not the military. We have a problem with obesity in our country that reflects on our public health care system. But if we had more fit young people, we’d have more recruits. So this is all one effort,” he added. “If there is a breakthrough, I think we would have to recognize, too, both sides of the agenda — both the defense and also domestic.”

Others:

Israel Will Dispatch Team to Hear Biden Administration Worries on Rafah - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

A Better Way to Give Pay Raises to Junior Enlisted? Key Senator Says It's Under Consideration This Year. | Military.com

Sen. Jack Reed praises Chuck Schumer's harsh critique of Israel's Netanyahu - Washington Times