Tag Archives: Pentagon

Document: Assessing U.S. Defense Strategic Guidance

Document: Assessing U.S. Defense Strategic Guidance

From the Aug. 13, 2013 Congressional Research Service Report: Assessing the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG)

On January 5, 2012, President Obama announced a new defense strategy entitled “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” and commonly referred to as the defense strategic guidance or “DSG”. The DSG was significant at the time because it was explicitly intended to reshape future Department of Defense (DOD) priorities, activities, and budget requests for the following decade. That reshaping meant, in part, reducing defense spending by about $487 billion over 10 years, to meet the initial budget caps set in the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011.2 And it meant in part refining DOD’s 10-year strategic outlook in response to changes in the global security environment and the end of the decade of warfare that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Read More →

Document: Carter Memo on Headquarters Reduction

Document: Carter Memo on Headquarters Reduction

The following is a July 31, 2013 memo from Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to military leaders on a planned reduction of 20 percent in the management in headquarters across the Department of Defense.

The cuts will occur regardless of the current legislative impasse over military funding.

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Two Options for Pentagon's Future

Two Options for Pentagon’s Future

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Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel answers reporters' questions during a Pentagon press briefing on July 31, 2013. Department of Defense Photo

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel answers reporters’ questions during a Pentagon press briefing on July 31, 2013. Department of Defense Photo

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said the Pentagon has to choose between a small high tech force or a larger one with antiquated equipment if the services are forced to live in a budgetary world dictated by the mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, he told reporters in a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday. Read More →

Pentagon Takes Next Steps in Moving Women into Combat Jobs

Pentagon Takes Next Steps in Moving Women into Combat Jobs

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Chief Engineman Patricia Cooper, a student in the Riverine Combat Skills course (RCS), patrols the training grounds during a field training exercise in Camp Lejeune, N.C. in 2012. US Navy Photo

Chief Engineman Patricia Cooper, a student in the Riverine Combat Skills course (RCS), patrols the training grounds during a field training exercise in Camp Lejeune, N.C. in 2012. US Navy Photo

The Marine Corps intends to build up a female cadre of officers and noncommissioned officers to help women as more military occupations and units become open to females, the deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs told the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee on Thursday. Read More →

Opinion: Military Pay and Benefits Unsustainable

Opinion: Military Pay and Benefits Unsustainable

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Sailors assigned to Naval Branch Health Clinic at Naval Support Activity, Bahrain, wait for a uniform inspection on June, 17 2013. US Navy Photo

Sailors assigned to Naval Branch Health Clinic at Naval Support Activity, Bahrain, wait for a uniform inspection on June, 17 2013. US Navy Photo

Study after study show that the U.S. military’s pay and compensation system is unsustainable. Defense experts from all across the Washington Beltway forecast a steep decline in readiness and capability due to escalating personnel costs and overall declining defense budgets. There is an urgent need for a frank discussion on pay and compensation reform throughout the ranks.

Whereas the think tanks and defense experts have offered up all manner of fiscal programs, processes and policies to the chopping block of change or disposal, the fact is military pay, compensation and benefits have received particular attention—and with good cause. The money we make, the money we are promised in retirement, the money that maintains our health care—and that of our families—is eroding our ability to do our jobs. Read More →

Document: Pentagon's Aviation Plan

Document: Pentagon’s Aviation Plan

An F/A-18F Super Hornet flies from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). US Navy Photo.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet flies from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). US Navy Photo.

The following is the Pentagon’s aviation plan, dated May 2013.
From the report:

Summary of the Annual Plan and Certification

This plan was developed based on the FY14 President’s Budget submission and does not include the effects of sequestration / Budget Control Act funding decreases. The Department is in the process of a Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR) to resolve these impacts.

As such, changes to this plan are probable in next year’s report. Moreover, sequestration is already having an adverse effect on readiness across multiple mission areas, including aviation.

Changes in technology and organizational structure make categorizing aircraft into bins of like capability increasingly difficult.

However, this aviation force structure plan provides the diverse mix of aircraft needed to carry out the eleven missions identified above. The capabilities provided by aircraft identified in this plan reflect five principal investment objectives identified Read More →

Updated: History of U.S. Policy and Law on Gays in the Military

Updated: History of U.S. Policy and Law on Gays in the Military

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On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down provisions in the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The restrictions in the act prevented federal employees in same sex marriages from receiving federal benefits. The Pentagon and the rest of the government will now sort through the ruling and the changes to federal law.

“The Department of Defense welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision today on the Defense of Marriage Act,” Secratary of Defense Chuck Hagel said in a Wednesday statement.
“The department will immediately begin the process of implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in consultation with the Department of Justice and other executive branch agencies. The Department of Defense intends to make the same benefits available to all military spouses — regardless of sexual orientation — as soon as possible. That is now the law and it is the right thing to do.” Read More →

U.S. Military Ranks Highest in New Gallup Poll

U.S. Military Ranks Highest in New Gallup Poll

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The military bested small business and the police to top the list of U.S. institutions in which Americans have the most confidence, according to a June Gallup poll released on Thursday.

The military topped the list with 76 percent of responses indicating there was “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the institution. Small business came in second with 65 percent, followed by police with 57 percent. Read More →

NSA Leaks Dominate Cyber Hearing

NSA Leaks Dominate Cyber Hearing

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alexanderWhen the Senate Appropriations Committee meets, the subject is usually money — say the $13 billion that the administration is seeking for cyber warfare in the Fiscal Year 2014 — but how the National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce and the FBI planned to spend that money was swept away by repeated questions over just what the federal government was doing in collecting so much data on U.S. citizens.

There is an inherent tension between security and privacy and citizens want to know what the government is doing with the data it is collecting from phone calls to Google searches to credit card purchases, said committee chair Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). Read More →

Hagel: Sequestration Could Scuttle Tenth Burke

Hagel: Sequestration Could Scuttle Tenth Burke

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Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, right, testifies before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Tuesday. DoD Photo

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, right, testifies before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Tuesday. DoD Photo

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told a Senate panel on Tuesday the ongoing specter of sequestration could prevent the U.S. Navy from adding an additional ship to a $6.1 billion deal that forms the backbone of the service’s surface fleet.

Last week, the Navy entered into a multi-year contract with Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) for nine Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers (DDG-51), extending the Navy’s commitment to the high-end surface combatant into 2017. Read More →

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