Army

SIMI VALLEY, CA -- Army leaders, for a third consecutive year, are commencing a top-down review of the service's entire spending plan to hunt for projects that can be canceled, reduced or delayed to bolster modernization projects in the fiscal year 2022 budget.

The Army will begin testing prototypes of the Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System with five brigade combat teams next April.

The compromise fiscal year 2020 defense policy bill allows the Defense Department to continue developing and testing conventional, ground-launched missiles with ranges in excess of limits set by a now-abandoned treaty, while lawmakers want more information on DOD's plans for the weapons before approving their procurement and deployment.

The Army today said in a filing that it wants the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to put cases about the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program V, or LOGCAP V, on hold while it makes new "price reasonableness determinations."

High-priority Missile Defense Agency projects slated for fiscal year 2020 are at risk of being hamstrung beginning this month if Congress and the White House do not agree to a spending bill, with a Standard Missile-3 Block IB multiyear procurement deal, launch of the Next Generation Interceptor program and more at risk in the event of a yearlong continuing resolution.

Lawmakers negotiating the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill have decided it would be best for congressional appropriators to address President Trump's use of Pentagon funds to construct a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border without the consent of Congress, though the authorization bill remains stalled over other issues.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said today the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill is being "held hostage" by legislative disagreements beyond his committee's jurisdiction and can only be finalized by Republican and Democratic party leaders.

The growing proliferation of weapons with global reach is prompting Pentagon leaders to launch a study on the need for a robust domestic air defense capability to protect the entire nation -- which, since the advent of flight more than a century ago, has relied in part on two vast oceans as a buffer against adversaries attacking American citizens and soil with low-flying aircraft and missiles.

Mike Griffin, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering, has tasked the Defense Science Board with reviewing the U.S. defense industrial base to identify "proactive" steps needed to increase depth, breadth and security.