Swiss, French procurement chiefs meet amid high-stakes ‘Air 2030’ race

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  9 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre

  Army’s ‘night court’ finds $25 billion to reinvest in modernization priorities

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Army has been holding what has been called “night court,” full of “deep dives” to assess how essential existing programs are to the service's radical modernization goalssince the earlier part of this year. And according to the service's secretary, it has found roughly $25 billion through the process to apply to its priorities. Secretary Mark Esper, in a press briefing at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference, would not speak to the details of what programs will bite the dust to cover the cost of emerging modernization efforts because they are evident in the service's proposed fiscal 2020 budget, which has yet to clear the Office of the Secretary of Defense. But he did say “that dollar figure is a low-end number over the [Future Years Defense Program] FYDP,” adding: “Most of the savings are principally found in the [equipping] peg.” Esper, as well as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and other top leadership, spent roughly 40 to 60 hours reviewing programs within the equipping peg since this spring as a part of a new effort to comb through every program and weigh them against modernization priorities. The thinking goes that if programs or activities didn't fit in the top six modernization priorities the Army laid out a year ago, then the programs could go, freeing up dollars for the priorities. The Army announced last year at AUSA that it planned to stand up Army Futures Command, a new four-star organization tasked to push forward efforts that will modernize the Army by 2028. There are six modernization priorities: Long-Range Precision Fires, Next-Generation Combat Vehicle, Future Vertical Lift, the network, air and missile defense, and soldier lethality. The Army went “program by program, activity by activity to look at each one and assess it and ask ourselves is this more important than a Next-Generation Combat Vehicle, is this more important than a squad automatic weapon, is this more important than Long-Range Precision Fires,” Esper said. “We had to make those trade-offs, and it resulted in, again, reductions and cancellations and consolidations, so that is our intent as we continue to go through the other pegs,” Esper said. “We're trying to be as judicious as we can with every dollar that has been disposed by Congress,” Army Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy told Defense News in an interview ahead of AUSA. “This is a way for us to put the highest level of rigor and prioritization that you could give for the department against our priorities.” The Army needs to be prepared for potential contraction of the Budget Control Act, McCarthy noted. “We will be ready for that no matter what.” Starting this month, the Army will take on manning and training programs in the same way. Esper said the Army is “playing a little bit of catch up” to get after reviewing the manning and training pegs, but said the service is going to institutionalize the process. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/08/armys-night-court-finds-25-billion-to-reinvest-in-modernization-priorities

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  21 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  House progressives demand Pentagon cuts, citing pandemic

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― More than two dozen Democrats are demanding that House Armed Services Committee leaders cut defense spending in the 2021 defense policy bill, saying the money would be better spent combating the coronavirus pandemic. A May 19 letter, mostly from Congressional Progressive Caucus members, marked a prelude to what could be complicated efforts to pass the National Defense Authorization Act in the Democrat-led House. The panel is expected in the coming weeks to introduce and mark up a draft, in line with the $740 billion top line set by the 2019 budget deal. But 29 Democrats ― led by House Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Rep. Barbara Lee, a senior appropriator and California progressive ― said the defense spending should be lower than last year's $738 billion top line. With Americans dying from COVID-19 by the thousands, tax dollars would be better spent on an expansion of testing, contact tracing, treatment and vaccine development, they said. “Congress must remain focused on responding to the coronavirus pandemic and distributing needed aid domestically,” the lawmakers wrote. “In order to do so, appropriators must have access to increased levels of non-defense spending which could be constrained by any increase to defense spending.” “Right now, the coronavirus is our greatest adversary. It has killed more than 90,000 Americans, far surpassing the number of casualties during the Vietnam War,” the letter read. “America needs a coronavirus cure, not more war. We need more testing, not more bombs." How the loss of support from 29 House Democrats will factor into passage of the NDAA remains to be seen. In a note accompanying the letter, the organizers noted that if Republicans held back support ― which they did last year ― only 19 Democrats would need to vote “no” this year for the bill to fail. Last year, House Republicans resisted an early version of the 2020 bill written by House Democrats, but even after many of their priorities were stripped out in negotiations with the Republican-controlled Senate, the compromise bill still passed the House without them, 377-48. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi found common ground with the White House on an eleventh hour paid parental leave provision that attracted most Democrats. This year, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., has spoken in favor of working to protect the defense-industrial base through stimulus funding. But with a stimulus bill caught in a partisan deadlock, it's unclear whether lawmakers will see the NDAA as a potential vehicle for defense industry aid. If so, that could be a sticking point. Last month, Smith told reporters that public health needs were more pressing and that within the Pentagon's existing $738 billion budget, defense officials "have a lot of money and ought to spend that money to meet those needs” before Congress considers more. HASC ranking member Mac Thornberry, who led early Republican opposition to last year's bill, has said he is hopeful this year's bill will be more bipartisan. Thornberry, R-Texas, also opposed the idea of cutting defense to fund health care needs. “I bristle a bit at the notion, ‘well, of course [the Department of Defense has] got to get their budget cut,' " he said, “because the world's not going to be safer on the other side of COVID.” https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/05/19/house-progressives-demand-pentagon-cuts-citing-pandemic/

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  29 août 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  Embraer sells A-29 Super Tucano to the Uruguayan Air Force

  Uruguay becomes the sixth nation to operate the A-29 Super Tucano in South America along with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay.