Lockheed Martin-Led Team Begins Construction On Navy Littoral Combat Ship, The Future USS Nantucket

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  July 30, 2019 | International, Naval

  Lockheed Martin Celebrates FBM Headquarters Move To Florida's Space Coast

  TITUSVILLE, Fla., July 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) celebrated the move of the Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) Headquarters from Sunnyvale, California to Florida's Space Coast during an official flag-raising event. Establishing this new site is one milestone in the larger move of more than 300 jobs to the Space Coast area, expanding Lockheed Martin's already significant presence. Titusville was selected as the FBM Headquarters to house this critical mission. It allows for continued partnership with the Navy and a solid foundation for the next chapters of the program. "We are thrilled and grateful to call Titusville our new home," said Sarah Hiza, vice president for Fleet Ballistic Missile programs at Lockheed Martin Space. "This region plays a prominent role in the defense industry. I am very proud to represent our program headquarters in this community and continue to provide the highest level of support to our Navy customer. What they do for our nation is critical, and we deeply appreciate the men and women who serve." Many distinguished guests joined Rick Ambrose, executive vice president for Lockheed Martin Space, and Scott Keller, vice president and general manager for Strategic and Missile Defense Systems, to recognize this milestone. They included Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe, director Navy Strategic Systems Programs, Florida Senator Tom Wright, Congressmen Thad Altman, Tyler Sirois and Randy Fine, and Lynda Weatherman, president and CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast. For more than 60 years, Lockheed Martin has contributed to the FBM program with the US Navy. In 2017, the FBM program announced portions of the program would relocate from Sunnyvale, California to other locations to include Colorado. Lockheed Martin has developed, built and sustained six generations of submarine-launched ballistic missiles under the FBM program. The current generation of missiles, designated Trident II D5, are carried aboard the US Navy's Ohio-class submarines and make up the sea-based leg of the nation's nuclear triad. They are also carried aboard the United Kingdom's Vanguard-class submarine as their nation's sole nuclear deterrent. For additional information, visit our website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/FBM https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-07-30-Lockheed-Martin-Celebrates-FBM-Headquarters-Move-To-Floridas-Space-Coast

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  April 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Global Defense Spending Decline Expected As Nations Deal with Coronavirus

  Experts see domestic projects taking priority over national security in the coming years. After five straight years of growth, global defense spending is expected to decline in the coming years as nations deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, analysts say. In 2019, global defense spending topped $1.9 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's latest tally. The U.S. represents 38 percent of the world's defense expenditures and with China, the two superpowers account for 52 percent of the world's defense spending. But because of COVID-19, experts anticipate a shift government spending worldwide toward domestic projects and away from weapons and the military. “What we can expect is that spending [is] really going to decrease,” Nan Tian, a defense spending expert with the institute, said Tuesday during a Stimson Center webcast. “We've seen this historically following the [2008 and 2009 financial] crisis where many countries in Europe really started to cut back on military spending.” Even before the coronavirus sent the global economy into a tailspin, U.S. defense spending had been predicted to flatten in the coming years. Now with trillions of dollars being spent on massive coronavirus stimulus packages, flat defense spending levels could wind up being a best-case scenario. “In today's world with [coronavirus], flat defense budget, I think, is what everybody is hoping for because it could go the other direction; it could go negative,” Hawk Carlisle, president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association and a retired four-star commander of Air Combat Command and Pacific Air Forces, said in an interview Tuesday. “This is going to be years to climb out of.” One reason for the expected spending dip: the deficit. Regardless of the results of the November presidential and congressional elections, deficit reduction is likely to become a priority. A recent estimate pegs the 2020 deficit at $3.8 trillion. But it is expected that a Trump re-election would keep Republicans in more of a spending mood. “If the presidency goes to a Democrat, then Republicans are going to get more about being fiscal conservatives again sooner,” Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, said during a Monday webcast. “If Trump wins a second term, we probably have another year or two reprieve from that.” Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute is wary that lawmakers eager to reduce federal spending in the wake of coronavirus bailouts could enact a deficit-cutting measure akin to the Budget Control Act of 2011, which capped defense spending annually between 2013 and 2021. “The Budget Control Act by another name ... could come as fast as next [fiscal] year,” she said on the same webcast. While defense and security spending is typically a top priority of Republicans and defense-minded Democrats, stabilizing the U.S. economy and healthcare could become a higher priority regardless of who wins the election and control in Congress. Among voters in both parties, there is wide public support for reducing expensive overseas military interventions. DON'T MISS The Pentagon Will Use AI to Predict Panic Buying, COVID-19 Hotspots How China Sees the World Did the Coronavirus Escape from a Chinese Lab? Here's What the Pentagon Says The 1918 flu and the U.S. military Haircuts in a Time of Coronavirus? “[I]solationism may exert a countervailing force, as there is demand to steer resources away from defense and towards domestic needs (healthcare, education, jobs),” Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners, wrote in an April 23 note to investors. “[W]e are seeing that awarding disproportionate resources to military spending may be weakening the resilience of other sectors in our economy,” Mandy Smithberger — director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, part of the Project on Government Oversight — said on the Stimson Center webcast. “I think we are going to be seeing real political debate about how much money should go to military spending, how much we should be prioritizing arms sales and interests of the defense industry,” she said. Unlike the past decade when foreign arms sales, to some extent, were a backstop to weapon makers amid U.S. defense spending declines, this time around will likely be different since the world economy is dealing with coronavirus. Smithberger said low oil prices could weaken the buying power in the region that spends heavily on U.S. weapons. While the U.S. and China remain the top two defense spenders, last year India and Russia jumped ahead of Saudi Arabia, which fell to fifth on the list. Germany climbed from ninth to seventh — jumping ahead of the U.K. and Japan. NATO allies collectively spent just over $1 trillion. All of that spending is likely to drop. https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2020/04/global-defense-spending-decline-expected-nations-deal-coronavirus/164997

