Policy

Slew of NDAA Amendments Expected on Nukes, Afghanistan, Iran, Drones, Etc.

By John T. Bennett in Afghanistan, Aircraft, Budget, Capitol Hill, CIA, DoD, Drones, Intelligence, Intercepts, Iran, Missile Defense, Operations, Policy, Sequestration No Comments Tags:

The exterior of the U.S. House chamber. Inside, members this week will take up 2014 Pentagon policy legislation. (Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)

The full U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debate of the House Armed Services Committee-passed 2014 defense authorization on Wednesday afternoon.

With a long list of amendments expected, the expectation on Capitol Hill is the chamber’s work on the legislation will stretch into Friday. As usual, the floor process will be a long — and sometimes testy — one.

When the lower chamber brings up its national defense authorization act (NDAA), there will be amendments on a range of issues, from nuclear arms to the post-9/11 resolution authorizing military force to M1 tank plans.

A slew of Democratic amendments on potential reductions to the American nuclear arms fleet are expected, according to a laundry list of likely NDAA amendments circulated by John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World. Also expected are Democratic amendments to further trim the Pentagon’s annual budget.

Two House Appropriations Committee members could to introduce amendments to the authorization bill that were killed by the Appropriations panel during its mark up of a Pentagon spending bill on Wednesday. Those focus on re-writing the post-9/11 resolution authorizing the office of the president to use military force against al-Qaida, and shifting the CIA’s drone program to the military.

A bipartisan amendment is expected calling for the immediate end to the Afghanistan war. Another bipartisan amendment would proposing ending the permanent basing of an Army unit in Germany.

Republicans are expected to get in on the act, too. More

Despite Breathless Headlines, Military Spy Agency is Hiring

By John T. Bennett in Budget, Capitol Hill, DIA, DoD, Intelligence, Intercepts, International, Operations, Policy No Comments Tags: ,

(Photo: Defense Intelligence Agency)

Every ambitious start-up needs a little seed money. That’s true for new businesses and clandestine military spy agencies.

So be skeptical of breathless media accounts that dramatically state how Capitol Hill’s most pro-military committee is blocking the Defense Department’s plan to establish it’s very own spy agency.

True, the House Armed Services Committee last week approved a version of 2014 defense authorization legislation that would withhold 50 percent of any funds meant for the new Defense Clandestine Agency until Pentagon brass certify a few things. But don’t believe everything you read about the new DCS.

As former Pentagon official Larry Korb told an audience member last week at an event: “Let’s grow up.” Let’s realize this isn’t our first Washington rodeo. Let’s realize that HASC’s language would clear the Pentagon to spend the other 50 percent of any funds allocated for the new spy agency. Because it’s a start-up within DIA, getting 50 percent of its allocation in October and the rest after sending four pro-military committees some documents isn’t a high hurdle for the Pentagon to clear.

“This doesn’t mean the Defense Clandestine Service is doing a bad job,” HASC Vice Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said last Wednesday. “This is a special entity that deserves special scrutiny.”

Let’s realize that that is hardly the rhetoric of a DCS opponent. Rather, it is what’s left of true Pentagon oversight: We’re not totally sold on your plan, but go ahead and let that genie out of the bottle anyway. Let’s realize that the trick with defense budgeting is simply to loosen the cork just enough that the genie can even partially get out of the bottle. Because once a program or organization has secured a spot in the defense budget and received even partial congressional approval, its existence and future are pretty much secured. More

Photo of the Day: June 6, 2013 (Oval Office Edition)

By John T. Bennett in Obama, Operations, Policy No Comments

OVAL OFFICE, Wednesday -- President Barack Obama (far left) talks with (l-r) Samantha Power, his pick to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations, outgoing National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and outgoing UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who will replace Donilon. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

HASC Green-Lights East Coast Missile Shield

By John T. Bennett in Acquisition, Budget, Capitol Hill, DoD, Industry, International, Iran, Missile Defense, Policy No Comments Tags: , , , ,

A Republican-controlled House panel on Wednesday evening voted to give the Pentagon the green light to erect a missile defense defense system on the East Coast of the United States, moving the controversial site one step closer to becoming reality.

