The latest infusion of funding, one of the larger packages the U.S. has provided, comes as there are signs that Ukraine is beginning — or about to begin — the much anticipated counteroffensive to try to take back territory that has been seized by Russia.

Unlike the U.S. equipment, weapons and ammunition that are more frequently sent from Pentagon stocks and delivered quickly to Ukraine, this money would be provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and is meant to be spent over the coming months or even years to ensure Ukraine’s future security needs.

In a statement, the Pentagon said the package shows America’s continued commitment “to both Ukraine’s critical near-term capabilities as well as the enduring capacity of Ukraine’s Armed Forces to defend its territory and deter Russian aggression over the long term.”

The aid also will include munitions for laser-guided rockets, an undisclosed amount of artillery rounds, and funding for training and maintenance support.

A number of administration officials have acknowledged that the fighting in Ukraine has intensified in recent days, but much of the focus turned early this week to the collapse of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River. The White House and the Pentagon insisted Thursday they are still working to determine who caused the damage, which set off a scramble to evacuate residents in dozens of flooded areas and get aid to those still there.

Although the U.S. has been willing to provide billions of dollars in military weapons and other aid, the Biden administration has been clear that there will be no U.S. combat forces inside Ukraine. In that vein, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Thursday the military had no plans to directly provide transportation or other support to the areas damaged by the dam collapse.

The Biden administration has provided more than $37.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.

Five members of the joint chiefs of staff — including Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman — are required statutorily to leave their posts within the coming months, starting in July. Meanwhile, most of the vice chiefs — many of whom are the nominees or favorites to replace the chiefs — are preparing to assume leadership of the services amid the Senate impasse.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is doubling down on his blockade of military confirmations. He told Defense News that the looming vacancies will not prompt him to back down from his ongoing hold on hundreds of military promotions, including the joint chiefs.

“If they’re worried about readiness, they need to go back to their old policy and we’ll get it done,” Tuberville said on Wednesday. “But they’re more worried about social programs than they are about military readiness.”

The senator imposed his blockade in February to protest the Pentagon’s new policy that provides leave time for troops to travel to receive abortion services if they’re stationed in states where it’s now illegal.

The first service chief vacancy will occur when Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger steps down on July 10, commencing a steady stream of exits from the joint chiefs through October. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville must step down next on August 8, followed by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday shortly after on August 21.

President Joe Biden nominated Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown as the next joint chiefs chairman, replacing Milley, who must depart by early October, and creating another opening at the top of the Air Force.

“There’s no playbook for this,” Arnold Punaro, a former staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview with Defense News. “This is really a time for regular order, and not the chaos and uncertainty that we see in the system right now.”

The tumult sends a terrible message about the seriousness with which the United States takes its military promotion process, he said.

“It sends a sign of weakness to the rest of the world, that we can’t get our work done on time, and that we’re involved in political chaos,” Punaro said. “This has nothing to do with the individuals involved. We want the young officers, and up-and-coming commanders to see that the military promotion system is based on merit and [who is] best qualified.”

The Senate typically confirms noncontroversial military nominees, including the joint chiefs, using expedited floor procedures via unanimous consent. But any individual senator can block a unanimous consent request, allowing Tuberville to force the Senate to move through numerous procedural votes on each individual nominee.

“All they’ve got to do is put it on the floor and vote for it,” Tuberville told Defense News. “I’ll vote for it.”

Tuberville’s hold would require several weeks of limited Senate floor time to confirm the five joint chiefs nominees alone. Tuberville’s blockade is also holding up more than 220 flag and general officer promotions, which would take an additional several months of scarce floor time if the Senate did nothing but confirm military nominees. The Senate expects to receive hundreds more military nominees in the coming months.

Democratic leaders appear reluctant to use valuable floor time to confirm otherwise noncontroversial nominees and worry that doing so will encourage other senators to block military promotions in order to extract policy concessions.

“The Senate cannot encourage this behavior by handing out rewards for holding up hundreds of nominees,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who chairs the military personnel panel, told Defense News.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., repeatedly declined to commit to scheduling floor votes for the joint chiefs nominees when pressed by reporters at a Wednesday press conference.

“What Sen. Tuberville has done is just awful,” Schumer told Defense News. “We believe that Republican senators, if they care about national security, should be putting pressure on him to release the holds.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last month that he disagrees with Tuberville’s military holds.

And Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Defense News he hoped the issue could be resolved with a vote on the Pentagon’s abortion policy in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act– a suggestion that Tuberville shot down.

