DoD Buzz

The highly influential Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Pentagon funded think tank, recommends that the Army cut its planned force expansion of 65,000 new soldiers and comes mighty close to saying the service should axe its prized Future Combat Systems modernization program.

The Army is examining emerging concepts of human security and their application to defense and security strategies for the 21st century, with people such as Maj. Shannon Beebe, who spends time in Africa exploring the nexus among development, environment and security in areas such as Darfur and Congo.

Reporters can be really dumb. There I was in front of Raytheon’s booth at the Association of the US Army’s conference with a little button under my thumb. I hit the button. My lower thoracic area got very hot, very fast. So I waited for the machine to recycle and hit the button again. This [...]

Dave Bowman, who was the company’s C-17 program manager, is the new vice president for tankers. Boeing officials say corporate moves affecting the tanker program are routine, but in this heated atmosphere nothing is routine, even if it’s planned and rational.

One of the top defense consultants has published an analysis of what a decline in spending may mean internationally. “The end is in sight. Which companies will survive the downturn in spending? Which strategic changes will be generated by the new Administration? Which industrial players will prove best positioned and most agile in making the transition?” asks Robbin Laird in the June issue of the Royal United Services Institute’s Defence Systems publication.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates should call in the CEOs of Boeing and Northrop (and probably EADS), apologize to them for the tanker fiasco and promise to make it right by conducting the cleanest, most technically rigorous contract award humanly possible. That’s what two of America’s most experienced acquisition experts say needs to happen, and fast.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey had just sworn in slightly more than two dozen new recruits and serving soldiers today at a celebration of the 35th anniversary of the creation of the all-volunteer force with Army Secretary Pete Geren attending. I asked Geren after the ceremony if the US could afford a volunteer force with its ever-increasing costs from bonuses, pay increases and health care.