Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week directed senior leaders to conduct a review of the choices that underlie the Defense Department's strategy, force posture, investments and institutional management -- including "all past assumptions, systems and practices," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said today.

Kansas lawmakers have asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to countermand the Air Force's decision to build a fleet of light-attack aircraft for the Afghan military while a contract for that work is under protest.

Industry submitted at least four proposals to the Army for a chance to build a Joint Multi-Role technology demonstrator air vehicle that will guide possible designs and concepts for the service's Future Vertical Lift helicopter expected to take flight around 2035, according to company sources.

The Obama administration will shift funds from the Standard Missile-3 Block IIB program to pay for the deployment of an additional 14 Ground Based Interceptors in Alaska, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced today.

The Air Force today announced it has authorized Sierra Nevada Corp. to build 20 light-attack aircraft for the Afghan military despite an ongoing bid protest from the losing contractor.

The general tasked with leading the Air Force's segment of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review said this morning that the QDR will have important strategic value to the service and the Defense Department regardless of the budgetary and force structure questions DOD is dealing with.

McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, is wrapping up an independent assessment of the Joint Strike Fighter's estimated $1.1 trillion, 30-year operating and support costs -- findings the Pentagon plans to use in a new campaign to drive down the stealth fighter's life-cycle price tag.

The Pentagon has notified Congress how it will spend nearly $204 million this fiscal year for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program funds provided under the continuing resolution, with more than half of the money going to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall this week stressed the vital importance of strong leadership in making acquisition programs succeed, but he said the Air Force has not been heavily affected by years-long vacancies at the top of its acquisition executive ranks.

The Air Force is extending by a year a congressional mandate that requires the service to maintain more than 350 airlift aircraft in its inventory, an in-house decision that allows the service time to conduct additional studies, readdress force-structure needs with its stakeholders and make budget adjustments.

The Air Force has issued a stop-work order to Sierra Nevada Corp. for the construction of 20 light-attack aircraft ticketed for the Afghan military to allow a congressional watchdog office time to mull over whether the service wrongfully awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to a foreign contractor.

A renewed push by the White House to substantially limit or even eliminate overseas contingency operations funding beginning in fiscal year 2015 could leave the Defense Department short tens of billions of dollars, according to defense officials.

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall said this week that his staff is directing a re-think of the way the Defense Department uses some of its contracting methods to ensure they are not overused or too vaguely defined, as has been the case with "lowest price, technically acceptable" contracting.

A communications issue with the Air Force's first Space-Based Infrared Systems satellite in geosynchronous Earth orbit, identified last fall, will not impact next week's scheduled launch of the constellation's second satellite, according to service officials.

The Joint Strike Fighter's program executive officer and the Pentagon's top acquisition official today cautioned against reading too much into criticism leveled against the program in a February testing report, calling that criticism premature and out of context.

The Air Force will soon ask industry for help in planning how to modernize the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad, eying a big-ticket acquisition effort to either maintain the Minuteman III missile or replace it with a new ICBM that could be hidden in a custom-built underground subway system.

If the Navy is forced to make across-the-board budget cuts under sequestration, it will be "extremely difficult" for the service to buy two Virginia-class submarines per year while it builds an Ohio-class replacement submarine, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said today.

A Virginia congressman is looking to industry to rally members of Congress to revitalize the Navy so that it becomes the most futuristic, lethal, efficient and effective fighting force even during a period of budget uncertainty.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last week awarded Lockheed Martin a $71- million modification to an existing contract for the development of an anti-ship missile, adding an additional flight test beyond the two already scheduled for this year.

The Army has a $93 million shortfall in funding that prevents it from shuttering European bases already slated for closure as a cost saving measure because Congress has yet to pass a fiscal year 2013 spending bill, according to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno.