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 The House on Tuesday adopted an amendment to a defense policy bill that would cap the National Security Council at 100 staffers, unless the National Security Adviser goes before the Senate for confirmation. – The Hill Alarmed by deadly battles in Ukraine, the Army wants to place miniaturized missile defense systems on its armored vehicles to protect them from anti-tank weapons. To reach this high-tech holy grail, which has painfully evaded the service in the past, the Army is taking a two-track approach –Breaking Defense
FPI Policy Director David Adesnik writes: [I]t would be a serious mistake to conclude that if the Pentagon were more streamlined, then its current budget would be sufficient…No agenda for reform can generate enough savings to cover the military’s unmet needs. Thus reform should proceed alongside the repeal of the BCA and the end of sequestration. – Foreign Policy Initiative  Top financial experts are worried about a key piece of the military's new blended retirement system and are urging the Pentagon not to shortchange career troops — especially enlisted service members. – Military Times Competitors like Russia and China are closing the advanced weapons gap with the United States, aiming to push the U.S. out of areas on their front doorstep. – The Hill Through the first 14 months of his term, Defense Secretary Ash Carter has made the push toward innovation a key part of his agenda. But a new report says that if Carter wants his innovation push to last, he needs also to be focusing inside the building the secretary often dismisses as “the five sided box” when talking to audiences. – Defense News Justin Johnson writes: Thornberry’s bill, and his willingness to invite public comment on it, is exactly the type of thinking and leadership we need from Congress. This is what congressional oversight should look like. Perhaps the rest of Congress can watch and learn. – Breaking Defense Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) writes: As nearly every military official has testified before our committee this year, the lack of action on a long term budget compromise will greatly impact our ability to build the ships, aircraft and capabilities we know we will urgently need in the coming decades. This is an issue that we cannot solve in this committee alone, but I hope that we can continue to make the bipartisan case for action with our colleagues in the House as we move forward. – The National Interest House Armed Services Committee chairman Mac Thornberry introduced legislation Monday to scrap the Pentagon’s main public policy document, the beleaguered Quadrennial Defense Review, and replace it with two major strategy documents from Pentagon leadership. – Defense News House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry is proposing giving each service the ability to develop new technologies under a flexible budget scheme, as part of a larger push for molecularity in Pentagon systems. – Defense News If the Pentagon takes the money and suggestions in the House Armed Services Committee’s draft National Defense Authorization Act, it will place offensive missiles on Navy amphibious ships and Army shore batteries. It’ll have new missile defenses too: land-based railguns shooting electromagnetically propelled slugs at seven times the speed of sound. – Breaking Defense In the wake of a Pentagon report that says 22 percent of military bases will be unneeded by 2019, the House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat is introducing legislation that would let the military close and consolidate its domestic installations. – Defense News
 After more than 15 years of development, wasted spending, cost overruns and delivery delays of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Pentagon officials and Capitol Hill lawmakers alike are familiar with the pitfalls of buying an aircraft even before the technology it requires is ready. But the Air Force general currently overseeing the F-35 program at the Pentagon said it is not only about the flaws of concurrent design, development and purchasing. It's also about "leadership continuity." – Military.com The House Armed Services Committee will authorize $610 billion for defense spending in 2017, according to two congressional sources. – The Hill
The Navy may get a boost in readiness through additional military construction to support aviation readiness and shipyard workforce growth, if provisions in the House Armed Services Committee’s 2017 defense bill pass, but the Marine Corps would not get any aviation readiness dollars above what the service requested in its February budget submission. – USNI News Most of the Marine Corps’ 276 F/A-18 Hornets are deployed, being used for training or in need of repair, the service's top aviator told lawmakers on Wednesday. – Military Times As advocates call on the Pentagon to buy as many as 200 next-generation bombers to counter growing threats, House legislation released this week urged the Air Force to take another look at how many B-21s commanders really need. – Defense News A key Democrat is raising concerns about plans to reverse Army troop cuts and mandate a higher raise than requested by the Pentagon. – The Hill Higher pay raises for the nation's military personnel could lead to more readiness shortfalls, a key House Democrat warned Wednesday. – Military Times Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall, in congressional testimony Wednesday, defended the controversial path to end the US reliance on Russian rocket engines for military space launch—and Senate appropriators signaled their continued support. – Defense News Shortly after that seemingly anodyne press release on April 12, the Defense Department said it was withdrawing its request for legislation intended to elevate national security concerns in the review of proposed mergers among U.S. defense contractors. The reason, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said Wednesday, was that the antitrust enforcers assured him they would give adequate weight to such issues. In the process, a conflict among federal agencies on antitrust enforcement may have been averted. - Bloomberg The Navy is sticking to its plans to field an unmanned MQ-XX Stingray platform with just tanking and surveillance capabilities to start with, while the Marine Corps is experimenting with the MQ-8C Fire Scout to help inform its path forward for amphibious assault ship-based unmanned aviation, officials said Wednesday. – USNI News The US Army has launched a number of different types of missiles from its new Multi-Mission Launcher (MML), developed entirely by the service, but last week marks the first time a foreign interceptor was tested with the system. – Defense News Bill Gertz reports: The U.S. is moving to counter Chinese and Russian hypersonic strike vehicles using lasers, the director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency revealed last week. – Washington Times’ Inside the Ring reforming the joint requirements oversight council, the dark matter of pentagon acquisition4/19/2016  Closing Bases
The Pentagon is threatening to start closing down unneeded military bases unilaterally if Congress continues to refuse to launch a new Base Closure and Realignment Commission. – Military Times  Special operations AC-130s will soon get drone sidekicks, National Defense magazine reports. Dubbed tactical off-board sensing (TOBS), the gunships' robotic battle buddies will fly out below the weather and cloud cover to offer crewmembers a better view of the battlefield and target area below. Air Force Special Operations Command has selected Raytheon's Coyote UAV as the drone of choice for TOBS missions.
