Author: alaysia.mckenzie

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

By: John Grady

A mid-year budget review between the Defense Department and congressional committees could be the first step to improve relations between the Pentagon and Capitol Hill over spending, the chair of the commission charged with recommending ways to streamline the process told reporters on Monday.

When the budget is first presented, “an avalanche of information” is sent to Congress, but that slows down with additional data that is often late and incomplete, said Robert Hale, a former Defense Department comptroller.

The mid-year review is something that could be implemented quickly, he added. “We’re not waiting for the final report [due out in March] to sell” recommendations that can be acted immediately to congressional staff and senior Pentagon leaders. At the same time, it allows congressional members to give feedback.

Right now, the idea is still in the crawl step, if using a crawl-walk-run analogy, said Ellen Lord, vice chair of the comission and former top DoD acquisition official. She had “high expectations” for acceptance of many of the PPBE Reform Commission recommendations.

The congressionally-created commission recommends the mid-year review in its interim report.

“The budget proposal portion of this briefing would provide all the congressional defense, intelligence and military construction committee with the same information about new events and program status changes that would effect their review of the budget, perhaps including innovation opportunities,” reads the report.

While the existing system has strengths, the commission’s goal is to be “better able to foster innovation and adapt more quickly” to changes in the security environment like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggressive use of “gray zone tactics,” Hale said.

He added the review could also take advantage of innovation opportunities, often coming from firms not usually doing business with the Pentagon, that did not exist or were unknown when the budget was in its planning phase.

In the interim report, the commissioners wrote, they are “considering several alternatives to modify reprogramming authorities and policies such as authorizing below threshold reprogrammings at the account level and speeding up new start approvals.”

“The idea is to give [program managers and program executive officers] flexibility and retain [congressional] oversight,” reads the report.

As part of the commission’s work in the past six months, it studied how budgeting and buying works in China and Russia and with allies like Australia and Canada with democratic parliamentary governments. The commission also looked at other federal agencies like NASA and the Director of National Intelligence for ideas that could benefit the Pentagon.

Speaking Tuesday to the Defense Writers Group, Lord said the commission is looking to “take what works and streamline it” in the Planning, Programming, Budget Execution Process [PPBE].

She stressed to make this system work data transmission has to be moved back and forth in the same protected ways publicly-traded corporations transmit sensitive information “so as not to affect markets.” Communications between the Pentagon and Congress “must be much more data-driven,” Lord said.

She said this would be one way “to bring modern technology to the Building [Pentagon] and the Congress.”

Lord and Hale said this could speed fielding of new technologies and systems. Other ways to speed the process could come from consolidating how items of similar nature move through the Research, Development and Technology and Evaluation.

“Many small companies can’t wait 18 months” to find out if they are now a “program of record,” included in the budget, Lord added.

However, there likely would be pushback on Capitol Hill in losing oversight of spending, Lord said.

Predictability for the defense industrial base comes from the longer-term than a single-year budget parliamentary democracies use for their programs, Lord said.

The timing of the review in June or July would coincide with the existing reprogramming sessions between Congress and the department.

While not a budget amendment, the review could assist the committees in their mark-ups of the authorization and appropriations bills to know which programs are moving faster or slower than expected, Hale added. Meeting in a secure location, the review would be led by the Pentagon comptroller with the services’ sending representatives and the committees’ key staffers.

“It would also move the budget closer to strategy,” Lord said.

When asked if the review would reduce the number of “requests for information” coming from Capitol, both were doubtful. The report notes, “there is no incentive for congressional staff to decrease the number of questions they ask.”

Hale said in the six months of the panel’s work the commissioners feel there “is some appetite and willingness” to change in Pentagon and Congress.

“The whole ecosystem [in DoD and Congress] has been working on this issue” of how to speed defense business practices to encourage innovation that can be fielded more quickly, Lord added.