“I don’t want to put it in the NDAA and then hold it up because you’re going to have people that will be against it,” Tuberville told Defense News. “I’d rather have the Defense Department draw something up, send it over here and let’s vote on it, stand-alone.”

What happens next?

The fact that the same nominees tapped to lead the services will fill in for the vacancies in their capacity as the number two officer provides the Senate with little immediate incentive to resolve the impasse.

Punaro said vice chiefs would step in and perform those duties to keep the services running on a day-to-day basis. Similarly, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady would temporarily perform the duties of chairman if Brown is not confirmed by the beginning of October.

Delaying the start of new chiefs’ tenures hinders their ability to start making their desired changes to their services, he said.

Gen. Eric Smith, the Marines’ No. 2 officer and Biden’s nominee for commandant, is scheduled for a confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Given Smith’s current role as assistant commandant, the Marines are preparing for Smith to perform the commandant’s duties when Berger leaves on July 10 even if the Senate has not confirmed him by then.

The confirmation hearings for the other joint chiefs nominees, including Brown, are slated for July.

That includes Army vice chief Gen. Randy George to replace McConville. Biden has yet to nominate a new Chief of Naval Operations, but Navy vice chief Admiral Lisa Franchetti is widely considered the favorite for the position.

And of course, Biden will have to nominate a new Air Force chief of staff to replace Brown, with current Air Force vice chief Gen. David Allvin considered the frontrunner.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., told Defense News “It would be absolutely irresponsible” not to have a congressionally confirmed service chief.

Senators have held up votes on noncontroversial nominees more frequently in recent years. For instance, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., imposed a blanket hold on all Defense Department civilian nominations for more than a year.

They target military nominees less frequently. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., was the last senator to do so in 2020. Her hold lasted less than two weeks before she lifted it. By contrast, Tuberville’s hold has lasted more than three months with no end in sight.

“What goes around comes around,” Reed told Defense News. “If basically this succeeds, then the next two years from now someone who wants an assault weapons ban will say ‘gee, I’ll just hold up all the generals.”

Jen Judson contributed to this report.

The update comes as the service and the Pentagon grapple with what future warfare might require of American forces.

In its annual update on June 5 — part of the Corps’ ongoing Force Design 2030 modernization push — the service laid out two parallel efforts: a 21st Century Amphibious Operations concept the Corps is studying with the Navy; and an ARG/MEU Next concept, which refers to the amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit pairing of ships and embarked forces.

The 21st Century Amphibious Operations concept would “articulate the future role of amphibious operations in support of maritime campaigns and will describe new operating methods that incorporate agile platforms to supplement traditional amphibious ships,” according to the Force Design update.

Examples given include long-range, unmanned systems that can infiltrate an enemy’s weapon-engagement zone, manned-unmanned fleets, and other “disruptive technologies.”

This concept looks into the 2040s and considers how Marines might conduct amphibious operations.

One new facet of amphibious operations could involve military vessels serving as motherships to unmanned systems that operate in several domains of warfare.

Col. Daniel Wittnam, the director of the service’s Integration Division, told Defense News in a recent interview that the commandant of the Marine Corps is interested in putting anything unmanned or autonomous onto amphibious ships for experimentation.

“The mothership concept is another opportunity for the Marine Corps to show flexibility and to be able to show resiliency by looking at manned and unmanned teaming and different platforms to utilize new and emerging technologies with our ARG/MEU teams,” Wittnam said.

He said the service already had funding to deploy the Shield AI-made V-BAT unmanned aerial vehicle on amphibious ships, and that the first Long-Range Unmanned Surface Vessel prototype would in the coming months move from Virginia to California to begin a user evaluation, which will include operations with a Marine expeditionary unit at sea.

This concept study will focus on how amphibious forces will fight, and not weigh in on how many ships the Corps needs the Navy to buy and maintain.

Still, even as the service takes a longer-term look at this piece of its portfolio, there is significant uncertainty hanging over its head about these operations today.

The Marine Corps, the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense have differing views on the role of amphibious operations in today’s joint force, and therefore how much money to spend on upkeeping existing ships and building replacements.

Congress attempted to partly settle the dispute by putting a 31-ship-fleet minimum into law, but the current long-range shipbuilding plan of record falls short of that mandate. Furthermore, the Pentagon has shown no sign of support for additional shipbuilding spending that would be needed to sustain a 31-ship fleet.

Despite multiple studies in recent years on the required size of the amphibious fleet, yet another study is nearing its conclusion and will look at ships’ design, acquisition and construction processes, eyeing opportunities to decrease the cost of the fleet.

The Marine Corps has pushed back on this idea, with Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, telling Defense News this year that rough drawings from the Pentagon would reduce the capability of the ships in a way the service finds unacceptable.

The study is due to the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office imminently. It is unclear what will happen once the office receives the Marine Corps’ and the Navy’s input, as leadership has only said the study will inform the fiscal 2025 budget process.

“I’m very pessimistic,” Heckl said during the recent interview about his near-term outlook on the amphibious fleet’s size and readiness. “Until amphibs genuinely become a priority, this will always be a struggle — to procure and then maintain. The fact that these vessels have been ridden hard and put away wet simply exemplifies how useable they are: They are in constant demand.”

He recommended the Defense Department reconsider how ships are funded. Currently, only the Navy can buy those vessels in its shipbuilding account, and only the Navy can maintain them within its operations and maintenance account, even though Marines are the primary beneficiaries of the ships.

Fleet combinations

As something of a hedge against the projected shortfall of amphibious ships, the Marines’ Force Design update also references a look at the ARG/MEU team’s composition.

As part of the ARG/MEU Next effort, the Corps is eyeing different ship configurations — including existing Navy expeditionary ships and potential “lower cost alternatives” to supplement amphibs — that could keep Marines afloat around the globe.

In the future, the Navy and Marine Corps could use a greater number of smaller and less expensive ships to “complicate the ability of our adversaries to find and target our sea-based expeditionary forces,” according to the Force Design update document.

Wittnam said that earlier in his career there were three ARG/MEU teams at sea routinely. But today, it’s difficult to keep two — or even one — at sea.

Marines need new ideas to address mobility, or their ability to move around independently of joint force assets, which Wittnam called a top concern heading into the next year of Force Design experimentation.

Despite Heckl’s concerns about today’s ARG/MEU team and the ability to strengthen the fleet in the coming years, the general did say Marines “are going to do what we’ve always done, what quite frankly we do really, really well: We’re going to fight for every damn penny we can get with Congress, and we don’t care who gets hurt along the way because we’re doing it to have what our nation needs.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, led five other House Democrats and two House Republicans from his state in a letter asking the Biden administration to place the headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The letter, addressed to President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, touted the Air Force and NASA installations that Ohio already hosts. These include the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the National Space Intelligence Center, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

“These facilities support key space-related operations, including innovation in space components and technology,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, which Brown highlighted on Twitter. “Co-locating the U.S. Space Command headquarters with these assets will generate incredible potential for cross-functional collaboration that will greatly enhance the efficiency and the effectiveness of the organization.”

The letter’s other signatories are Ohio’s Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Joyce Beatty, Shontel Brown, Emilia Sykes and Greg Landsman as well as Republican Reps. David Joyce and Max Miller. The nine other Republicans in Ohio’s congressional delegation did not sign the letter.

Two years ago, during the final days of the Trump administration, the Air Force announced Huntsville, Alabama — the site of the Army’s Redstone Arsenal and home to the Missile Defense Agency — would serve as the new location for Space Command headquarters, moving it from Colorado Springs.

The decision infuriated Colorado’s congressional delegation, who asked the Air Force to review the decision. Several Colorado Democrats argued it was an act of political retaliation because Biden won the swing state in the 2020 election.

A May 2022 report by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General found the Air Force followed all relevant laws and policies when selecting Huntsville. But the report also found the rules themselves may have been flawed, resulting in a less than optimal decision.

A separate June 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office found the Air Force did not follow best practices when making the basing decision.

Kendall is reviewing both reports’ findings, but the final basing decision for Space Command headquarters is long overdue.

NBC News reported last month that the Biden administration may halt plans to move the headquarters to Alabama in part because of the state’s new law making abortion a felony punishable up to 99 years in prison for physicians.

Further complicating matters, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has placed a blanket hold on Senate confirmations for hundreds of military promotions over the Pentagon’s policy providing leave time and stipends for troops and their family members to travel across state lines in order to receive abortion services.

The Defense Department enacted the policy in February after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, thereby allowing states to enact anti-abortion laws.

Two ways the Pentagon can provide that steadier business include multiyear procurements for weapons and greater use of predictive maintenance, Brown said during a discussion with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Brown said the military has focused too little keeping a steady flow of munitions production and procurement. “In some cases, because you don’t have a threat on your doorstep, munitions aren’t maybe high on our priority list,” he said.

But with the threat now posed by China and Russia, “that’s different now,” he added.

