Navy

  • CENTCOM's Twitter and YouTube accounts are back up and running after Islamic State sympathizers hacked the sites yesterday. The Defense Department says the attack lasted for about 30 minutes. The sites posted threatening messages about American troops and showed pro-Islamic State images. Retired Navy Rear Adm. Jamie Barnett is a partner for the cybersecurity practice at Venable. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he explained what the cybervandalism means for CENTCOM and national security.

    January 13, 2015
  • Critics of the Navy's maritime strategy -- or lack thereof -- are all over the federal defense community. One retired officer tells the U.S. Naval Institute the defense community may not understand what the word "strategy" means anymore. Congressman Randy Forbes has an open letter to chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, asking him to lead an effort to restore strategic planning to the Navy. Barney Rubel is former dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he said those critics are missing an important piece of the strategy puzzle.

    January 08, 2015
  • Stop us if you've heard this before. If you tell contractors bidding on a big procurement you're going to use Plan X for evaluating prices, you better use Plan X. Otherwise you could lose a protest. That's what happened to the Navy in a $2.5 billion program. Procurement attorney Joe Petrillo joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to explain more of what happened and the lessons learned in this week's Legal Loop.

    January 08, 2015
  • Troops start the new year with a 1 percent pay raise. That's a little less than the 1.8 percent raise they would have gotten automatically from the annual cost of living adjustment. A study on pay and benefits from the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission is due next month. Vice Adm. Norb Ryan is president of the Military Officers Association of America. He says some kind of reform is long overdue. He shared his Top 3 for 2015 on In Depth with Francis Rose. He says morale is still a top priority for the military, even with fewer commitments in Afghanistan.

    January 06, 2015
  • Enlisted Navy and Marine Corps service members have a new, easier route to medical school. It's called the Enlisted-to-Medical Degree Preparatory Program. It puts them on equal footing with counterparts in the Army and Air Force. Dr. Art Kellermann is Dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to explain how the new program works.

    January 02, 2015
  • The new year will bring new contracting initiatives throughout government. A big case in point: The Army's forthcoming Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services, or RS3. It's one of several big, multiple-award contracts that will drive consolidation of professional services. Many more service contracts are likely to flow through vehicles like RS3 and the Navy's SeaPort E. Kevin Brancato, Senior Defense Analyst at Bloomberg Government, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to provide a broader outlook on RS3 and defense contracting in 2015.

    January 02, 2015
  • The Navy knows three things about its plan to build a stronger version of the Littoral Combat Ship. The first is it has the green light from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The second is who's going to build it. And the third is who's going to build it. Bryan Clark is senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He's former Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations and Director of his Commander's Action Group. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he explained the Navy's plan to buy two different versions of the small surface combatant ship from two different companies.

    December 15, 2014
  • Until now, the Intelligence Community Information Technology Environment is mainly focused on serving the Intelligence Community. But DoD is taking baby steps toward deploying the intelligence community's shared services plan to its components. Janice Haith, deputy CIO for the Department of the Navy, told an audience at an AFCEA luncheon, the Navy is already where it wants to be in adopting ICITE.

    December 12, 2014
  • Many senior IT managers fight an uphill battle. Too often, they're seen just as the tech guy by senior level peers. Enter the National Defense University's Information Resources Management College or iCollege. For many years, it's been offering high-level, strategic education to both military and civilian IT and acquisition career employees. Navy Rear Adm. Jan Hamby is the new Chancellor of NDU's iCollege. She joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to discuss where she hopes to take a venerable institution.

    December 05, 2014
  • Upgrades are coming at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota that are a long time coming. The Military Times reports the nuclear weapons facility there has maintanance, upkeep, and infrastructure problems. Retired Navy Adm. John Harvey is Virginia's Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, and former commander of Fleet Forces Command. He led a team along with retired Air Force Gen. Lawrence Welsh to look at the nuclear enterprise. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he shared his thoughts about how the nation's nuclear enterprise is in the news all of a sudden.

    December 03, 2014
  • Defense Department doctrine makes clear that cyberspace is a military domain, just like air, land, space and sea. But the Navy's top cyber officer said the procurement system hasn't yet caught onto that notion.

    December 03, 2014
  • What are the strategic priorities for the Navy's PEO for Enterprise Information Systems? How is the Navy balancing cost with systems capability? What is the Navy's PEO EIS doing to realize greater operational effectiveness? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Victor Gavin, Program Executive Officer for Enterprise Information Systems within the U.S. Department of the Navy.

    December 01, 2014
  • The Defense Department has professed a belief in open systems architectures for years, but has had trouble translating its stated policy preferences into acquisition outcomes. A program to modernize the military's helicopters aims to change that

    November 26, 2014
  • Open architecture, where the Navy isn't locked into a particular vendor forever on a particular system, gets a huge boost from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert. The Navy has a unique chance to reshape its fleet in the coming years. Bryan Clark, senior fellow of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations and Director of the CNO's Commander's Action Group, says the driving principle behind that reshaping should be the concept of "offensive sea control." He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about what that concept looks like.

    November 19, 2014