Others:

Commission Recommends Changes to DOD Planning, Budgeting Processes - U.S. Department of Defense (deal.town)

Acquisition Reformers: Pentagon Can Achieve ‘Quick Wins’ in Multiyear Overhaul (airandspaceforces.com)

Can IT restore Congress’ trust in the Pentagon? – DNyuz

‘Big changes’: Congressional panel proposes new defense budget system (ussanews.com)

Long-awaited report would replace DoD’s PPBE process with ‘Defense Resourcing System’ (federalnewsnetwork.com)

Commission Calls for Major Overhaul of Defense Process (nationaldefensemagazine.org)

BY ELLEN MITCHELL

The U.S. Army is cutting its force by about 24,000 positions, nearly 5 percent, in a restructuring effort it says will help prepare it to fight in future wars as it struggles to recruit soldiers.  

The cuts will bring the Army from a force structure of roughly 494,000 troops to 470,000 by fiscal 2029, mainly cutting already-empty roles such as jobs in counterinsurgency. Such positions increased during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but demand dropped off after the conflicts were ended.  

“We’re moving away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency; we want to be postured for large-scale combat operations,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters Tuesday morning at an event in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

While the Army is structured for a force of about 494,000, it currently only has roughly 445,000 active-duty soldiers. Its new plan seeks to fill the ranks over the next five years, getting to an eventual level of 470,000, according to a new service document released Tuesday.

To do that, the service seeks to phase out around 32,000 roles, with about 3,000 cuts from special operations forces and another 10,000 from Stryker brigade combat teams, cavalry squadrons, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades, the latter meant to train foreign forces.

In addition, the service found 10,000 engineer jobs and related positions linked to counterinsurgency missions it can cut; it will slash about 2,700 roles from units that don’t usually deploy; and it will decrease the number of transients, trainees, holdees and students by approximately 6,300. 

Officials stressed that the planned reductions are “to authorizations (spaces), and not to individual soldiers (faces),” meaning already empty roles. 

“The Army is not asking current soldiers to leave,” according to the document. “As the Army builds back end strength over the next few years, most installations will likely see an increase in the number of soldiers actually stationed there.” 

The plan also looks to add back 7,500 troops in missions seen as more critical, such as air-defense and counterdrone units and five new task forces for better capabilities in intelligence, cyber, and long-range strikes.  

Three of the task forces would fall under U.S. Army Pacific — with the Indo-Pacific theater considered the most important for national security in the years ahead — one will be within U.S. Army Europe-Africa, and the last likely focused on U.S. Central Command in the Middle East. 

The plans indicate a major shift within the Army as the military anticipates future conflicts as large-scale operations against more advanced adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. They also reflect the service’s struggles with recruiting, a phenomenon happening across the military.  

The Army for a decade has struggled with recruiting shortfalls, not meeting its annual goal for new enlistment contracts since 2014, according to Wormuth. That means jobs have been left empty due to a lack of warm bodies. 

Last fiscal year, only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their recruiting targets, while the Army fell 15,000 people short of its 65,000 person goal. 

The year prior, the Army also missed its 60,000 enlistment goal by 15,000.  

Wormuth acknowledged that the recruiting challenges have strained current service members, on full display when she visited with troops at Fort Cavazos, Texas, earlier this summer. 

“They feel like they have very full plates and they are doing the work of one and a half to two soldiers,” she said. “I think that’s a reality. … There’s no doubt that it’s putting some strains on our shoulders.” 

Others:

Continuing resolution could degrade training for future fights (navytimes.com)

Army has funneled $500M from forces in Europe and Africa to train Ukrainian troops, Wormuth says | Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON --- This has been the most transformative year for U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific in a generation, Ely Ratner, assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs said today.

Even with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas attack on Israel, terror attacks in the Red Sea and more, DOD has concentrated on the "pacing challenge" for the United States -- China, he told the Defense Writers Group.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific defense strategy has made steady and impressive progress over the past year, Ratner said. While the force posture progress is perhaps the most notable, other aspects of the strategy have contributed to the overall U.S. position in the region.

On the defense side, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has concentrated on China, because it "has been identified as the only country in the world with both the will and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international order," Ratner said. "That was the assessment at the time of the release of the National Defense Strategy, and that remains the assessment today."

China has the ambition and the will and is developing the capabilities to become "the national security challenge of our time," Ratner said.

Still, the United States is rising to the challenge, the assistant secretary said.

Austin's travels throughout the region over the past year have also been marked by major achievements in implementing strategy in the region, Ratner said. In December 2022, the Australia-U.S. talks ushered in major new force posture initiatives in Northern Australia in January 2023, he said.

During talks with Japan, there were announcements of major revisions to U.S. force posture in Japan, including the stand-up of a Marine Littoral Regiment in Okinawa, the Marines most advanced fighting formation. There were other revisions that made "U.S. posture in Japan more resilient, more mobile, more distributed and more lethal," he said. In addition, the two nations agreed to increase cooperation and exercises and discussed Japan's counterstrike capabilities.

In February, Austin traveled to Manila where he negotiated for four more enhanced defense cooperation agreement sites. This enhanced the strategic opportunity for U.S. forces to work with Philippine counterparts, he said.

Austin traveled to the region in May and June, met with many allies and partners. Ratner said Austin discussed the United States' ideas for the region with these partners. The U.S. strategy is shared by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and by some European nations as, well, Ratner said.

"This is not an American vision for the region," the assistant secretary said. "This is a vision shared by our allies and partners."

Austin visited New Delhi and signed a new defense industrial base cooperation road map. Ratner said this is a historic agreement "that is setting our countries toward a deeper level of cooperation and an area that has been aspirational for decades."

Austin became the first U.S. secretary of defense to travel to Papua New Guinea, where he signed a new Defense Cooperation Agreement. "We are looking to increase access in [Papua New Guinea] through some upgrading of their port and airport facilities and other critical step[s] in terms of working toward that more distributed posture in the region.

The secretary journeyed to Brisbane for more talks with Australian leaders that continued furthering force posture cooperation across all domains, including space.

Finally, last month, Austin spent 10 days in the region visiting India, South Korea and Indonesia, where he attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers meeting.

"Within a 50-day period the secretary met face-to-face with all five of our treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific region, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, Japan and South Korea," Ratner said. "These are remarkable engagements with our allies during a time [when] there are other things going on in the world."

"We are, through the investments we are making, more capable in the region," he said. "We're more forward in the region due to the force-posture changes that we made. And we're more together in terms of really remarkable progress and deepening our cooperation with our allies and partners."

Others:

DOD staff working on new 'mil-to-mil' communication with China | InsideDefense.com

Use more drones, US tells allies, partners – DNyuz

The Pentagon sees its task as deterring the PRC in order to prevent an "invasion" of Taiwan - Pravda EN (pravda-en.com)

U.S. lacks the infrastructure it needs to produce the nuclear weapons needed to keep pace with Russia and China, according to a congressional panel.

“I think we have to be very practical. And right now, pretty much everything is behind schedule and over budget,” Madelyn Creedon, chair of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, told reporters Thursday at a Defense Writers Group event. 

The commission’s final report, released in October, argues that the U.S. lacks the comprehensive strategy and force structure needed to face the nuclear threats of the future. 

Critics have responded that the commission’s “full-throated embrace of a U.S. nuclear build-up…ignores the consequences of a likely arms race with Russia and China.”

The report says today’s nuclear bombers, submarines, and ICBMs could fail before their replacements are ready.

“All three of the major platform programs—B-21, Columbia, and Sentinel—are already experiencing delays,” the report says. “Further delays in delivering modernized systems, or early aging out of legacy systems, could create shortfalls in U.S. nuclear capabilities if adequate mitigation measures are not developed and implemented.”