“This is an area that we’ve got to continue to pay attention to, to ensure that we bring [munitions] along as well,” said Brown, who President Joe Biden last month nominated to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He cited the Korea readiness review, which the military conducted during his tenure as Pacific Air Forces commander, examining what would be necessary to counter a threat from North Korea as an example of the kind of advance munitions planning that must take place. Part of that review, Brown said, was to “look really hard at munitions.”

Brown reiterated the Air Force’s call in its proposed fiscal 2024 budget for multiyear procurements for three key weapons: the Raytheon Technologies-made AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, and the Lockheed Martin-made Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range as well as the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile.

Air Force officials said in March during the budget’s unveiling that the service wanted to use about $1 billion so industry could procure long-lead items for those weapons, as well as other steps that would send a longer-term demand signal to industry. The FY23 National Defense Authorization Act granted the Air Force the authority to make those multiyear purchases.

The Air Force’s proposed FY24 budget would roughly double its overall spending on missiles, from $2.3 billion in FY23 to $4.7 billion.

The Pentagon is also seeking lawmakers’ approval to conduct multiyear buys of Raytheon’s Patriot surface-to-air guided missile system and Lockheed’s Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, fired from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. The U.S. government has provided those weapons to Ukraine as it fights off a Russian invasion.

And if the military wants industry to be able to surge munitions production capacity in an emergency, Brown said, it must make such multiyear buys a regular part of how it does business. That way, industry will have a more reliable demand signal and can keep its production lines flowing.

“I believe that’s just a start,” Brown said, referring to the multiyear buys in the FY24 budget request. “We’ve got to look at multiyear procurements so that it helps give a predictable demand signal to industry. And it’s not just the prime [contractors], it’s all the subs below them so they actually have supply chains laid in, they’re [set up with the proper facilities], they have the workforce, and it’s not a little bit up and down and unpredictability.”

Brown also said it will be important to ensure allies and partners have access to these munitions — and that industry can build enough to keep both them and the United States armed.

“It’s great for them to have the airplanes, but they’ve also got to have the munitions that are capable,” Brown said. “How do we make sure that we have enough munitions on the shelf to support us and our allies and partners? This is something that we need to focus on.”

Brown said the digital engineering of munitions will make it easier to take a more modular approach to building some weapons, similar to the way new aircraft, such as the B-21 Raider, use a modular architecture.

Brown also said the Air Force’s desire to conduct more predictive, conditions-based maintenance on aircraft — where maintainers track how long parts have been on an airplane and try to replace them before they wear out and break — could also help provide a steadier demand signal for industry.

“With data, you know based on the service life of this part how long before it’s going to break,” Brown said. “You don’t wait until it breaks. You’re able to replace it a little bit sooner, which also can help create the demand signal for the supply chain.”

Brown said the Air Force’s Rapid Sustainment Office has been looking closely at ways to use maintenance data to not just decide when maintainers should replace parts, but also to help industry predict how it needs to manage its supply chains.

The 65,000-square-foot Hypersonics and Applied Research Facility hosts a Mach 8 quiet wind tunnel, designed to closely simulate hypersonic flight — which is reached when a vehicle hits a speed of Mach 5 or higher — and provide precise data on a system’s performance. It is also home to a hypersonic pulse shock tunnel that uses shock waves of high-temperature air to simulate various flight scenarios at speeds from Mach 5 to as high as Mach 40.

Also located within the facility is Purdue’s Hypersonics Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center, where the university collaborates with industry to improve materials and manufacturing processes and prototype fully-integrated hypersonic systems.

Mark Lewis, chief executive officer of the Purdue Applied Research Institute and a former DoD hypersonics official, told reporters June 5 that advanced testing facilities like these not only help train the future workforce, but provide the test and research capabilities needed to advance U.S. hypersonic development at a time when Russia and China are racing to compete in this area.

“I believe very much that we are in a race with peer competitors that are determined to beat us in hypersonics,” Lewis said.

Russia and China’s hypersonic advances are driving a sense of urgency within the Defense Department to field hypersonic weapons of its own and boost funding for enabling technology, including advanced materials and propulsion systems.

The Pentagon relies on wind tunnels and other testbeds to validate flight characteristics for hypersonic vehicles, but those facilities are in high demand, limiting access even for major programs. Those constraints in ground testing, according to Lewis, play a role in the flight-test failures and program delays the department has experienced over the last year.

That includes the Air Force’s Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, which logged its latest flight-test failure in March. Service officials have said they may not progress the program to the procurement phase due to its testing woes.

