It’s high time the Pentagon drop the two major conventional theater war force sizing and shaping construct, according to Army Chief Gen. George Casey, as it’s of little use as a planning tool for future conflicts. A consensus is building among the service chiefs that DoD should jettison the two war construct in the Quadrennial Defense Review, he said.

The Obama administration may consider Afghanistan the main military mission but the number of casualties, both civilian and military, from the fighting in Iraq are higher than those in Afghanistan. A bomb killed an American soldier in Baghdad yesterday, bringing to at least 20 the number of U.S. troops killed this month in Iraq, the most since September 2008. While more U.S. troops are dying in Afghanistan, civilian Iraqi deaths far outpace those in Afghanistan. One analyst warns that the U.S. must slow its withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

The presumptive next director of the National Reconnaissance Office, builder and operator of America’s spy satellites, is the recently retired commander of Air Force Materiel Command, Bruce Carlson. His predecessor at the NRO, Scott Large, resigned one day after President Obama approved a major new electro-optical spy satellite system that will be built and operated by the spy satellite agency.

The director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, said during an otherwise pretty dull hearing before the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee that the threat to the United States has “increased substantially” with the recent launch by Iran of a small satellite and the launch last week of a mid-range ballistic missile.

Few publications can match AvWeek when it comes to enthusiasm for DARPA aerospace stories. They often capture really neat technology that has the potential to be one of those ever elusive game-changers on the battlefield or in everyday life. The following story captures those qualities perfectly. While there’s only $7 million on the table, the Triple T could be used on manned or unmanned aircraft and deployed against other planes, cruise missiles and air defenses — quite a range of capabilities. the story also peeks at some other nifty DARPA efforts in the proposed 2010 budget.

The senior Air force leadership has drafted a plan that appears to have the right ingredients to stave off another tanker fiasco or a Darleen Druyun. The plan, called A Roadmap to Recapture Acquisition Excellence, was signed by both Air Force Secretary Mike Donley and by Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. We’ve got comment from service insiders and the Hill.

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman stepped forward today and laid out the Navy’s shipbuilding problems in stark terms. The service looks “incompetent in the manner of managing its resources,” he said Friday at a Hudson Institute seminar on the Navy. “Clearly, we have a problem, a deep endemic problem,” said Lehman, who led the Navy during the Reagan administration.

The Army will break apart the program formerly known as FCS into three separate programs, one for new ground combat vehicles, another for technological upgrades or “spin-outs” that will go to all Army units, and a third for a communications network and software, service officials said today. The Army is expected to issue a stop work order on the Manned Ground Vehicle portion of the FCS contract within days and will then renegotiate the details of the remaining contract parts with prime contactor Boeing. Cancelling the massive FCS program will cost nearly $1 billion in termination fees.

UPDATED: With Marine statement that they supplied all relevant information requested by the House committee and OSD had not released it.
Stonewall. It’s a strong term to use in Washington. But that’s what the chairman of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee accused the Pentagon of today for witholding from Congress reports about the V-22 Osprey. Rep. Edolphus Towns told Marine Lt. Gen. George Trautman, deputy commandant for aviation, that if the Pentagon did not turn over the information his committee had requested then the lawmakers would “compel your compliance.”

We may have two presidential helicopter programs in our future, not just one. That’s what Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in a Tuesday afternoon hearing. One helo would fly the president and aides to Camp David and other standard presidential venues. The other would be used to evacuate the president in a crisis. We think they would have to call it Rescue 1.

The guiding American strategy of responding to two major contingency operations may well fall during this Quadrennial Review, Michele Flournoy signaled to reporters today. “We have to be able to do multiple things at a time,” Flournoy said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. She ticked off, Iraq, Afghanistan, piracy and terrorism as realities the US must contend with and have a force capable of managing. She said many of the major QDR decisions should be made by late summer.

Contradicting recent press reports saying the entire FCS program — not just the vehicles — had been cancelled by OSD, Army Chief Gen. George Casey told the SASC today that was not the case and that the rest of the program will go forward following restructuring. Casey said he tried but ultimately was unable to convince SecDef Gates that the Army had built enough protection against IEDs into the FCS vehicles.

Adm. Mike Mullen doesn’t want “to tie our troops’ hands” but drone and bomb strikes that kill civilians undermine the counterinsurgency mission. When you boil it down that is what Mullen said yesterday when I asked him iif drone attacks that killed civilians were a major problem for operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I believe each time we do that [kill civilians] put our strategy in jeopardy…” he said.

One consequence of the Pakistani military’s counteroffensive against the Taliban in Swat is that it has driven up to 5,000 Pakistani Taliban fighters across the border into Afghanistan, an analyst notes. An ISAF compilation of key metrics released this week shows insurgent attacks in Afghanistan have jumped by more than 60 percent in the first months of this year.

When Adm. Mike Mullen spoke at the Brookings Institution about equipment that would be going to Afghanistan there was only program he mentioned by name — the M-ATV. In the last three-and-and-half months the M-ATV has gone from idea to concept to RFP to $5.5 billion in the 2010 budget request. We’ve got a video tour of the Oshkosh version, unveiled today.

The Marines plan to send field modified A/KC-130J transport-tanker-gunships to Afghanistan by the end of the year to provide troops with much needed over-watch and precision close air support, Commandant Gen. James Conway said last week. The “Harvest Hawk” program uses a palletized “roll-on, roll-off” sensor and targeting package along with wing mounted missiles and a 30mm cannon to transform a KC-130J aerial refueling tanker into a gunship within a matter of hours.

The Department of Homeland Security will lose its role as the US goverment’s lead agency on cyber security and the current head of the National Security Agency is almost certain to win a fourth star and become the combatant commander responsible for cyber warfare. Also, a White House cyber czar will lead the nation’s efforts on this front, leaving the job in the hands of a policy person instead of in the hands of an operator. Those are among the preliminary results of the so-called 60-day study led by Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security councils.

The Army is likely to add more Stryker brigades to its future force, by converting existing heavy armor brigades to the medium weight Strykers, service leaders told the House Armed Services Committee. The specific make-up of that force, in terms of heavy, medium and light brigades, is being scrutinized in the QDR strategic review, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told lawmakers, and while not wanting to prejudge the outcome, he said the Strykers will likely have an increased role in that future mix.