Rubber Stamp. The HAC-D approves its draft of the Pentagon budget during a June 7 closed session without making any changes. “The bill was forwarded without amendment,” the Congressional Record
states about the subcommittee’s markup of the fiscal year 2012 defense appropriations bill. The full HAC will weigh the legislation June 14. The draft of the bill, as released by the HAC on June 6, calls for cutting President Barack Obama’s $539.5 billion defense request by $9 billion, to $530.5 billion. It would trim Obama’s request for procurement, from $114.4 billion down to $107.6 billion, and research and development, from $75.3 billion to $73 billion. The HAC-D draft would not fund the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s alternate engine, and calls for cutting the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile by $435 million and the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System by $524 million.
WTO Win. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body officially adopts on June 1 an Appellate Body report finding Airbus received $18 billion in subsidies from four European Union nations that harmed the United States as well as Boeing, its workers, and its suppliers. “The EU and the four member states have to either withdraw the subsidies or remove the adverse effects caused by the subsidies by Dec. 1, six months from the date of adoption,” the Office of the United States Trade Representative says June 1. The report says EU members France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom provided market-distorting launch aid and other subsidies that violate WTO rules. The Pentagon in February awarded a $3.5 billion contract for 18 aerial-refueling tankers awarded to Boeing over EADS, an Airbus company.
Subs Away. The Navy may have to extend the lives of some submarines in light of a projected shortfall in attack subs, Vice Adm. John “Terry” Blake, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, tells a HASC panel June 1. “With respect to how we would address the overall shortfall as you go to the out years…I think we’re going to have to look at the viability of looking at service-life extensions if, in fact, that is viable,” he testifies before the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. “Then we will have to determine if it is (viable), or if we have to go to deployment extensions.” The Navy’s inventory of 55 submarines will drop to as low as 39, he says. If the service opts for service-life extensions, it will determine “the best of breed” subs that could be kept around longer, he adds. The Navy, he adds, wants to add another attack boat for FY ’18 in its shipbuilding plan.
…Planning Plans. The Navy no longer submits its 30-year shipbuilding plan to Congress every year, thanks to the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization act, which made it a quadrennial report. Congress could make it an annual report once again in the FY ’12 authorization bill. Analysts tell the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee the shipbuilding plan is crucial. Ron O’Rourke, the Congressional Research Service’s specialist for naval affairs, says “except for the annual DoD budget submission itself, no document is more useful to me in performing this role for the Congress (of identifying potential oversight issues about the Navy) than the 30-year shipbuilding plan.” Eric Labs, a Congressional Budget Office analyst, says “the very process of the Navy’s efforts to put out its 30-year shipbuilding plans over the past five years showed many year-to-year changes.” He adds: “Those individual changes were not so important in themselves, but as a whole greatly illuminated for Congress the Navy’s challenge of developing a program that meets inventory goals and is affordable.”
Lockheed In Crosshairs. Al Qaeda wanted to kill Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Officer Robert Stevens because it believed his company made unmanned aircraft used to target militants in northern Pakistan, according to press reports. The Pakistani branch of al Qaeda plotted the assassination but never tried to carry it out, according to David Headley, who has pleaded guilty to charges tied to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Headley testifies June 7 in a Chicago court against his alleged co-conspirator in the Indian attacks. Another Pakistani militant leader “had people who had done surveillance (of Stevens) already, and he asked me if weapons were readily available here,” Headley reportedly testifies.
Touching Base. With the amount of Defense Department dollars for big-ticket procurement programs dwindling, it will take an all-round effort to ensure the defense industrial base can weather the storm, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen says. “It has to be addressed from the standpoint…of the Pentagon, [Capitol] Hill and the defense contractors themselves,” Mullen said. “We have to strategically agree this is how we will proceed to preserve a pretty fragile industrial base.” From shipbuilding to satellites, several segments of the defense industry base have faltered, compared to years past. Given the impending downturn of defense spending levels over the next few years, “I think we have to actively invest in a way for those vital pieces, so they are sustained over time.”
Price Is Right. The Defense Department needs to do a better job in securing contract prices that give taxpayers more bang for their buck. And Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter has tasked the current director of defense procurement to do just that. Shay Assad has been named as the new director of defense pricing, which will be the “tactical” arm of the department’s procurement operations, he says. Richard Ginman, the No. 2 official in the Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy shop, has been named as Assad’s replacement. The establishment of the new DoD pricing director fulfills one of the main tenants of Carter’s Better Buying Power initiative.
Buffering. Despite the loads of money, manpower and material the Defense Department is investing into its nascent cyberwarfare capability, that ongoing effort is still falling woefully short when weighed against other countries, says one Marine Corps cyberwarrior. “I believe we are behind right now, compared to our adversaries,” Lt. Col. Jeffery Lipson, U.S. Central Command regional team leader for Marine Forces Cyber Command, says at the Defense Daily Cyber Summit. While American forces “are engaged in full-spectrum cyber operations” across the globe, those forces remain vulnerable on the virtual battlefield. While Lipson did not put the blame on any single aspect of the Pentagon’s push to stand up a viable cyberwarfare capability, he did note that it would require a cohesive strategy–from policy development to executing tactics, techniques and procedures–integrated into a joint environment, to close those critical gaps.