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  June 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Defense industry aid in limbo as new COVID package drags

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― It's been seven weeks since Pentagon officials first pledged to ask Congress for billions of dollars in the next stimulus package to help defense contractors affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but the request remains in limbo. Though the pandemic, according to Department of Defense officials, has been hitting space-launch companies as well as the aviation and shipbuilding supply chains, the Trump administration appears to have sidelined a request to provide more financial support. Such support would supplement $688 million for the defense-industrial base that the DoD previously earmarked as part of the $10.5 billion it got from the coronavirus relief fund created under the CARES Act. New friction between Congress and the Trump administration over the latter's use of the military to respond to nationwide protests as well as its slow use of past stimulus funds likely spell headwinds for another tranche of aid, observers say. “First question will be whether there will ever be another stimulus, given current animosity between the Hill and administration,” said Bill Greenwalt, a defense consultant who was a senior defense acquisitions official in the George W. Bush administration. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord said April 20 that the DoD plans to ask for “billions and billions” in a new package to help Pentagon suppliers, pending approval from the White House Office of Management and Budget. Lawmakers will have a chance to ask what that request would contain and about the health of the defense-industrial base when she testifies before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at a public event May 4 that he anticipated “the likely need for additional monies” for medical supplies and “to continue priming the defense-industrial base.” “We want people at work, we want our base at work, we want to continue with payments, we want to help with cash flow, and we're looking at a variety of ways by which we can do that. Again, it's very important,” he said. By that time, the Pentagon had submitted the request to OMB, where it has since stalled, according to two congressional aides. The DoD, in close contact with industry, has projected a three-month slowdown for top weapons programs and sought to make $3 billion in expedited “progress payments" to increase cash flow to primary contractors and more vulnerable, smaller subcontractors. Pandemic-related closures and other disruptions are expected to mean some number of weapons programs will also cost more and arrive later than initially anticipated. “There is no doubt there will be an impact on cost and schedule of DoD programs when the vast majority of people are not going to work,” Greenwalt said. “Then you have the issues of disruption of supply chains and actual closed lines due to the virus.” Meanwhile, Congress is split over how next to address economic and health care crises created by the pandemic. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants to measure the impact of past tranches before taking up more funding, saying there are no plans to advance a stimulus bill before the two-week recess begins July 3. He and President Donald Trump were still discussing last week how to fashion the next economic stimulus bill. A stronger-than-expected jobs report could further scramble an already uncertain picture for passing a fifth and possibly final coronavirus aid bill. The positive statistics are feeding the wait-and-see approach of the White House and its GOP allies in Congress. It's also unclear how Congress will be predisposed to a request for more defense funding after it was disclosed last month that the Pentagon has so far placed on contract only 23 percent of the $10.5 billion it was afforded by the CARES Act. The DoD responded to lawmaker concerns with its spending plan for the aid, which prioritized suppliers of aircraft engine parts, shipbuilding, electronics and space launch. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in April that Congress ought to forgo a spending boost for the DoD in COVID-19 aid packages, as public health needs were more pressing. Along similar lines, more than two dozen House Democrats wrote Smith to say defense spending for 2021 should be lower than 2020's $738 billion top line, and that COVID-19 aid should be increased. For its part, the National Defense Industrial Association has called for a supplemental defense spending bill to cover the military's pandemic-related costs. It remains to be seen whether the massive fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act will emerge as a potential vehicle for the aid. The Senate Armed Services Committee was this week occupied with the markup of its version of the bill, and the House Armed Services Committee expects to take up its version in late June and early July. “Pentagon leaders are going to be climbing uphill on this request generally given that the GOP is souring on any more stimulus at all,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget analyst with the American Enterprise Institute. “Not a party-wide belief yet by any means, but there was already a desire to move on, and the focus now is on the protests and NDAA markup.” Though the Pentagon's request isn't public, Eaglen said it was initially based on the armed services' lists of items left unfunded in Trump's FY21 budget request, which are heavy with procurement programs. Eaglen suggested the administration would do better to find savings within the DoD's own budget. “I think it will be important for DoD not to look tone-deaf,” Eaglen said. “There will be excess readiness and other funds that should go to stimulus priorities first and then, if there is any gap, Congress can plug it from there.” https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/06/09/defense-industry-aid-in-limbo-as-new-covid-aid-drags