The site is the product of a plan hatched last year by House Armed Services Committee Republicans, who believe the system is needed to guard against potential missile launches from Iran and North Korea.

Skeptical Senate Armed Services Committee Democratic leaders shot down the missile plan last year, but after North Korean saber rattling early this year, the proposal picked up renewed steam on Capitol Hill. Even some prominent Democrats, like the No. 3 Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, have recently discussed the proposal as if it is headed toward becoming reality.

One day after the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee unveiled a 2014 Pentagon spending bill that would allocate just over $70 million to begin erecting the shield, the HASC voted 33-27 during its mark up of its version of the 2014 national defense authorization act (NDAA) —  following a rousing partisan debate — to green-light the proposed project.

If eventually built, the project could provide a boost to US missile interceptor makers, radar manufacturers and their suppliers, while also giving an economic boost to the states in which it would be erected. More

Can a White Paper Lead to an Experiment, and then a Task Force?

By Paul McLeary in Army, Budget, DoD, Intercepts, Marine Corps, Operations, Policy No Comments

The much-discussed—but little understood—collaboration between the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command that Army chief Gen Ray Odierno has so often touted as essential for the future success of the nation’s ground forces just took one step closer to becoming a reality.

Sort of.

The Strategic Landpower Task Force “recently completed a Limited Objective Experiment (LOE) to inform the development of the Strategic Landpower Concept” a story on the Army’s Capabilities Integration Center Web site says.

“This concept will describe the relationship between the land, cyber, and emerging “human” domains; inform defense planning; and enable the Joint force to plan, prepare, and execute military operations that fully account for the inherent human factors that drive and end conflict,” the missive continues, promising that the concept is “expected” to be complete later this summer.

It’s unclear what this latest paper will be able to add to the strategic landscape that other documents like the Joint Operational Access Concept, Army Operational Concept, Marine Operating Concept, and the SOCOM Operating Concept have failed to offer.

The Experiment relied on the Strategic Landpower White Paper that the Army, Marines and SOCOM published May 6th, as well as another review of a draft of the upcoming Strategic Landpower Concept which were used to conduct a limited war game exercise. More

White House Re-Ignites ‘Grand Bargain’ Negotiations…By Slamming a GOP Bill

By John T. Bennett in Budget, Capitol Hill, DoD, Industry, Intercepts, Policy, Sequestration No Comments

The White House wants all 2014 spending bills to reflect its desire for a 'grand bargain,' a sweeping fiscal deal that would void sequestration's remaining nine years. (El KEBIR LAMRANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Forget fancy dinners and holes-in-one with the president. The White House re-opened efforts to strike a sweeping fiscal deal with congressional Republicans in an odd way: Via a statement.

For the defense sector, a so-called “grand bargain” matters because a deal that includes about $1 trillion more in deficit reduction measures is required to turn off the remaining nine years and the remaining $450 billion (give or take a few billion) of sequestration’s national defense cuts.

After posh dinner meetings and exclusive rounds of golf during which a big fiscal deal was discussed, the talks just…stopped.

That changed on Monday when the White House picked its spot to re-ignite the federal-spending issue.

Unless a Department of Homeland Security spending bill “passes the Congress in the context of an overall budget framework that supports our recovery and enables sufficient investments in education, infrastructure, innovation and national security for our economy to compete in the future, the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto H.R. 2217 and any other legislation that implements the House Republican Budget framework,” the White House said in a statement of administration policy on the House’s version of that measure. More

Rep. Forbes: What Did China Launch? When Did Obama Admin. Know It?

By John T. Bennett in DoD, Intercepts, International, Operations, Policy, Space No Comments Tags: , , , ,

What did China really launch into space, and when did Obama administration officials know it? That’s what GOP House Armed Services Committee member Randy Forbes of Virginia wants to know. And he’s pressing President Obama’s hand-picked defense secretary for some answers.

