May 19, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
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June 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Key debate on military protest response, budget priorities set to happen behind closed doors on Capitol Hill
The biggest defense news on Capitol Hill this week will be taking place behind the scenes rather than in public view, as lawmakers grapple with the military's response to recent nationwide protests and their own plans for next year's Pentagon budget.
On Monday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville and District of Columbia National Guard Commander Maj. Gen. William Walker will brief members of the House Armed Services Committee in a non-public meeting.
The session was originally scheduled for late last week, amid concerns that guardsmen may have overstepped their roles as security support for D.C. police responding to some of the massive racial equality demonstrations outside the White House in recent days.
The protests were sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man prosecutors say was murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Since then, Pentagon officials appear to have tamped down President Donald Trump's suggestions that active-duty troops should be brought in to help handle the work, creating a massive show of force to “dominate” the streets of major cities across the country.
But House Armed Services Committee members have said they still have lingering questions about how those discussions progressed, and whether guardsmen were put in an uncomfortable political role instead of their traditional support response.
Democratic members are also sparring with Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, after committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., vowed to bring the Pentagon leaders to Capitol Hill for a full public hearing on the issues this week.
Esper and Milley have thus far refused, although Pentagon officials said they are negotiating scheduling issues for a possible future appearance.
“The DoD legislative affairs team remains in discussion with the HASC on this request," Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson, a Pentagon spokesman, said last week. "In the meantime, DoD has committed to provide Army Secretary McCarthy, Army Chief of Staff Gen. McConville, and D.C. National Guard Commanding General Maj. Gen. Walker to brief the committee next week on the presence of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., this past week.”
Smith and 30 other Democratic committee members called Esper's refusal to appear this week “unacceptable.”
Several members of the committee have vowed to include the issue in the annual defense authorization bill. Subcommittee mark-ups of the massive military budget policy measure are scheduled to begin on June 22.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is beginning its mark-up of the authorization bill this week, with the first two subcommittee section votes scheduled for Monday afternoon. The full committee mark-up will take place starting on Wednesday.
Unlike their House counterparts, however, nearly all of that work will be done behind closed doors. Senate committee officials have said in the past that they can more quickly and efficiently navigate the hundreds of legislative issues within the bill if they keep the work out of public view, to allow seamless transition between classified and non-classified topics.
The only portion of the Senate authorization bill work to be made public will be the personnel subcommittee mark-up, set for Tuesday at 2 p.m. The hearing will be streamed through the committee's web site, as restrictions on public access to the Capitol complex remain in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The House Armed Services Committee will have a public hearing on a separate topic later this week: Ellen Lord, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, will testify on Wednesday about the impact of the ongoing pandemic on the defense industrial base.
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September 19, 2018 | International, Aerospace
How the Air Force plans to use space to project power in the 21st century
By: Daniel Cebul NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.— As the National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategyhave made clear, space is set to become a crucial war fighting domain, as nearly every operation the military conducts relies on space assets. So when the leaders of the Air Force's Global Strike Command, Space Command, commander in Europe and Africa and special operations head all shared a stage at the Air Force Associations annual conference to discuss operations, its no surprise they chose to focus on how the service plans to leverage space assets to project power in the 21st century. One reason space is so important, not just to the Air Force, but all military services, is that space assets enable multidomain operations that are becoming the norm in the modern warfare. Citing the Air Force's successful strikes against Assad-regime chemical weapons manufacturing sites in Syria in April, Gen. Tod D. Wolters, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa, explained the mission was successful because “we had well-vetted and thorough multidomain operations.” Another key reason the Air Force is doubling down on space is because the outcome of a conflict with a near-peer will largely depend on winning the battle in space. “If deterrence fails I am convinced ... if we are up against a peer or near-peer we are going to have to fight for space superiority,” said Gen. John Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command. “As the National Defense Strategy talks about, that's going to require capability from multiple domains to come forward,” he added. Raymond noted the need to control assets in space was prioritized in the National Security Strategy, which talks about “unfettered access to and freedom to maneuver in space as a vital national interest. That's significant, it wasn't in the last National Security Strategy.” And unlike in previous endeavors beyond Earth's atmosphere, the U.S. is no longer going it alone. Looking at the spectrum of operations “from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief on one end to kinetic on the other end, there is nothing that isn't done without multidomain operations or integration of air, space and cyber together, and there is nothing we do not do without our allies," Raymond said. "So by definition multidomain, [and command and control] has to be coalition friendly.” Considering the need for U.S. partners in space and how the space environment has evolved, Raymond explained, "we haven't needed to have partners in space before. It was a benign domain.... That is not the case today and we are working really hard to develop those partnerships that we enjoy in all other domains than space.” But projecting power from space requires work to be done on terra firma by the U.S. and its allies. Gen. Timothy Ray, commander of U.S. Air Force global strike command, explained “The ability to improve much faster at our bases and our power projection platforms absolutely has to be an integrated conversation. We talk about integrating air space and cyber we fundamentally have to master the integration of our bases.” https://www.defensenews.com/newsletters/digital-show-daily/2018/09/18/how-the-air-force-plans-to-use-space-to-project-power-in-the-21st-century-2
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October 22, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security
Cybercriminals Exploiting Docker API Servers for SRBMiner Crypto Mining Attacks
Docker API servers are under attack as hackers deploy SRBMiner to mine XRP illicitly. Learn more about this threat.