Just like old times.
The president's budget was released Friday and represents the largest increase to defense spending in decades. The total includes $1.1 trillion through the traditional appropriations process, as well as an additional $350 billion the administration intends to get through the budget reconciliation process.
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Inside Defense was first to report details of some of the big-ticket spending items in this request, including major investments in the Golden Dome missile shield effort, the F-35 program, and more.
Top Headlines
In a dramatic scene Friday that included mutliple aircraft incidents, the U.S. undertook search and rescue operations after an F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over southwest Iran. Despite calls from Iranian state TV to find the downed aircrew, at least one person was recovered.
A senior official said, "We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army." Another source said the decision was not related to Sec. Hegseth overturning a suspension of aircrew who flew by Kid Rock's house in Nashville recently.
In an address to the nation Wednesday evening, President Trump said U.S. "core strategic objectives are nearing completion." But there was little sign of the conflict winding down late this week as Tehran continued to demonstrate its ability to strike its neighbors in the region.
A lawsuit involving the $400 million construction project on the site of the former East Wing of the White House has made details public about a "massive complex" being constructed by the U.S. military underneath the future ballroom.
A missile attack on Prince Sultan Air Base Friday that hit an E-7 Wedgetail has reignited debate about the aging fleet of AWACS aircraft. Sec. Hegseth, who called the aircraft "expensive and 'gold plated,'" had cancelled the program in favor of a gap-filler based on the E-2D Hawkeye.
The new memo, which takes effect in May, strengthens the authorities of CIOs and directs agencies to submit data on IT contracts, including utilization rates and prices paid that will help integrate better acquisition and technology strategies.
Walk through the leadership of almost any successful government contracting firm, and you'll find the same person at the center of everything important. They know which contracts carry risk. They have relationships with the contracting officers. They understand the unwritten rules of program management. They've built something real over 15 or 20 years, and it shows. Revenue is healthy. The team is capable. The pipeline looks strong.
The Army's recent announcement to award Anduril a $20 billion ceiling contract raised eyebrows. Former defense officials said that the service's push to award high ceiling, prolonged contracts could speed acquisition, but ultimately only time will determine their effectiveness.
The Pentagon has placed increasing emphasis on adopting commercial tech to accelerate the pace at which the U.S. military can put the latest and greatest tools in the hands of warfighters. "Commercial first is vitally important," said the Army's Andrew Evans. But it "also has some challenges, too."
The U.S. has not started any debate inside NATO or issued specific directives on Washington's role in the alliance, according to two NATO diplomats. The Trump administration has not notified Capitol Hill of a pending pullout, according to a senior Senate aide. And talk around the Pentagon of the U.S. withdrawing from the alliance is mum, a defense official said.
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President Trump lashed out at NATO allies this week for their lack of participation in U.S. operations against Iran. Adding to the tension, Spain closed its airspace to U.S. military aircraft, according to SOFX. And Newsweek reported that Austria did the same. Meanwhile, Israel has halted defense acquisitions from France, according to the Hill.
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Feature Opinions
The tendency to frame 3D printing as a law enforcement concern about 'ghost guns' misses broader national security implications because what appears domestically as a niche crime problem scales internationally into battlefield advantage, argues Travis Veillon with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Tehran's goal is to impose persistent economic and political costs until Washington concludes that continuing the war is not worth it. To achieve that, Iran is exploiting a gap in U.S. Air Force doctrine — the distinction between air superiority and air denial, and between the blue skies and the air littoral, argue Maximilian Bremer and Kelly Grieco with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center.
The Department of War is in the midst of the most ambitious acquisition reform in 60 years, yet it is still on the verge of buying weapons and systems for yesterday's problems. What's needed to solve this is a rapid Portfolio Acquisition Executive requirements process to replace the rigid and unwieldy JCDIS, argues Steve Blank.
Worth a listen
U.S. Space Force Col. James Horne paints a clear picture of a rapidly evolving space enterprise — one that is scaling at a pace not seen since the 1970s. He explains that operations at Vandenberg Space Force Base are accelerating dramatically in a "second space race," fueled by years of investment in the industrial base and a deliberate strategy to harness commercial innovation.