“Why have we been having failures like that? Because we haven’t been testing,” Lewis said. “We need to get to a rhythm where we’re testing, flight testing, constantly putting things in the air. In order to support that, we need ground test infrastructure. That gives us the information that we then roll into our flight tests.”

Purdue is part of the DoD-led University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics, a group of more than 90 colleges that partner with the department and industry to support technology development. The Pentagon’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office solicits research and prototype projects from consortium members in a range of technology areas, including materials and structures, air-breathing propulsion and guidance and navigation.

So senators are organizing educational briefings. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, on June 6 announced three such planned get-togethers this summer, including a classified session dedicated to AI employment by the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community, as well as AI developments among “our adversaries” such as China and Russia.

“The Senate must deepen our expertise in this pressing topic,” reads the announcement, backed by fellow Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Republican Sens. Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Todd Young of Indiana.

“AI is already changing our world,” it continues, “and experts have repeatedly told us that it will have a profound impact on everything from our national security to our classrooms to our workforce, including potentially significant job displacement.”

Q&A: Maxar execs discuss US Army simulation, Project Maven

The Defense Department is pouring billions of dollars into AI advancement and adoption, including a proposed $1.8 billion for fiscal 2024 alone. China and Russia, considered top national security threats, have significantly invested in AI for military applications, as well.

U.S. officials consider AI an invaluable tool to improve performance on the battlefield and in the boardroom. With it, they say, tides of information can be parsed more effectively, digital networks can be monitored around the clock, targeting aboard combat vehicles can be enhanced, maintenance needs can be identified before things fall apart and decisions can be made quicker than ever before.

But a lack of general understanding — what, for example, is the difference between AI, ML, autonomy, bots, large language models and more — can hinder policymaking on the Hill, spending decisions from there and deployment further downstream.

“I’ve been doing this stuff long enough that I feel like, to a certain degree, AI has become the buzzword of what cyber was maybe 15 or 20 years ago, where everybody on a government program says, ‘I’m going to add this buzz term and see if I can get a little more money on whatever program I have,’” Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat at the head of the intelligence committee, said Tuesday at the Scale Gov AI Summit, blocks from the White House.

“What we’re all trying to work on,” he added, “is how do we get ourselves educated as quickly as possible.”

Public attention paid to AI and its offshoots skyrocketed following the November rollout of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is capable of carrying a convincing conversation or crafting computer code with little prompting. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before the Senate in May. He previously expressed worries about AI being used for misinformation campaigns or cyberattacks.

The study of AI and its consequences by lawmakers must remain fluid and free from political jockeying, according to Rounds, who sits on the armed services committee.

“We’re trying to combine, and to put together a process, where members of the U.S. Senate can actually come to a common understanding of just exactly what we mean when we talk about ‘machine learning’ or ‘AI,’ what it really is in terms of its current status, what it looks like today,” he said at the summit where Warner spoke.

“And we’re trying to do this as a group in a bipartisan basis,” he said, “so that folks can bring in their ideas and can be a host for other parts of the industry to come to different members and say, ‘These are the concerns we’ve got.’”

The proposition from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., comes amid a flurry of proposals from defense hawks on Capitol Hill to bypass the $886 billion military spending top line laid out in the debt ceiling deal that President Joe Biden signed into law over the weekend. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., appeared to throw cold water on additional defense spending bills on Monday.

Rogers said once Congress completes work on the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and defense appropriations bill, “then it’s time for us to look and see if we actually address China. If we did, fine. If we didn’t, we’ll go ahead and drop more funding. It’s all about China for me.”

The House was initially slated to mark up the FY24 defense authorization bill in May, but Republican leaders asked Rogers to postpone it amid the debt ceiling negotiations. That markup is now scheduled for later this month.

For his part, McCarthy resisted efforts to circumvent military spending caps in the debt ceiling bill, which locks in Biden’s proposed defense budget — a 3.3% increase over this fiscal year.

“What we really need to do, we need to get the efficiencies in the Pentagon,” McCarthy said, according to CNN. “Think about it, $886 billion. You don’t think there’s waste? They failed the last five audits. I consider myself a hawk, but I don’t want to waste money. So I think we’ve got to find efficiencies.”

In response, Rogers said McCarthy is “right.”

“It is premature to be talking about a supplemental right now, but we will need a supplemental later this year — for China specifically,” Rogers said.

Rogers, who previously hammered the Biden administration for refusing to deliver Ukraine certain weapons like long-range missiles, also struck a less bullish note on aid to the country currently fighting a Russian invasion.