The Sentinel program, for example, which aims to replace 400 ICBMs, 450 silos, and more than 600 facilities, recently saw its planned initial capability delayed by a year to 2030. 

“We haven’t done a new missile like this in 50 years. I know people talk about where we did a Peacekeeper, but the Peacekeeper was just the missile. It wasn’t the launch control facilities. It wasn’t redoing all the silos…we haven’t done this in a very long time,” Creedon said, noting similar delays with the Navy’s Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program. “So one of the lessons learned is ‘don’t let these things die’. Don’t let these things atrophy. Keep, at some level, the industrial base alive.”

The commissioners rejected suggestions that the aging ICBM force be retired, not replaced by a new generation of weapons that critics have called vulnerable, unnecessary, and destabilizing. Land-based missiles provide “unique strengths,” the report says, citing their ability to be launched quickly during an enemy attack or to ride out a strike—two capabilities shared by submarines.

The report says that part of the reason for modernizing the nuclear force is to deter China and Russia if U.S. conventional forces cannot.

“The objectives of U.S. strategy must include effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces,” the report states. “If the United States and its Allies and partners do not field sufficient conventional forces to achieve this objective, U.S. strategy would need to be altered to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression in the other theater.”

Critics of the report say it leans too hard on this “doomsday scenario” of simultaneous attacks, and ignores the likely consequences of a nuclear build-up. 

“If the United States responds to the Chinese buildup by increasing its own deployed warheads and launchers, Russia would most likely respond by increasing its deployed warheads and launchers. That would increase the nuclear threat against the United States and its allies. China, who has already decided that it needs more nuclear weapons to stand up to the existing U.S. force level (and those of Russia and India), might well respond to the U.S and Russian increases by increasing its own arsenal even further,” wrote Hans Kristensen and three colleagues at the Federation of American Scientists.

The report does not attempt to put a price tag on its recommendations. It acknowledges that more money would be needed—in 2021, the Congressional Budget Office put the cost of nuclear modernization plans at $621 billion—but says nuclear-weapons efforts are “a relatively small portion of the overall defense budget but provide the backbone and foundation of deterrence and are the nation’s highest defense priority.” does not attempt to put a price tag on its recommendations. It acknowledges that more money would be needed—in 2021, the Congressional Budget Office put the cost of nuclear modernization plans at $621 billion—but says nuclear-weapons efforts are “a relatively small portion of the overall defense budget but provide the backbone and foundation of deterrence and are the nation’s highest defense priority.” 

Among the recommendations: add a third shipyard to produce nuclear-powered vessels, especially submarines.

Among the recommendations: add a third shipyard to produce nuclear-powered vessels, especially submarines.

“We made this recommendation for a third shipyard because we know, right now, that we need more conventional capability in the Asia-Pacific and we also know that, right now, it’s going to be very hard for the Navy to produce the Virginia class. Even on the schedule that they want to,” said Creedon, who was the former principal deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration. “But it isn’t just the floor space, it’s also people…It’s concrete, it’s rebar, it’s everything” from engineers and physicists to technicians and electricians. 

Part of that workforce challenge goes beyond jobs and training but making areas where the work would be done more livable. 

“If you’re going to recruit people to come out and do these things that we need them to do, you need to make sure that there are schools there for their kids to go to that aren’t an hour and a half away,” said Rebeccah Heinrichs, a commissioner and director of the Hudson Institute’s Keystone Defense Initiative. “There are second-, third-order, issues that we simply have to take, but it takes a national focus over many years.”

The Pentagon is planning to release its first defense industrial base strategy in December, which is expected to focus on areas like supply chains, workforce, and emerging technologies. 

The Pentagon is planning to release its first defense industrial base strategy in December, which is expected to focus on areas like supply chains, workforce, and emerging technologies.

The post Does the US have what it takes to keep its nuclear edge? appeared first on Defense One.