Same Page. With the senior leadership shake-up at the Pentagon now in motion, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said the incoming DoD team will be on the same page as their predecessors, once they take office. The Obama administration has nominated CIA chief Leon Panetta to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey to replace Mullen in the coming months. Those nominations reflect the White House’s understanding of and receptiveness to the department’s long-term needs. “It is very easy for me to say that this president is very focused on supporting the needs that we have for the national security requirement,” according to Mullen. “You only have to look back at the challenges he has faced, and we all have faced, over the course of the last two and a half years.”
More C-130 AMPs. Boeing says it received a $61 million Air Force contract for two more C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) kits and two Aircrew Training System devices as part of a low-rate initial production (LRIP) contract that was awarded in 2010. “We look forward to adding more aircraft to our line over the next two years,” said Tommy Jackson, C-130 AMP deputy program manager for the U.S. Air Force. “Our team at Warner Robins Air Force Base is modifying the cockpits of two C-130 aircraft that were inducted in late 2010 and expect to have them completed this year.”
Predator Flight Milestone. Customs and Border Protection says its Predator Unmanned Aircraft System program has reached a new milestone, which is exceeding 10,000 flight hours. CBP began operating the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems-built Predator in 2005 and currently flies seven of the remotely piloted aircraft from four locations in the United States. Two additional Predator B aircraft are on order in the “Dash 7” configuration, which can be equipped with either land or maritime radar systems in less than eight hours.
New Coast Guard Acquisition Chief. The Coast Guard earlier this month assigned Rear Adm. John Korn to be the service’s Assistant Commandant for Acquisition and Chief Acquisition Officer. Korn was previously program executive officer, overseeing execution of all Coast Guard acquisition programs and projects. Korn succeeds Rear Adm. Ron Rabago, who is now the Assistant Commandant for Engineering and Logistics, responsible for all naval, civil, aeronautical, and industrial engineering, logistics, environmental and energy management programs.
Counterterror Exercise. NATO and Russian fighter jets take part in Vigilant Skies 2011, a joint demonstration of the NATO-Russia Council Cooperative Airspace Initiative. The initiative is designed to prevent terrorist attacks which use civilian aircraft, such as the 9/11 attacks, by sharing information on movements in NATO and Russian airspace and coordinating intercepts of renegade aircraft. The new airspace security system provides a shared NATO-Russia radar picture of air traffic, and allows early warning of suspicious air activities through commonly agreed procedures, NATO says. The new system has two coordination centers: in Warsaw and Moscow, and local coordination sites in Russia, Poland, Norway and Turkey.
Support Success. Australia has tapped General Dynamics Land Systems to support and maintain Army vehicles that are used in Australia and Afghanistan. The company will provide support for the Army’s fleet of Abrams Tanks, Light Armored Vehicles (LAV) and Hercules Recovery Vehicles for at least the next five years. Minister Jason Clare says, “Each year we will spend around $20 million making sure these Army vehicles are maintained and fixing them if they break down. This is a performance-based contract, so payment is based on how well the company does its job.” General Dynamics is the original manufacturer of the Abrams and the LAV.
New Alliance. Teledyne Technologies Inc. says subsidiary Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. (TBE) has signed a letter of agreement to form a strategic alliance with Aerojet-General Corporation, a GenCorp company, to manufacture and assemble liquid rocket engines. The agreement states that Teledyne Brown and Aerojet will cooperatively develop, manufacture and market liquid propellant rocket engines for customers such as NASA and other aerospace companies. Under the agreement, the companies will pursue contracts for the manufacture of liquid rocket engines for NASA through the Space Launch System program as well as for others.
Workforce Reduction. Boeing Friday issued 60-day advanced layoff notices to about 510 employees in its Space Exploration division, primarily as a result of the planned completion of the Space Shuttle program. The notices include an estimated 260 employees in Houston, 150 at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and 100 at the company’s Huntington Beach, Calif., facility. The last workday for affected employees will be Aug. 5, pending the completion of the final space shuttle mission, STS-135. Boeing is committed to retaining as many skilled workers as possible and has taken steps to lessen the impact to its workforce, the company says in a statement.
Number #1. What’s the number one way hackers find to get into any network, military or civilian? “Stolen Credentials,” says Marcus Sachs, vice president of Government Affairs for National Security Policy at Verizon. That information from the company’s Data Breach Investigations Report, he said at Fridays’ Defense Daily Cyber Security Summit. Another problem identified, he says is that the machines know before a breach that something is going on–it’s in the logs–but humans don’t necessarily pick up on it. “The information is there, we’ve just got to get it into our decision making process,” Sachs says.
Up To Cyber Snuff. “We can’t protect everything,” Lt. Col. (P) Bryant Glando with Army Cyber Command says. People shouldn’t forget that IT systems enable the war fighting function “to allow us—the services—to do the job we’re supposed to do,” says the former commander of 2nd IO Battalion, 1st Information Operations Command at the Defense Daily Cyber Security Summit June 3. There has to be a shift in thinking, away from the current generally reactive mode, he says. The Army now is working to revamp and integrate cyber into what the service does. Part of this, he says it to ensure that leaders become “cyber savvy.”