PENTAGON ACQUISITION REFORM - CounterStrikeMedia

THE AIR FORCE IS LOST FOR THE LONG WAR & ARMY STEPS UP APACHE'S ROTORCRAFT FOR RECON

3/29/2019

More than Planes and Pickle Buttons: Updating the Air Force’s Core Missions for the 21st Century by Heather Venable

The Developing Fight for Tactical Air Control by Jules Hurst

Army to Replace Nearly Half of Apaches With Future High-Speed Armed Recon Helo
By Joseph Trevithick, The WarZone: “The U.S. Army says it plans to replace nearly half of its AH-64 Apache gunship helicopters with a new pilot-optional attack reconnaissance rotorcraft, which could be either an advanced helicopter or a tilt-rotor design."

FVL: Next Steps For UH-60 & Shadow Replacements In ‘Weeks’
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Thursday, March 28, 2019 7:00 AM
How can Army accelerate its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft when one leading contender started flight tests just seven days ago?

BEIJING WAS NEVER A SUPERPOWER; CHINA'S MARITIME GRAY ZONE EXPOSES US PACIFIC POLICY IN SOUTH CHINA SEA

3/28/2019

China Never Was A Superpower-And It Won't Be One Anytime Soon
by Gordon G. Chang via Strategika“The world by 2049 will be defined by the realization of Chinese power,” write Bradley Thayer and John Friend, referring to the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic. “China,” these American academics tell us, “will be the world’s greatest economic and political force.” Must Americans accept the inevitability of Chinese dominance of the international system?

https://www.amazon.com/Maritime-Operations-Studies-Chinese-Development/dp/1591146933

China's Tide Is High, But Is It At High Tide?
by Michael R. Auslin via Strategika If China’s explosive economic growth since the beginning of reform in 1979 is a unique success story, no less impressive has been the concomitant growth of its military and political power, as well as its global influence. Few could have predicted that within one generation of Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, China would vie with the United States for the banner of global leadership. By any measure, China’s efforts to surpass American predominance in the world must be taken seriously, and in some cases, may even seem to have succeeded.

An Inflection Point In U.S.-China Relations
with Michael R. Auslin via Powerline Michael Auslin, an Asia expert at the Hoover Institution, examines what I consider the most important foreign policy issue of our time — U.S. relations with China. Auslin believes this may be “crunch time” for these relations.

YODA, A DEFENSE SPECIALIST PASSES AWAY

3/28/2019

‘How Is Yoda?’: An Appreciation Of Andy Marshall
By Andrew Krepinevich, Wednesday, March 27, 2019 6:18 PM
Last year while in Japan for a meeting with senior defense and military leaders, the question most often posed to me was, “How is Yoda?” The questions were in reference to the nickname given to Andrew Marshall, arguably the foremost defense strategist of the past sixty years, who passed away this week at the…

Andy Marshall, the futurist who led the Pentagon's secretive Office of Net Assessment died this week. Here's an obituary written by the New York Times' Jullian Barns.

WAR ON THE ROCKS

Andy Marshall's Century
By Paul Bracken, FPRI: “Born in the shadow of World War I, Andrew Marshall lived through World War II, and contributed to the avoidance of World War III. His long life is a review of civil-military relations in the advanced countries over the past hundred years."

Keep those Iraq War notes handy: Small wars, not great power battles, still the most likely future fight
(Military Times) The findings in the long-awaited Iraq War Study at first glance appear to not be in lockstep with the Pentagon’s new focus on China and Russia, but are perhaps more important than ever.

Just Andy Marshall
By Jerry Hendrix, National Review: “Andrew W. Marshall, the eminent defense strategist, spoke sharply to me only once in the ten years I knew him. A remarkably kind and humble man, Andy Marshall was successful for over four decades in the Pentagon and, more broadly, in Washington, D.C."

THE GAO EXPLAINS PENTAGON ACQUISITION REFORM; LIMITATIONS OF GOLDWATER-NICHOLS ACT ON DEFENSE REFORM, THE REALITY OF UNFUNDED MANDATES FOR THE NAVY & LASERS

3/26/2019

GAO

Net Assessment: The Pentagon Can Count Ships (But Not Much Else) by Melanie Marlowe, Bryan McGrath, and Christopher Preble

Navy Unveils $3.2B Unfunded List: 2 F-35s, New Laser & More Precision Strike
By Paul McLeary, Monday, March 25, 2019 4:57 PM
The Navy tells Congress it wants to get more deadly, and sail longer. Quickly. Can you say unfunded requirements?

Lasers: Beyond The Power Problem
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Monday, March 25, 2019 7:31 AM
Miitary lasers are getting more and more powerful, fast. But raw power isn’t all you need for a workable weapon.

