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The Army says hard-won lessons on the battlefield have taught it that stovepiped IT systems have no place in the business of intelligence collection and sharing. It also acknowledges that enforcing a single set of common standards comes with some tradeoffs.
On this week's edition of Pentagon Solutions, host Francis Rose looks at the latest information on furloughs at the Defense Department as well as the 2014 budgets for the Army and Air Force.
Army leaders say the belated passage of a 2013 budget helped this year's fiscal picture, but the service still is more than $15 billion short of funds. If sequestration continues, the service will shrink by at least 100,000 soldiers.
The Defense Department's 2014 budget proposal reduces the size of the civilian workforce slightly, increases TRICARE premiums, and requests another round of base closures. It also calls for a slight raise for both civilian employees and uniformed servicemembers. The budget significantly exceeds the Defense spending caps in current law.
System aggregates data from various Army components to help commanders detect risk factors for suicide.
The Army expects to mostly finish the migration to enterprise email by the end of this month. The Air Force and the Navy begin pilot tests using the cloud applications.
Internal review finds no systemic issues with regard to the misdiagnosis of post-traumatic stress among soldiers, but it makes dozens of recommendations for improving the disability evaluation system.
With sequestration now in effect, the Defense Department says it will have to begin to make decisions that cross the threshold between "reversible" cuts to military capability and those that will have long-lasting impacts.
Small firms already have taken a disproportionate hit from DoD's pullback in 2013 spending, Pentagon officials say. Military acquisition leaders worry the sudden cuts will bankrupt small businesses that provide one-of-a-kind capabilities.
The automatic budget cuts set to occur under sequestration will go into effect as a matter of law on Friday. But their full impact won't be felt until late this spring, long after lawmakers encounter the next budget showdown.
Katherine Hammack, the assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and the Environment, said many of the cost-cutting measures the Army will be forced to take because of sequestration, such as letting service and maintenance contracts expire, could have a trickle-down effect on service members.
Army says its implementation of DoD's Better Buying Power directives saved hundreds of millions of dollars last year, but this year's budget chaos will undo much of the progress.
Television personality Montel Williams is joining Army scientists at Fort Detrick in a medical research deal.
Army leadership is looking to improve coordination among its mental health programs and other soldier-resilience efforts, acknowledging Monday that a patchwork system of tools is often confusing for both commanders and soldiers.
Each week, Defense Reporter Jared Serbu speaks with the managers of the federal government's largest department. Subscribe on PodcastOne or Apple Podcasts.