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Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thanks for your service General McChrystal - ready your resume!From a Defense Department News Release
WASHINGTON, June 22, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a statement today regarding a profile
article on Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Here is the secretary’s statement:
"I read with
concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine. I believe
that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case. We are fighting a war against al
Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the
world. Going forward, we must pursue this mission with a unity of purpose. Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary
sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without
such distractions. Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize
to them as well. I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person."
Monday, June 14, 2010
Special Panel for Defense Cuts
Redundant at Best, Political at Worst
Last week House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) indicated his willingness
to convene a special house panel to investigate programmatic cuts in the Department of Defense. In the view of one Hill source,
this doesn’t make sense.
The House and
Senate have passed a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) every year in modern times. Until this year’s budget meltdown no other piece of legislation but the budget resolution had such a record. The purpose of the NDAA is to authorize policies and funding levels for the Department of Defense.
The NDAA is the product of the House and Senate Armed Services
Committees. Their job is to review the President’s budget each year and build an
NDAA structured on the President’s Budget but with the dispositions of the Committees and the Chambers taken into account. Cuts (or increases) to programs are expected each year as a basic function of the Armed Services Committees
oversight. Usually these are minor and are intended to prod the bureaucracy for results,
but sometimes they are deeper and more substantive.
Take, for example, Secretary Gates’
cuts to several major weapons programs last year. The House and Senate Armed Services
Committees for the most part followed suit in de-authorizing the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program, cut over a billion
in missile defenses, ending the F-22 tactical fighter, and killing the DDG-1000. The HASC and SASC accomplished
these grisly tasks with no special panel convened. In other words, additions or rescissions
in funding are the duty of the full Armed Services Committees and their subcommittees. Establishing or maintaining a special panel seems redundant at best or political cover for President Obama at
worse.
Why is it that Defense is always the first to go when Democrats are in charge? Why doesn’t the Ways and Means Committee convene a special panel to simplify the tax code or
reform entitlement spending? Why doesn’t the Energy and Commerce Committee convene
a special panel to ask why a Department of Energy is even necessary in the wake of the National Nuclear Security Administration
splintering off?
However, if Chairman Skelton wants to save money at the Department of Defense without fundamentally altering the
security relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world, he might consider taking the following two steps to save
money and reduce waste:
· Hire a business consultancy like McKinsey or the Boston Consulting Group
to review the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFARs) and recommend which are extraneous, violate private sector best
practices, and can be repealed. The DFARs have become so complex that they prevent America’s
innovative small businesses from market entry and competition. The complexity of these regulations
ensures that only the “big guys” can muster the legal and regulatory teams to stay compliant creating monopolies
and driving up prices.
· Pass a law (1) removing tenure from the civil service, (2) requiring that
only a resume is necessary to apply for a federal job, (3) allowing the government-wide use of unpaid interns, and (4) forbidding
civil servants from joining a union. Allowing underperforming workers to lose their jobs like
in the private sector will spur performance and reduce inefficient overhead. Allowing hiring by a simple resume
and the use of interns will bring new blood to government service. Furthermore, the Pentagon is not
a coal mine or railroad yard, union membership is unnecessary. |
Thursday, June 10, 2010
A man named "Valdez" is reaching to U.S. small businesses with but one simple request: Stop the oil leak!
Yes, DSJ has learned that the Department of Energy's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization and
the NAVAIR Systems Command's Office of Small Business have reached out to America's miltiary industrial complex with a request
for them to "Share Your Ideas to Stop the Oil Spill." Says the call to arms:
Good afternoon,
The Department
of Energy is working tirelessly to address the oil spill in the Gulf. At the request of President Obama, Secretary Chu traveled
down to Houston to work closely with a team of top scientists from academia and the U.S. government, with support from more
than 200 personnel from DOE's national laboratories, to analyze the response efforts and recommend additional options for
stopping the leaking oil.
We'd like you to share your ideas on how to stop or contain the oil spill and mitigate
its impact on the environment. The Deepwater Horizon Response has an online form (an Alternative Technology Response Form)
available to collect your suggestions here: http://www.horizonedocs.com/artform.php
As small business owners, you know that innovation comes from many sources. We need to tap into the spirit
of American entrepreneurship to learn as much as possible. So far over 20,000 ideas have been sent to BP since the Gulf of
Mexico incident from oil industry experts, small businesses, and everyday Americans.