What The 809 Panel Didn’t Quite Get Right: Greenwalt & Levine
By Peter Levine, Thursday, April 4, 2019 7:11 AM
Every word is worth reading to find out what the 809 Panel did right and what needs to be done to fix some of its missteps. Read on! The Editor.

Innovation Talk is Cheap—Start Innovating
By Richard Kuzma, Drew Calcagno, Zac Dannelly & Ian Shaw, Proceedings: “The Navy’s commitment to an “innovation” culture is mostly hollow rhetoric. Seemingly endless talk using words such as “rapid” and “innovative” serves bureaucratic goals such as securing funding for programs, but truly innovative outcomes are rare and almost never rapid."

Four Guardians
By Jim Golby, Strategy Bridge: “The Goldwater-Nichols Act reduced the power of the service components to their lowest levels in the modern era."

THE ROLE OF THE F15X IN THE PACIFIC & CHINA'S WWI PLAN TO SINK THE US NAVY NOW

3/26/2019

NATIONAL INTEREST

NATIONAL INTEREST

THE FUTURE IS HERE: LIGHT INFANTRY, THE ROLE OF 5G IN WAR & OPTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA'S MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS

3/25/2019

How the Army Can Fix the Infantry’s Anti-Armor Problem
By Brandon Morgan, Modern War Institute: “By design, light infantry forces sacrifice certain capabilities in order to maximize flexibility and mobility. But when the capabilities sacrificed leave American light infantry forces particularly vulnerable to a potential adversary, change is required."

5G and Battlespace Dominance
By Chet Nagle, European Security & Defense: “The global rollout of 5G, the replacement for the existing 4G mobile communications network, will cost service providers the enormous sum of $325 billion by 2025. Millions of dollars have already been spent to tout the benefits 5G will deliver to individual and commercial users, but little attention is paid to the role of 5G in the future world of defense and national security."

Options for the West to Address Russia’s Unconventional Tactics
By Jesse Short, Divergent Options: “The Russian Federation’s limited forms of warfare against western states and associated influence in other regions challenges the world as it is conducted below the threshold of war."

Russia Develops Niche Military Capabilities for 21st-Century Warfare
By Roger McDermott, Eurasia Daily Monitor: “While there are certainly tensions between Russia and NATO in the Black Sea region, it is also worthwhile to note the growing level of confidence in Moscow about niche military capabilities being developed for the Russian navy, the Military-Maritime Fleet"

SIKORSKI & DEFIANT: HEAVY LIFT AND TACTICAL HELICOPTERS TAKE OFF & A SUMMARY OF DEFENSE NEWS GROWTH

3/22/2019

SB>1 Defiant Takes Flight: Can It Catch Bell?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Thursday, March 21, 2019 6:34 PM
The thing that delayed Defiant, it turns out, is the same thing that makes it really attractive to the Army.

A Rockin’ Year For Breaking Defense, With More To Come!
By Colin Clark, Friday, March 22, 2019 7:01 AM
Sometimes you’ve just gotta crow when things are going well and tempt the gods who’ve granted you the favor. We’ve had a huge year at Breaking Defense. On the editorial side we’ve boosted our reach considerably. First, we hired the excellent Paul McLeary, formerly of Foreign Policy, Defense News and Aviation Week, last February…

U.S., GERMANY:
Sikorsky Offers CH-53K to German Air Force
By Dan Parsons, Rotor&Wing International: "Sikorsky has formally offered the CH-53K King Stallion as the German Luftwaffe's next heavy lift helicopter."

CHINA KNOWS US WEAKNESSES IN THE PACIFIC, A LOOK AT BEIJING'S WAR BUDGET, THE DECLINE OF DETERRENCE & US AIR FORCE SEEKS TO CLOSE THE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE IN THE PACIFIC

3/18/2019

CHINA:
From Hardware to Software: China’s 2019 Military Budget and Priorities
By Ankit Panda, The Diplomat: “Growth in military budget may have slowed slightly, but funding leaves plenty of room for the vital job of developing personnel."

NATIONAL INTEREST

Hudson’s Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.: The decline of deterrence

Andrew Philip Hunter and Maura Rose McQuade write: There is truth to the argument that defense acquisition must change in the face of a new national security environment, but many current acquisition critiques are strangely incomplete. […]Success will ultimately depend on DoD’s ability to rapidly adjust to uncertainty in threats—nimble adversaries, new domains, and unanticipated applications of technology utilization. Our current acquisition debate fails to directly address the changing nature of what we need to be buying, and as a result, we may be heading towards another round of acquisition reform recriminations in a few years. Center for Strategic and International Studies

Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. writes: This study finds that changes in the geopolitical and military-technical environments are eroding the effectiveness of strategies based on deterrence. Moreover, relatively recent revelations of Cold War history and advances in the behavioral sciences raise important concerns regarding our understanding of how deterrence has worked in the past, as well as its limitations going forward. In brief, the efficacy of deterrence is being challenged across multiple fronts. – Hudson Institute

Air Force Arms B-52 With Nuclear-Armed LRSO Missile
By Kris Osborn, Warrior Maven: "The Air Force is now arming its fleet of B-52 Bombers with prototype nuclear-armed cruise missiles to prepare the aircraft for the possibility of launching the Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) weapon."