The early May Chinese “launch of a missile ‘nearly to geosynchronous orbit’ requires additional answers from the Defense Department as to whether Beijing has tested an anti-satellite capability,” Forbes tells Hagel in a letter dated Monday. More

Task Force: Killer Drone

By Paul McLeary in Air Force, Aircraft, Army, Capitol Hill, CIA, DoD, Drones, Intelligence, Intercepts, International, New Tech, Obama, Operations, Policy No Comments Tags: , , , , , ,

 

If there’s one thing that Washington D.C. loves, it’s a good Task Force.

To that end, the Stimson Center announced last week that former CENTCOM chief (Ret.) Gen. John Abizaid will head up a new Task Force looking at US drone policy. The 15-month study “will bring together legal, national security, political and military experts, as well as representatives from the defense industry and civil society groups, to formulate nonpartisan policy recommendations regarding drone use by the United States,” a Stimson statement said.

“Drones have become a complex and divisive technology,” Abizaid said in the statement. “While they can be an effective means of protecting against a terrorist attack, the rule of law must be considered. I look forward to leading an effort that can lay the foundation for drone policy in the United States.”

The announcement of the Task Force comes hard on the heels of President Obama’s May 23 speech which went a long way in making drone strikes a permanent part of the American counterterrorism toolkit, while for the first time explaining—if even only in relatively vague terms—when and why drone strikes are undertaken by the US government.

“America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate and prosecute them,” he said. “America cannot take strikes wherever we choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and respect for state sovereignty.”

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Congressmen Who Voted For Sequestration Cry Foul As Effects Hit Home

By Paul McLeary in Army, Budget, Capitol Hill, DoD, Industry, Intercepts, Policy, Sequestration 1 Comment Tags:

In the latest installment of the defense industry and their Congressional representatives rallying to save DoD acquisition programs that directly affect their district/state/business, EADS North America and American Eurocopter held a rally on Thursday in Columbus, Mississippi to try and “save” the UH-72A Lakota helicopter program.

In its fiscal 2014 budget submission the Army slashed 31 Lakota’s from its previously announced procurement plans, deciding to buy just 10 more Lakotas, all for the National Guard.

Army officials told Congress during budget hearings earlier this spring that the active force would rely instead on the Black Hawk helicopters that are returning from theater to replace the Lakota’s flying in the United States.

Enter Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, and U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee, who hooked up with  executives from Lakota maker EADS North America and American Eurocopter to demand that Congress to restore funding for the Army’s Lakota program in 2014.

A statement released by EADS released in tandem with the event said that the cuts “would effectively end Lakota production by the end of 2014 and endanger the jobs of many of the more than 300 Columbus employees.”

Taking the stage, Gov. Bryant said that while he understands that “cuts must be made to alleviate some of the strain on the national debt, but it is counterproductive for the Department of Defense to cancel this cost-effective, successful program.”

Sen. Wicker, who voted for the 2011 Budget Control Act that introduced the sequestration legislation which blindly slashes Pentagon budgets by up to 10 percent across the board, added that federal budget cuts “should be focused on wasteful spending and not on programs like the Lakota that are vital to national security.”

Sequestration as enacted by Congress does not allow the armed services to make trades in what programs they cut. Every budget line, regardless of importance for national security, takes a hit.

More

What Deadline? Sources Say DoD Putting More Time on Strategic Review Clock

By John T. Bennett in Acquisition, Air Force, Army, Budget, Capitol Hill, DoD, Hagel, Industry, Intercepts, Marine Corps, Navy, Policy, Sequestration No Comments Tags:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s sweeping strategic review has confirmed one thing about the Pentagon: Inside its corridors, a due date remains anything but a hard deadline.

The review, ordered by Hagel to help the Defense Department handle sequestration, was nominally slated to be “completed” Friday (May 31). But, according to sources and reports, the strategic choices and management review (SCMR), isn’t close to being “completed.”

“They will be lucky to have the SCMR done by the Fourth of July at the rate it’s going,” said one plugged-in industry source with knowledge of the Pentagon’s review process. More

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