26 juillet 2019 | International, Autre défense

Budget deal advances despite GOP worries over costs, smaller boost for military

House lawmakers on Thursday advanced a two-year, $2.7 trillion budget plan with $738 billion in military funding in fiscal 2020 over the objections of conservative colleagues who objected to the increased federal spending levels.

The measure — which passed 284-149 — has the support of President Donald Trump and leaders from both chambers, but drew the support of only 65 Republicans in the final vote. That's roughly one-third of the House GOP membership.

Senate lawmakers are expected to take up the matter next week. The measure is designed to prevent a partial government shutdown this fall and stabilize appropriations plans for all aspects of federal agencies until after next year's presidential election.

On the House floor Thursday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., called the deal a critical step forward in restoring regular budget order and predictability not just for military programs, but for all of the government.

“There is no secret we have big differences between the Democratically controlled House and White House and the Republican-controlled Senate,” he said. “Despite those differences, we have to function. We have to be able to fund the government and meet our responsibilities to the American people.”

Ahead of the vote, Trump worked to bolster Republican support for the measure, which would increase Defense Department spending by more than 3 percent over fiscal 2019 levels. He tweeted that the new budget plan “greatly helps our Military and our Vets.”

White House officials (and Republican congressional leaders) had pushed for even more in defense spending recent weeks, while congressional Democrats had insisted any military funding increase be offset with additional non-defense spending.

In the end, the non-military money in the new budget deal will grow by about $10 billion more than defense spending over the next two years, and the military spending for fiscal 2020 will fall about $12 billion short of the White House's hopes.

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in a statement called the compromise plan “a massive spending deal that will further in debt future generations and remove reasonable safeguards to prevent the growth of government and the misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and a House Armed Services Committee member, said he would only vote for the deal if it were paired with congressional action to look for paths toward debt reduction.

“It you could create a commission that was empowered to bring its recommendations to the floor for an up or down vote, and had members who were younger, next-generation members, I think it could work,” Gallagher said in a video posted to Twitter.

Two weeks ago, House Republicans voted against a $733 billion military spending topline as part of the annual defense policy bill, in large part citing insufficient funding totals for national security.

House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Mac. Thornberry, R-Texas, on Thursday voted for the slightly larger defense spending total, telling reporters the two-year deal would provide much-needed stability for the military.

“Given the political turmoil that comes with an election year ... having a two-year budget deal that takes us to the end, hallelujah, of the Budget Control Act is more valuable than if you had held out for a few billion,” Thornberry said.

Democrats had misgivings of their own, including the deal's lack of restrictions on Trump's ability to shift money within the budget toward a controversial border wall. The Pentagon was expected to shift a total of about $6.1 billion from its budget to help build a border wall, including about $3.6 billion from military construction projects.

But in the end, all but 16 Democrats in the House backed the measure.

House members began their extended summer break on Thursday night, leaving the details of separate appropriations bills reflecting the new budget deal to be sorted out in September. The Senate is scheduled to begin their break at the end of next week, after voting on the measure.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/07/25/budget-deal-advances-despite-gop-worries-over-costs-smaller-boost-for-military/

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20 novembre 2019 | International, Terrestre

German Army acquires 1500 SPIKE missiles and hundreds of launchers
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2 mars 2020 | International, Naval

The US Navy’s FFG(X) could be awarded sooner than expected
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U..S Navy's next-generation frigate could be awarded within the next few months, earlier than expected, the service's top civilian said Friday. Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had tasked Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts to look at accelerating the award of the first ship, which was slated for this fall. “The plan was to try and do it in the latter part of this year,” Modly told Hewitt. “I've asked [Geurts] to try and accelerate that earlier, and he's looking into the possibilities for doing that. “But obviously, you know, we have acquisition rules, and we want to make sure that we do this in the proper way.” The competition has narrowed to bids from Huntington Ingalls Industries; a team of Navantia and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works; Fincantieri; and Austal USA. Navantia is offering a version of its F-100 design, which is in use by the Spanish Navy; Austal is submitting a version of its trimaran littoral combat ship; Fincantieri is offering its FREMM design; and Huntington Ingalls is believed to be offering an up-gunned version of its national security cutter. Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May. The FFG(X) is supposed to be a small, multimission ship with a modified version of Raytheon's SPY-6 radar destined for the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, as well as some point defense systems and 32 vertical launch cells for about half the cost of a destroyer. The first ship ordered in 2020 is expected to cost $1.28 billion, according to budget documents, with the next ship in 2021 dropping to $1.05 billion. The Navy expects it to take six years to complete design and construction of the first ship, which should be finished in 2026. Once construction begins, planners anticipate it will take 48 months to build. The second frigate is expected to be ordered in April 2021, and from there it should be delivered about five and a half years after the award date. That means that the first ship should be delivered to the fleet in July of 2026, and the second about three months later. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/28/the-us-navys-ffgx-could-be-awarded-sooner-than-expected
13 septembre 2019 | International, Naval

Babcock Team 31 selected as preferred bidder for UK Type 31 frigate programme
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