THE ARMY WANTS TO FOREGT SMALL WARS-INSURGENCIES, WHY CHINA WORRIES ABOUT THE F35, NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR TEAM TRUMP & A LOOK AT SERVICE RIVALRIES

3/11/2019

The US Army Is Trying to Bury the Lessons of the Iraq War
// Frank Sobchak By scuttling plans to help its leaders understand what went wrong, the service is turning a blind eye to insights of enduring relevance.

U.S., AFGHANISTAN:
Mullah Omar 'Lived Close to U.S. Bases'
From BBC News: “Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar lived within walking distance of U.S. bases in Afghanistan, a new book has claimed."

It’s Sun Tzu’s Time in the Barrel
By John F. Sullivan, Small Wars Journal: “Insurgents seeking to spark a revolution in the rather staid field of military strategic theory often unwittingly follow the logic of the used car."

CHINA WORRIES ABOUT THE F35

Is the Pentagon Truly Committed to the National Defense Strategy?
// Elbridge Colby and James Mille
rAs Senate and House committees examine the Trump administration’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 2020 — it totales three-quarters of a trillion dollars — the first and most important question they should ask is: Does this budget decisively improve the U.S. posture for great-power competition with China and Russia?
Read full article »

The Army Rapid Capabilities Office has already had a major metamorphosis since its inception in 2016, shifting from a focus on just three near-term challenges to an emphasis on a broader portfolio that aligns with the Army’s major modernization efforts. – Defense News

Really Best Military Advice
By Tadd Sholtis, Words at War: “Last month, the RAND Corporation issued a report intended to help the Department of Defense “understand the current character of interservice competition and how service culture impacts the ways in which the military services posture themselves to secure institutional relevance.”

WHERE'S THE MONEY: WAR BUDGETS MATTER & FORTRESS AMERICA GETS DESTROYED IN WAR GAMING; HOW MULTI-DOMAIN WINS BIG

3/9/2019

THE BUDGET BREAKDOWN

2020 Budget: One Half Step Towards A Great Power Strategy
By Mark Cancian, Monday, March 25, 2019 7:01 AM
The Trump defense budget takes significant steps to move from a focus on regional conflicts and counter-insurgency to a focus on great power conflicts. But the Army, Navy Air Force and Marines clearly are struggling with this balance.

‘Cost Plus 50’ and Bringing U.S. Troops Home: A Look at the Numbers by Rick Berger

2020 Budget Request Reveals Slow Shift Toward Great Power War
// Marcus Weisgerber and Patrick Tucker If there’s been one theme at the Pentagon since Donald Trump became president, it’s a desire to move fast, particularly when it comes to buying new weapons. The changes are necessary, officials argue, to keep pace with Russia and China, the two countries singled out as “great power” competitors in last year’s National Defense Strategy. Defense leaders urged Congress to allow the Pentagon to remove layers of bureaucracy in order to buy and develop new weapons faster.
Read full article »

Donald Trump's Defense Budget Masks a Problem
By Rick Berger & Mackenzie Eaglen, The National Intererst: “President Donald Trump’s latest budget merely keeps the military treading water."

What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Defense Budget Masterpiece by Susanna V. Blume and Christopher Dougherty

US ‘gets its ass handed to it’ in wargames: Here’s a $24 billion fix
(Breaking Defense) The US keeps losing, hard, in simulated wars with Russia and China. Bases burn. Warships sink. But we could fix the problem for about $24 billion a year, one well-connected expert said, less than four percent of the Pentagon budget.

Navy Learning to Accelerate Acquisition Priorities
By Connie Lee, National Defense Magazine: “The Navy is leveraging rapid acquisition authorities provided by Congress to push out new weapons faster."

Here's What We Know About the Pentagon's 2020 Budget Request
// Marcus Weisgerber Money to extend border barriers and lavish use of the war fund are already drawing bipartisan fire.

Trump's Budget Harms National Security
// Kori Schake
The Trump administration has delivered its behemoth $4.5 trillion budget. Even if one accepts the 3 percent GDP growth the administration anticipates (which neither the Federal Reserve nor the Congressional Budget Office does), the plan would not produce an end to the deficit profligacy that is a yawning vulnerability for America’s national security. Even its calculations see deficit spending continue for more than a decade while interest rates magically remain unaffected. There is no averting our eyes: We Republicans have become the party of fiscal insolvency.
Read full article »

2020 defense budget top 5 issues to watch
Mackenzie Eaglen | AEIdeas
The good, bad, and ugly of the latest request shows five key issues for policymakers to address this cycle.

