Defense Department
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William Greenwalt, the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy, says its long overdue to update the way the Defense Department purchases goods and services.
October 13, 2014 -
As part of a project dubbed Command Post 2025, the Army wants to begin running complex modeling and simulation programs on the battlefield, using low-power devices in austere conditions.
October 10, 2014 -
President Richard Nixon once joked with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. He said he'd give her three U.S. generals in exchange for the legendary Moshe Dyan. Meir answered, sure, I'll take General Motors, General Electric and General Dynamics. Today's Defense Industrial Base is operating in a changing and uncertain economy. In the last few years, it's been hit by Defense spending cutbacks. Nayantara Hensel, former chief economist for the Navy, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to describes what this means to the Defense Industrial Base and to the Defense enterprise.
October 09, 2014 -
The next steps in defense acquisition reform may come from the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations asks experts from all parts of the defense acquisition community to tell them where the committee should go next to streamline defense acquisition. Beth McGrath of Deloitte is former Deputy Chief Management Officer at the Defense Department and one of the contributors to the committee's efforts. She worked to institute what she called a cost culture. She didn't use that phrase in her comments to the committee, but Francis Rose asked her if that concept was written between the lines on In Depth.
October 09, 2014 -
The Defense and Homeland Security departments both say they are putting their programs on a path that will insist that technologies are rigorously tested before they commit to expensive acquisition strategies.
October 08, 2014 -
In an era of fiscal austerity, DoD must continue to maintain operations and modernize forces in order to support national security. What acquisition challenges are facing the U.S. Department of Defense? What actions can be taken to improve defense acquisition and the Defense Industrial Base? Join host Michael Keegan as he explore these questions and more with Profs. Jack Gansler and Bill Lucyshyn, authors of the IBM Center report, Eight Actions to Improve Defense Acquisition.
October 06, 2014 -
Jerry Punderson, the outgoing director of contracts for the Naval Sea Systems Command, will join PSC as its new senior vice president of defense and intelligence.
October 06, 2014 -
A Pentagon review of the military's health facilities concluded the quality of DoD's medical system is generally in line with what's offered by private sector providers. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said "average" is not good enough.
October 02, 2014 -
The Army is the latest federal organization to lay out a career path for its cybersecurity leaders. Career Field 17 will offer soldiers that career path. Advocates of professionalizing the cyber workforce believe that would feed talent pipelines with the people agencies need to succeed. Lt. Col. Sean Kern is cyberspace operations officer, and a graduate student at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School at Joint Forces Staff College at the National Defense University. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he said the main cyber problem right now is a people problem.
October 01, 2014 -
On this week's On DoD, John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, says the role of an IG is to effectuate change. In his words, "If it's worth publishing, it's worth publicizing."
October 01, 2014 -
The Pentagon will begin a new fiscal year under yet another continuing resolution. When a budget finally is passed, Defense Department officials expect Congress to reject a significant number of proposals to cut DoD's own costs.
October 01, 2014 -
The Defense Department starts a new fiscal year Wednesday without a final budget in place, just like the rest of the government. But department leaders are working under the assumption that Congress will eventually reject up to $70 billion worth of proposals the department made to find cost savings in its 2015 budget. Federal News Radio's DoD Reporter Jared Serbu has more.
September 30, 2014 -
President Barack Obama is going it alone for the time being. He's sending military resources to drop bombs and shoot missiles at the Islamic State line in Iraq and Syria. He's working largely without the counsel, much less consent, of Congress. Is there a big vacuum in Washington with Congress gone until after the mid-term elections? Or is there a streamlined operation without too much distraction? Justin Sink, White House correspondent for The Hill Newspaper, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with details.
September 30, 2014 -
The Defense Department is proposing stricter lending protections for service members who take out short-term loans. The department says the move would close several loopholes in current regulations that are supposed to protect service members from predatory lenders. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with details from his DoD Reporter's Notebook.
September 30, 2014 -
A space tracking website maintained by the Defense Department is getting a makeover. Space-track.org is a hub for organizations that conduct space operations to see where space debris may, or may not, be floating around endangering satellites. Maj. Gen. David Thompson is director of Plans and Policy for Strategic Command. He tells Tom Temin on the Federal Drive how many objects are currently on STRATCOM's radar.
September 29, 2014