“Based on how effective the counteroffensive is this summer, and if there is a ceasefire or some resolution by the end of September, I’ll probably have to revisit Ukraine then, at a much smaller level than anything we’ve done before,” Rogers told Defense News.

The Pentagon did not include additional Ukraine aid in its FY24 budget request, noting that it would request future aid packages through supplemental spending that Congress would have to approve. The Defense Department expects to run out of Ukraine aid funds by the end of the fiscal year in September.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., last week floated the idea of adding additional Pentagon spending in the next Ukraine aid supplemental. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., endorsed additional supplemental spending packages Thursday on the Senate floor in order to ease concerns over the debt ceiling deal from defense hawks, primarily Republicans who argued the defense top line increase falls below the rate of inflation.

Further complicating matters, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has testified that the Pentagon is preparing a package to transfer weapons to Taiwan, but that he would require congressional appropriations to backfill U.S. military stockpiles.

However, the appetite for additional defense supplemental spending in the House — be that to counter China or to support Ukraine or Taiwan — remains unclear.

“Unless there is a willingness to increase domestic spending at the same time, we have a law that is a guide,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told reporters Tuesday.

Still, DeLauro did not rule out additional Ukraine aid spending, noting she funded four supplementals for Kyiv last year as the top appropriator.

“I will wait to hear from [the Defense Department] about what we need for Ukraine,” DeLauro told Defense News.

Total defense spending for FY23 — which ends Sept. 30 — will come to $893 billion after accounting for $35.4 billion in emergency Ukraine aid. Total FY22 defense spending came to $794 billion after Congress allocated an additional $26 billion in Ukraine aid.

Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, has also supported Ukraine aid but voiced concern about whether the House could pass it given opposition from a vocal minority of Republican lawmakers.

“It’s a chaos caucus, so I don’t know if they’ll be able to bring it to the floor,” McCollum told Defense News.

Anduril is a defense technology company that specializes in artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation.

The company said retired Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood will lead Anduril’s expansion into Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville is near Redstone Arsenal, home to the Army’s program executive offices for missiles and space and aviation, the service’s Space and Missile Defense Command and the RCCTO. Thurgood retired from the Army last year after 38 years of service.

In his new role, he will shape Anduril’s business strategy to help deliver “critical company priorities, such as counter-unmanned air systems, air and missile defense, tactical weapons and mission systems, and command and control capabilities,” according to a company statement.

“Thurgood will also play a leading role in Anduril’s continued growth and maturation for large-scale production, program management and capability delivery in support of government partners,” it added.

As the former RCCTO director, Thurgood’s portfolio included rapid development and delivery of the service’s most critical technologies, including hypersonic and laser weapons, counter-UAS capabilities, and even hybrid-electric combat vehicle prototypes.

During his tenure, he oversaw the creation of a new industrial base to build hypersonic glide bodies for the Army and Navy, the establishment of the first Army unit with hypersonic weapons and the building of 50-kilowatt laser prototypes on Stryker combat vehicles.

Thurgood told Defense News he sees a match between Anduril’s technologies and the program offices at Redstone Arsenal, such as aviation and missiles and space.

Christian Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer, told Defense News Thurgood is “a critical addition” to the company as it becomes “a bigger company, focused on production, manufacturing, all the things that we are now tasked with doing at real scale.”

Anduril has won contracts with the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and U.S. Special Operations Command and has supplied equipment to Ukraine, including its Ghost loitering munition. The company is preparing to send its Altius UAS to the country.

Anduril has acquired Dive Technologies, Area-I, and Copious Imaging. While originally focused on force protection such as counter-UAS and base defense solutions, the company has expanded to offer air vehicles and underwater vehicles linked by command and control and collaborative autonomy.

“There are some clear areas that are opportunities for us,” Thurgood said. “Counter-UAS is the future.”

Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

The report’s finding should have instead been that America’s defense-industrial base is failing our warfighters and taxpayers, as the Pentagon has willfully and with foresight created today’s monopolistic, overregulated and costly defense marketplace. That marketplace has left the DoD without the ability to procure at scale the goods and services it needs to fight a major war, demonstrated by munitions shortfalls from the conflict in Ukraine. It’s also left the Pentagon in need of a change to its profit policy as CBS’ “60 Minutes” segment on price gouging in the defense-industrial base recently showed.