The online form, entitled
"Alternative Technology Response," collects detailed information about your idea, including the materials, equipment
and resources required to put your idea into action. Your idea, once you fill out the form, will go to a team of 30 technical
and operational BP personnel for evaluation
We encourage you to be part of the solution and submit any
ideas you have to the Deepwater Horizon Response, and to share this message with others who might be able to help. For more
information on the Deepwater Horizon Response suggestion form, visit this link.
Thank you,Bill Valdez, Acting DirectorOffice of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Squeezing Military Service budgets for efficiencies - Will it mean more or less for programs?Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has news for those in the defense industry and Congress who believe that -- after
its opening salvo last year -- the Obama Administration might back off in its efforts to curtail defense spending by cutting
defense programs. The news came Friday, when the Pentagon announcedthat the Military Services and Defense Agencies would have to take "deliberate and aggressive measures to protect critical
current and future capabilities" by tightening their belts considerably in their pending POM submittals -- due on 30
July. Just how considerably was spelled out in a companion Fact Sheet, which outlines the Pentagon's objective to save $101.9 billion over the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) through cuts that
will, according to DEPSECDEF Bill Lynn, necessarily involve program kills. "To get $100 billion, you're going
to have to identify lower-priority programs that are not going to be part of future budgets," adding "nothing is
off the table." To be specific, the Secretary is asking the Army, Air Force and Navy Departments to identify $2
billion each in efficiency savings in overhead, support and non-mission areas that can be cut in FY12, $3 billion in FY13,
$5.3 billion in FY14, $8 billion in FY15 and $10 billion in FY16. The Military Services, according to Lynn, would
be able to transfer the savings to their forces and modernization efforts.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Army marks UAS one million flight hour milestone in Pentagon ceremonyYesterday saw the U.S. Army celebrate the milestone of surpassing one million flight hours for Unmanned Aircraft Systems
(UAS). AUVSI's Brett Davis has a nice summary here of the highlights of press briefings given in front of static displays in the Pentagon courtyard of the Army's mainstay
systems: General Atomics' MQ-1C GRAY EAGLE Extended Range Multi-Purpose UAS, AAI's RQ-7B SHADOW tactical UAS, and AeroVironment's RQ-11B
RAVEN small UAS. UAS Program Manager COL Greg Gonzalez, his deputy Tim Owings, UAS system operators, and
the various PM UAS Product Managers provided perspectives on the million-hour milestone and additional insights on their objectives
relative to the various UAS programs, including: -- Army employment of UAS has grown geometrically. It took the
Army 13 years to fly the first 100,000 hours with UAS, less than a year for the next 100,000 hours, and currently the Army
is racking up more than 220,000 flight hours with UAS each year. -- Funding for Army UAS has been robust because
the contribution of UAS to the warfight is well acknowledged. COL Gonzalez expects strong funding to continue as defense
budgets are squeezed because of the value delivered by these systems. -- While the Army's development and
ongoing testing of a UAS-specific off-angle-capable HELLFIRE P+ missile to be fielded with the MQ-1C to Afghanistan later
this year, the Army continues to view UAS primarily as "hunting dogs" for other [manned] strike assets and sees
the UAS-mounted weapons as systems of last resort when other weapons are not available in a timely-enough manner. --
The ISR capabilities of the MQ-1C system are also being expaned via the recent demonstration of TRICLOPS -- wherein three
EO/IR payloads were operated simultaneously from a platform by three distinct users to leverage coverage and imagery exploitation
from a single UAS. -- Initiation of a new "SHADOW C" program remains under consideration within the
Army but, failing approval of a new start, COL Gonzalez believes that improvement/spiral of the current RQ-7B SHADOW can achieve
most of the desired capabilities. (Countering some claims to the contrary, PM UAS made clear to DSJ that there is
no plan at present to weaponize the SHADOW.) -- Northrop Grumman's StarLite SAR/GMTI radar will replace General
Atomics' LYNX radar in newly-fielded ERMP systems and will eventually backfill into fielded systems. PM UAS officials
anticipate a new, improved engine for the ERMP and is also working to field a new SIGINT payload for the GRAY EAGLE. --
To supplement to the 4.5 pound RQ-11B RAVEN in the Small UAS (SUAS) class, the Army is near conclusion of a plan to develop
and field SUAS systems of one pound and 13 pounds.
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