 The Navy will soon deploy a new missile aboard its Littoral Combat Ship that can find and destroy enemy ships at distances up to 100 nautical miles, service officials said. – Scout Warrior The addition of a new weapon on a warship already bristling with advanced systems might not seem like a big deal for the U.S. Navy in Europe. But when engineers working aboard the Spain-based destroyer USS Porter installed a missile-launcher that can autonomously track and destroy incoming anti-ship missiles earlier this year, it was an acknowledgment of a shift in this theater: For the first time in post-Cold War Europe, the Navy must account for an adversary capable of threatening its ships with modern weapons — Russia. – Stars and Stripes Dov Zakheim writes: No one is under any illusion that the culture of that mastodon known as the Defense Department bureaucracy can easily or quickly be changed. Still, the prospects for change are better than ever. If a new Administration’s defense leadership sustains Dr. Carter’s initiatives, and bipartisan congressional efforts continue, reforms could go well beyond those that even sympathetic Pentagon officials are prepared to contemplate. There is reason to hope that defense reform in the 21st century will no longer be merely a gleam in some think tanker’s eye. – The American Interest
 A battle has begun over the choice for the next leader of naval special warfare, with the debate tied to how the command trains SEALs in basic hand-to-hand combat. – Washington Times
 General David Deptula, USAF (Ret.) and Doug Birkey write: Wise national security leaders will shape Army interests, Navy interests, Marine Corps interests, and Air Force interests into American interests. It is critical that policy and budget decisions, along with their associated talking points, reflect this objective. – Breaking Defense
 The Navy will build 38 ships in the next five fiscal years, including nine new Virginia-class submarines and 10 Arleigh-Burke Class guided missile destroyers, according to testimony given to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. – DOD Buzz
The U.S. Navy is moving forward with plans to reduce its littoral combat ship buy by 12 ships, and a down-select to just one variant may happen ahead of schedule, the top brass told a Senate panel Wednesday. – Military.com The USS Fort Worth, the third Littoral Combat Ship deployed by the U.S. Navy, suffered “extensive damage” during the botched maintenance procedure in January that’s left the crippled vessel sidelined in Singapore ever since, according to the service’s top weapons buyer. - Bloomberg The Navy’s chief acquisition officer said despite recent shifts in its destroyer acquisition outlook – the service’s program to put a next generation radar on a Flight III Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer (DDG-51) hull is on track. – USNI News  Radical changes in Taiwan’s air defense order of battle that include the retirement of all the F-CK-1 Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF) and Mirage 2000-5 fighter aircraft with cost savings moved to the procurement of a substantial number of mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems are among the recommendations in a think tank report – Defense News
 Breaking Defense: The Reform of U.S. Military J.R. McMaster: Army is Outgunned For Next Military Operation Secretary of Defense Ash Carter wants to clarify the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, see service chiefs have a greater hand in acquisition, and winnow the number of four-star billets, all part of a major reform effort to the rules that govern the Pentagon. – Defense News The Pentagon is developing a new, classified national military strategy, and recommendations for a top-level organizational overhaul, so it can better face “dynamic and complex” fights, according to Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. – Defense News The Army is being forced to sacrifice modernization in favor of readiness even as America’s enemies become increasingly capable, senior leaders testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill. – Defense News
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ELAINE McCUSKER AEI/DoD
DOD ACQUISITION REFORM
Dr. Kathleen Hicks
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INADEQUATE DOCTRINES FOR IRREGULAR WAR
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MULTI-DOMAIN BATTLE REPLACES R.M.A.
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