New budget, same story
James C. Capretta | RealClearPolicy
The primary value of most presidential budgets is political, and this one is no different.

2020 BUDGET: Airpower Wins Big; ‘Multi-Domain’ Emerges By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., on Tuesday, March 12, 2019 12:00 PM
For all the talk of major changes, the Pentagon is pouring money into some pretty traditional priorities.

US Air Power: The Imperative For Modernization (Buy The F-35)
By Lani Kass, Monday, March 18, 2019 7:01 AM In 2006, a relatively obscure book caused a major stir among the U.S. Air Force leadership. Why Air Forces Fail, edited by Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris, lays out the determinants of failure: deficiencies in the industrial base, misguided technology and tactical picks, inattention to logistics and neglect of training. The case studies are broken…

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CALL FOR CIVILIAN INPUT ON WAR POSTURE & SWEDEN REVEALS RUSSIAN S400 IS HYPE; THE US ARMY FOR HYBRID WAR & HOW THE CHINESE DRAGON IS A HYDRA

3/6/2019

JCOC PROGRAM

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THE SWEDES TEST THE RUSSIAN S400

S400

Why the U.S. Army Is Ill-suited for Proxy Warfare Hotspots
By Amos Fox, Military Review: “ ... there has been a substantial amount of literature written about modern and future evolutions of conflict; however, the U.S. Army flounders at seeing operating environments beyond binary conventional conflict and counterinsurgencies."

Army Reboots Cruise Missile Defense: IFPC & Iron Dome
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Monday, March 11, 2019 2:42 PM
The new approach will focus on an urgent but largely unmet threat: Russian and Chinese cruise missiles.

The Chinese Dragon Is a Hydra
By Bryson Bort, RealClearDefense: “The China problem is bigger than you think. It's bigger than Huawei, bigger than 5G, and bigger than simmering trade wars. It's bigger, even than China."

Stabilization Assistance Review: A Prudent, Economical Path Forward
By James Durso, RealClearDefense: “The three main stabilization actors – State, Defense, and USAID – bring unique expertise, but also prejudices and expectations to the stabilization mission. The SAR directs the agencies to change their processes ...

FIGHTING UNDERGROUND: A NEW BATTLEFIELD? & NAVY COMBAT AT THE DAWN OF HYPERSONICS WITH THE F-15X

3/2/2019

F15X: A REDO OF THE F35 STRIKER

10 things soldiers and Marines need when heading underground
(Military Times) What’s on the wish list for underground operations?

The tech it takes to fight subterranean
(Military Times) Working through tunnel systems can quickly devolve into the primitive, to soldiers and Marines belly-crawling with pistols and flashlights, but a range of updated technology is now used for underground spaces and threats.

BBC: WWI UNDERGROUND

Naval Combat at the Dawn of Hypersonics
By Ryan Hilger, War on the Rocks: “The inability to keep up with the increasing speed of naval combat is only going to get worse. The advent of hypersonic weapons, particularly anti-ship cruise missiles, represents a grave threat to U.S. surface forces."

FIXING DEFENSE BUDGET
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TRANSPARENCY & COST CAPABILITY
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MACKENZIE EAGLEN
AEI

DEFENSE STRATEGY-PRIORITIES
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DEFENSE INNOVATION PROBLEMS
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REBUTAL TO EAGLEN
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DOD ACQUISITION REFORM

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Dr. Kathleen Hicks

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THUCYDIDES & THE LONG WAR PROBLEM

FORCE PLANNING IN AGE OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION

AGAINST ALL ODDS: CHANGING ACQUISITION CULTURE

THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN MILITARY PRIMACY

NATIONAL MILITARY STRATEGY: REVOLUTIONARY APPROACH

UNDERSTANDING MILITARY MODERNIZATION

5 STRATEGIES FOR SEC. OF DEFENSE

WHY THE 3RD OFFSET FAILS

INADEQUATE DOCTRINES FOR IRREGULAR WAR

ALTERNATIVE WAR STRATEGIES & FORCE POSTURE

REVERSING DECLINE: ELIZABETHIAN ENGLAND

U.S. GRAND STRATEGY FOR WINNING WORLD WAR IV

MULTI-DOMAIN BATTLE REPLACES R.M.A.

GLOBAL DEFENSE SPENDING.pdf
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REBUILDING AMERICAN MILITARY.pdf
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Tweets by WilliamHolland

Principles Guiding Pentagon Acquisition Reform
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