Pentagon

The Pentagon is allowing individual agencies and contracting offices to approve expensive other transaction agreements without seeking higher level approval if the projects are related to the coronavirus response.

Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist said today the Pentagon is going to "streamline" its internal budget review process to allow more employees to telework during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Defense Department is exploring a vast new test and training complex that would wrap around half the planet, reaching across the near entirety of the Pacific Ocean to support large-scale experimentation of advanced warfighting concepts, a move recommended by a classified study on the future of U.S. military superiority.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said today he is working to include measures that would help the U.S. defense industrial base in an upcoming COVID-19 stimulus bill being crafted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has branded a proposal to improve the missile defense of Guam a "homeland defense" need and has notified Congress that a $1.7 billion requirement for Homeland Defense System-Guam is his top unfunded priority.

The novel coronavirus global pandemic that is currently spreading around the world will lead to an eventual reordering of U.S. national priorities that squeezes defense spending and accelerates efforts to draw down U.S. overseas deployments, according to a defense and foreign policy expert.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command needs approximately $20 billion in the next six years to execute the Pentagon's National Defense Strategy, according to documents obtained by Inside Defense.

The Pentagon is asking Congress for relief from a statutory requirement that the nation's missile defeat policy and strategy be modified by appointing one or more acquisition executives to oversee homeland cruise missile defense and left-of-launch capabilities.

Two defense industry groups, citing the coronavirus outbreak, are pressing lawmakers to provide a six-month extension to the deadline for when federal contractors are banned from using Chinese telecommunications products like Huwaei and ZTE.