September 10, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper intends to implement changes from his review of Defense Department organizations on a rolling basis, rather than waiting until the review process is completely finished, according to the department's top spokesman.
Jonathan Rath Hoffman, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said Monday that there's “no interest” from Esper to wait until the review is fully done or the start of the next fiscal year to start implementing program changes, including potential cuts.
“It's going to be an ongoing process. If he makes a decision, it's not going to be ‘I have to look through everything and then make some decisions.' If he sees a program that needs to end or be moved, he'll make that decision as quickly as he can,” Hoffman told reporters. “He's going to make changes as we move forward. If he identifies changes that would save money, there's no interest in waiting until next year to start saving money.”
An Aug. 2 memo kicked off a departmentwide review of programs ahead of the development for the fiscal 2021 budget request. The goal is to find savings and drive a “longer-term focus on structural reform, ensuring all [defensewide] activities are aligned to the National Defense Strategy while evaluating the division of functions between defense-wide organizations and the military departments," per the document.
The so-called fourth estate of the department includes 27 agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Information Systems Agency and the Missile Defense Agency. A September 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office estimated those agencies collectively have an annual budget of at least $106 billion.
Esper has acknowledged the review sounds a lot like the “night court” process the Army used to find roughly $25 billion in savings that could then be reinvested into new capabilities. But he has so far declined to offer a target dollar figure for savings.
"It's a long road. I'm spending two hours a week, 90 minutes to two hours a week on this in formal session, so we're just going to work our way through it week after week after week,” the secretary said Aug 27. “I'm looking for programs that don't have as much value relative to another critical war-fighting capability, absolutely.”
Hoffman described the process as starting with internal reviews inside the various offices, looking at what projects are ongoing. Those are cross-checked with assessments from others in the department that are looking to find cost-sharing or cost-saving options. Those are collectively provided up to the deputy secretary of defense before being presented at regular meetings with Esper.
Esper then “holds a review with all the parties that may have equities and go through it. I sat through one of these last week. He really digs into what are the appropriate roles, what are the appropriate missions, is there someone better or capable to hold this than the equity that has it now, is there better cost savings,” Hoffman said.
Some have questioned whether Esper's plans will run into roadblocks in Congress. On Monday, Hoffman stressed that the department has been keeping Congress in the loop.
“The secretary has been very adamant he wants to make sure Congress is fully informed,” he said.
October 5, 2023 | International, Naval
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August 28, 2018 | International, C4ISR
By ROSE L. THAYER AUSTIN, Texas – It could cost between $30 and $50 billion annually for the Army's Futures Command to work towards modernizing the service, Gen. Mark Milley, the Army's chief of staff, said Friday. In Milley's formal remarks during an activation ceremony for the command at its new headquarters in downtown Austin, he said most of the Army is involved in today's military operations. Futures Command instead will think about tomorrow's fight. “The only thing that is more expensive than preventing war is fighting a war,” Milley said. “The only thing more expensive than fighting a war, is fighting and losing a war. This command is all about setting the United States Army up to not only win on the battlefield, but to be decisive and absolutely dominate on the battlefield so that we inflict punishment and destroy the enemy at the least cost to ourselves.” Futures Command hopes to help do that by working with technology companies, startups, academia and businesses of all sizes with ideas on how to modernize the Army and be prepared to fight forces of similar strength. The mission is to provide soldiers with the weapons and equipment they need, when they need them and ensure success on future battlefields – all at a much faster rate than the Defense Department's acquisitions process allows now. Milley said Futures Command would not have been formed if not for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who announced Friday that he is discontinuing treatment for his brain cancer. The general said he and McCain discussed the challenges of procurement about three years ago as Milley awaited confirmation as chief of staff. “[McCain] said, ‘I want you to think about how you're going to reform the Army',” Milley recalled. “He planted that seed that we had significant challenges.” They continued the dialogue for several months and slowly their talks developed into Futures Command. On Friday, Gen. John “Mike” Murray took the helm of the new command with the support of its highest ranking noncommissioned officer Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Crosby. Together, the men unveiled the command's flag on the 17th floor of an University of Texas System office building. It is the first time that the Army has established a command in the middle of an urban center. The space's still unfinished walls and ceilings showed the work ahead to get the Futures Command operational. With the expectation of employing about 100 soldiers and about 400 civilians, the cost of managing just the headquarters is expected to be about $80 to $100 million, or on par with the other four-star commands. The new command is included in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. Milley said Murray has six months to get settled, and another six to start showing results. https://www.stripes.com/news/army-expects-to-spend-up-to-50-billion-a-year-on-futures-command-1.544234
July 24, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
Mark Pomerleau About two years after it was created, the Pentagon's artificial intelligence center is setting its sights on new projects, including one on joint information warfare. This initiative seeks to deliver an information advantage to the Department of Defense in two ways. The first is improving the DoD's ability to integrate commercial and government AI solutions. The second is improving the standardization of foundational DoD data needed to field high-performing AI-enabled capabilities to support operations in the information environment, said Lt. Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Nand Mulchandani, the JAIC's acting director, told reporters in early July that this initiative also includes cyber operations — both broad defensive and offensive measures for use by U.S. Cyber Command. The DoD is discovering that it needs ways to process, analyze and act upon the vast amounts of data it receives. “As we look at the ability to influence and shape in this environment, we're going to have to have artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools, specifically for information ops that hit a very broad portfolio,” Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of Special Operations Command, said at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in May. “We're going to have to understand how the adversary is thinking, how the population is thinking, and work in these spaces in time of relevance. If you're not at speed, you won't be relevant. “To make sure the U.S. message and our allies' and partner message is being heard and it's resonating. What we need is adapting data tech that will actually work in this space and we can use it for our organization.” A program in support of network incident detection, called MADHAT — or Multidimensional Anomaly Detection fusing HPC, Analytics, and Tensors — is helping the JAIC develop an information warfare capability. The program allows for the exploration of network data as a way of enabling more effective detection of nuanced adversarial threats, Abrahamson said. MADHAT has already been deployed, he added, and analysts working on the High Performance Computing Modernization Program are being trained on the tool for operational use. This program accelerates technology development and transitions it into defense capabilities through the application of high-performance computing. Mulchandani also told reporters that other information warfare-related efforts include using natural language processing, which involve processing and analyzing text. “NLP and speech-to-text is actually a fairly mature AI technology that can be deployed in production. And that actually is going to be used in reducing information overload,” he said. “So being able to scan vast quantities of open-source information and bring the sort of nuggets and important stuff on the NLPs.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/information-warfare/2020/07/22/pentagon-ai-team-sets-sights-on-information-warfare/