Defense

  • The House Armed Services Committee is rejecting many cost-savings proposals from the Pentagon including closing excess military bases and retiring aging aircraft. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is displeased about this budget bill, according to Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby. Hagel plans to talk to lawmakers again about the need for another round of base closings, which was also denied by the budget.

    May 12, 2014
  • In this edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller shares news and buzz about the IT and acquisition communities.

    May 09, 2014
  • The Government Accountability Office said a recent report that the Department of Defense paid $150 per gallon for alternative jet fuel HEFA (hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids) which is made from algae. That's more than 64 times the current market price for standard carbon-based fuels. The report indicated only a small amount of the fuel was purchased for testing.

    May 09, 2014
  • The Battlefrog Obstacle Race Series offers the public a glimpse into the training Navy Seals face by offering obstacle races for different ages and skill levels.

    May 08, 2014
  • Picture this: the sound of helicopter blades above your head, the encouraging words from the military's toughest soldiers in your ears. This is what happens in the Navy Seal's Battlefrog Obstacle Race Series taking place this summer. You can walk a mile or so in a seal's shoes. Don Mann, chief operating officer of Battlefrog and former member of Seal Team Six, the group that took down Osama Bin Laden, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp the race is designed and inspired by Navy Seals.

    May 08, 2014
  • The Pentagon says if Russian troops were really pulling back from the border with Ukraine, then "we would know," a spokesman told the Associated Press. He says that doesn't seem to be happening. Russian President Vladimir Putin says his troops have been moved away from the border region. Putin has also called on Ukraine's military to stop its operations against pro-Russia activists who have seized government buildings and police stations in at least a dozen towns in eastern Ukraine.

    May 08, 2014
  • The House Armed Services Committee is marking up the Pentagon's 2015 Defense Authorization bill today. Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) has a series of proposals that include some accounting finesse to appropriate more than $2 billion worth of unobligated funds into next year. He wants to balance that with some targeted spending cuts too. John Donnelly, editor of Congressional Quarterly's Defense Blog, tells In Depth with Francis Rose the balance in the 2015 Defense Authorization bill gets more precarious the longer the markup goes.

    May 07, 2014
  • The Navy is scrapping a plan to overhaul one of its 11 aircraft carriers. The Defense Department says doing that frees up money to spend on the Littoral Combat Ship program. Everett Pyatt is leader of the Project for Defense Management and Acquisition Leadership Program at the McCain Institute and a former assistant secretary of the Navy. He's writing in Real Clear Defense about the Navy's budget plans.

    May 07, 2014
  • The intelligence community, like the rest of government, is coping with a sudden budget decrease. But leaders say they're committed to not repeating the serious workforce mistakes policymakers made during the last budget cut two decades ago, when new hiring ground to a halt. Read the related story by Jared Serbu.

    May 07, 2014
  • Today is markup day for the National Defense Authorization Act in the House Armed Services Committee. Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) has already killed the idea of approving a round of Base Realignment and Closure this year. But the Defense Department sees the potential for some progress on another round of BRAC. John Conger, acting deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, talked to In Depth with Francis Rose about the effort the Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) is making to push toward a BRAC round.

    May 07, 2014
  • John Hickey, the mobility program manager for the Defense Information Systems Agency, talks about the status of DoD's commercial mobile device programs, for both classified and unclassified communications. Greg Wenzel, a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, discusses the findings of a recent survey of government employees about DoD acquisition.

    May 07, 2014
  • Iran says it will target U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf if a war breaks out. An Iranian military official says the country could sink a U.S. aircraft carrier like the USS Nimitz and that the country is practicing on a replica. A spokesman from the Pentagon says they have no doubt Iran could sink the replica it has built, but Col. Steve Warren says sinking a U.S. aircraft carrier is another matter entirely and he has no confidence in Iran's capability to sink one.

    May 07, 2014
  • Dr. Harry Greenspun, senior advisor for Healthcare Transformation and Technoloy at Deloitte, discusses how technology is being used to reduce health care costs. May 6, 2014

    May 06, 2014
  • The American Legion says reports of veteran deaths resulting from VA hospital treatment delays mean it's time for Secretary Eric Shinkseki to step aside. But at the moment, they're the only major veterans' group to go that far. Most of the other large service organizations are waiting for the full results of an inspector general review of the alleged "secret waiting list" at the Phoenix VA hospital. Bob Wallace, executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, told In Depth with Francis Rose it's premature to call for leadership changes.

    May 06, 2014