Editor's Notes
I've personally had the experience recently of getting some quotes for projects that have been building up around my house. As we walk around, I try to remember the list of things I'm supposed to ask about because my husband can't be there when the contractor shows up, and he usually handles this kind of stuff. As we talk, I do my best to set out the vision — move this, change that, paint this, etc. I noticed something in the conversation that I think is natural in any human interaction: as I say I want lights, the contractor says he could put dimmer switches in this part of the house, and as I say we're thinking about rearranging the TV area, he explains exactly where he'd mount it. It turns out I do want dimmer switches, but it's a hard pass on mounting the TV. This interaction isn't not at all a bad thing. I mentally equate it to being in a serious conversation with someone and showing you're listening by finishing their sentence or taking the conversation the direction you think they're going. This principle translates to the government, and I'm making the not-at-all groundbreaking comment that contracting is a conversation about the execution of managed expectations. The commentary, The U.S. Military Risks Letting Contractors Define How It Sees the Battlefield, published earlier this week from War on the Rocks piqued my curiosity because it implicitly poses the question of whether there is an upper limit to just how much my example scales. Over time, as the government has shifted from developing its own technology to outsourcing that responsibility to the industrial base, its level of control has been in how it frames its requirements. That process can be prescriptive or participatory, but it seems self-evident (especially from my experience with home renovations) that the customer tends to get a better product when there is a dialogue prior to signing on the dotted line. Here's where things get interesting in the article. As systems powered by AI become more complex, so does that conversation. It's no longer just a question of what will be built, but now also a question of the dynamic nature of the foundation tools are built on and the systems they create. In the case described in the article, the military is relying on contractor-built software to help interpret the battlefield, but it does not control the "ontological layer" of definitions inside that software that determine what counts as a threat. In that paradigm, the equation is no longer "requirement + solution = capability," but rather an ever-evolving equation based on dynamic inputs from the solutions themselves that, in turn, shape future requirements. If anything, this seems to me to be a call for more conversation between government and industry — and deeper, more consistent ones, at that.
Make sure you check out this week's TMCP original, The GovCon Company That Works — Until It Doesn't from Robert Jones. I felt particularly called out by his article as someone who bristles at hard-fast processes — it's a great read!
In the Weeds
Washington appears to be years away from consensus on the expanding security risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence. Concrete international agreements also do not yet exist. There is a tenuous potential path forward to avoid a disaster, but it will require out-of-the-box thinking, intense determination, and unprecedented cooperation.
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The SBA announced that small manufacturers will soon be eligible for enhanced support through the administration's International Trade Loan Program. The loans, which come with a 90 percent federal guarantee, will help manufacturers expand facilities, hire workers, and increase production.
The request was issued Monday for companies to submit possible delivery timelines for 3 days, 15 days, and 30 days and include information about the "highest threat level" that the bunkers could withstand. The search for new shelters comes one month after the start of Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28, and the U.S. plans to deploy more troops — at least 1,000 82nd Airborne Division soldiers — to the Middle East in the coming weeks.
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So far during Operation Epic Fury, 13 U.S. troops have been killed, with hundreds injured. Now the Army is looking for sensors designed to assess the physiological effects of rapid, damaging shock waves caused by explosions, according to a new solicitation reported on by Defense Scoop.
Last year, just before the Fourth of July holiday, the U.S. Space Force officially took ownership of a new operating system for the GPS navigation network, raising hopes that one of the military's most troubled space programs might finally bear fruit. Nine months later, the Pentagon may soon call it quits on the program.
Sec. Hegseth signed a memorandum that directs military installation commanders to allow War Department personnel — namely, uniformed service members — to request to carry privately owned firearms while in their nonofficial duty capacity on DOW property within the U.S.
Defense officials lauded the results of their first testing gauntlet of drone prototypes before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but senators are skeptical of the U.S. industrial base's ability to manufacture reliable drones at the needed pace and scale. Meanwhile, Phase II of the Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program "Gauntlet" is set to begin in August.
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