The origins of today’s defense marketplace are as follows: First, the leadership of major defense primes are mostly compensated with stock awards, which, while substantial, are expected within our capitalistic system. Wall Street then rewards these companies with higher share prices based upon their ability to provide profits for dividends and stock buybacks. But thanks to the Pentagon, these returns are less a result of competitive market forces and more a result of industry consolidation.

In the 1950s and in the 1980s, the Pentagon’s spending power created a healthy, competitive marketplace where defense firms competed on both price and innovative capabilities. This marketplace fostered free and open competition, equipping the United States with the best military in history. Despite this success, the Pentagon killed the proverbial golden goose by consolidating the defense-industrial base in the 1990s, leaving fewer suppliers and, therefore, little competition.

Industry consolidation is but one piece of the puzzle when it comes to how the Pentagon has elevated prices for taxpayers. Another is the Pentagon’s misguided divest-to-invest strategy, which devotes an ever-greater share of the department’s investment dollars to research and development rather than adequately funding procurement. R&D has thinner profit margins, meaning that for every dollar the government spends on R&D, few are able to become profit for contractors.

As the prices for weapons and components increase, the Pentagon orders less of each. With less purchased, the primes are poised to negotiate harder for higher prices so that they can maintain or increase their total profits, further raising the price of their products and leading to even fewer purchases. This means that, in effect, the divest-to-invest strategy is a pricing-to-procurement death spiral, threatening readiness and fair prices.

Elevated prices are also a consequence of the interactions between prime contractors and their array of subcontractors. Not subject to the same payment terms or timely cash flow from the government as the primes, the subcontractors receive less cash themselves. This squeezes the suppliers, already often sole- or single-source, leading to less redundancy and less capacity. The suppliers left standing then become economically powerful, as “60 Minutes” correctly noted.

But what’s most important here is that this results in a lack of surge production.

An inability to surge production is also a product of rosy planning assumptions where the Pentagon’s leaders essentially assume away the problem. The defense-industrial base is healthy if you assume only one very quick war. If this assumption isn’t correct, the Pentagon then believes that allies will pick up the slack, but their weapons’ cupboards are barer than ours.

In short, forced consolidation, faulty Pentagon planning assumptions, a focus on R&D at the expense of procurement, and the cash flow structure of the major defense primes have led us to the situation that we find ourselves in today: We’re in need of warfighting capabilities — a lot of them — but cannot produce them at scale and at prices that a functioning capitalistic market would allow.

Thankfully, the Pentagon can start to turn this around. First, when starting the acquisition of new weapons systems, it should err on the side of not developing them as joint programs, which are essentially a synonym for “contract-to-monopoly.” Consolidation of buying power into the purchase of one system kills off competitors and creates a monopoly; the market for fighter jets shows this to be true.

Secondly, the Pentagon should procure much more, and it should do so by making multiyear procurement contracts and block buys the rule rather than the exception.

Lastly, the federal government can break open the doors to competition by eliminating unnecessary regulations that make it difficult and costly for emerging startups to do business with the DoD.

Failing to take these actions will mean that we’ll be stuck with a defense-industrial base that’s unhealthy, not meeting the needs of the warfighters and, on the most basic level, not providing the American taxpayer with a fair deal. And that’s an industrial base that we shouldn’t accept.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service. Charles Rahr is a research assistant at AEI.

The images and other readings gathered from afar were critical to grasping the situation in Eastern Europe at the time, and their continued dissemination, including through the press, aids public understanding of the war.

Among those involved in the capture and distribution of such information is Maxar Technologies, which provides satellite imagery to the Defense Department and intelligence community, among other national security pursuits.

In February 2023, for example, the Colorado-based company won an additional round of work on the U.S. Army’s One World Terrain, which compiles extremely accurate virtual maps of territory across the globe for military purposes. It’s considered a key piece of the service’s Synthetic Training Environment, an immersive training-and-rehearsal tool. The company is also involved with Project Maven, launched by the Pentagon in 2017 to detect targets of interest in footage captured by uncrewed systems.

C4ISRNET reporters interviewed two Maxar executives — Tony Frazier, executive vice president and general manager of public sector earth intelligence, and Jennifer Krischer, vice president and general manager of intelligence programs — on the sidelines of the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis.

Portions of the interview below, conducted May 23, have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Where do you see the future of One World Terrain and, by extension, the Synthetic Training Environment going? What does that look like?

Frazier: We started with a focus of helping the Army modernize its training with geospecific data, with a goal of being able to provide soldiers as realistic an experience as possible.

Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais, she was the first cross-functional team lead for the Synthetic Training Environment. Her vision at the time was: If we can have reps and sets with hundreds of experiences in the virtual environment, then we can help soldiers be safe when they actually deploy.

That has continued to be the core focus of the program. That being said, as we exposed the data to different parts of the community, there was insatiable demand from the operational users to apply it to current missions. Whether it was in support of the Afghan drawdown, there was data that we provided over Ukraine — using it for operational mission-planning was very prominent.

Even the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, there was a reference to One World Terrain, and I think it did a nice job of highlighting the variety of use cases that had been proven out.

So what we’re seeing is, as we build out more complete, global coverage of that capability, being able to use it as a reference layer to integrate other data sources against it, and have all those data sources inherit the same accuracy, that foundation really enables a form of sensor fusion that we haven’t been able to see at scale.

One example that we are demonstrating is how we can apply 3D geo-registration software that uses that reference as a way to take — whether it’s space-based, or airborne, or even an unmanned surface vehicle — a sensor feed and use the terrain as a source of registration to tie that down, both in terms of the right location and the right orientation, so that you’re able to inherit the same accuracy as that base.

Think about a realtime feed from a drone. That would then allow you to be able to know exactly within this type of radius where that pixel is. That, I think, is probably one of the more breakthrough opportunities, in terms of taking it fully operational.

Q: How has the conflict in Ukraine shaped or factored into Maxar’s business? What is that consumption like — is there an increased need for satellite imagery or your other products?

Frazier: We support a global mission, and we’ve been providing these capabilities for decades. And you can look at every major event, and Maxar has played a role in that, in some capacity.

I think what’s unique about Ukraine was that at all phases, the crisis leading to conflict, we were able to, through different channels, expose our capability in a way that was helpful to the mission.

The focus of the Defense Department now is integrated deterrence — the role that commercial was able to play to bring transparency to what was happening, with troop buildup and, as it pivoted to conflict, what was happening on the ground.

The combination of what was exposed through the media, through our partnerships there, along with the fact that the intelligence community, Defense Department, allies and partners were all able to access current imagery over those areas, just allowed a level of interoperability and mission planning that, I think, has helped support the mission, but also helped a lot of decision makers think through ways that can be applied, more broadly.

NATO hunger for info driving deals for commercial satellite imagery

I know you recently covered the Global Information Dominance Experiments series.

One of the things that’s helped us do is have conversations with different stakeholders across the community, who have been looking at how do I take the increased commercial collection, some of the innovation that’s happening with applied machine learning, so computer vision, to be able to interpret imagery quickly, the types of technology I referenced earlier with our 3D, where we can georeference that data on quick timelines, and then how can that support different forms of experimentation. That is demonstrating how new use cases for how commercial can be applied to the here-and-now missions.

We’ve supported Project Convergence and Scarlet Dragon; those were examples of exercises and experimentation that we supported with commercial capabilities. I think we’re seeing that there’s a lot of interest.

Q: The big news at GEOINT yesterday was Project Maven, with Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth talking about its transition to a program of record. How do you envision Maxar taking part in Project Maven, and what do you hope to contribute?

Krischer: We’re already contributing to Project Maven.

We are generating algorithms around both electro-optical and our synthetic aperture radar imaging capabilities. So object detection, using those different modalities.

We also have been working with Project Maven for years now on providing low-latency imagery so that we can run the algorithms against the imagery in a sensor-to-shooter methodology that really resonates with the warfighter. So we’ve already been doing these things.

We envision the future of Maven as being: How do you bring the vast computer-vision algorithms sets to bear on the different missions, whether it be the intel analyst or the warfighter in the field, and how do you enable the warfighter to do these things?

We’re working kind of hand-in-hand to understand what it needs to be and helping shape the future, so that it’s not vendor-locked, it’s really meeting the users where they need the information.

Frazier: In our conversations, the intent is to enable geospatial AI at scale. And, as a result, as these capabilities get more mature, you want to be able to take advantage of all the collection that’s happening across the constellation.

For the U.S. government, the constellation includes commercial as a part of that. That’s why EOCL is electro-optical commercial layer. With the contracts that were awarded to us, and Planet and BlackSky, and then what’s being done now to add other modalities, like radar and radio-frequency sensing and the like, the goal is to create an architecture where you can quickly run the algorithms against that source to then get the information out to those users.

Geospatial-intelligence agency making strides on Project Maven AI

We’ve had a lot of use of our existing systems to apply computer vision against the imagery that we’re hosting and disseminating now, across the community, and now it’s about how do we actually do this at scale, have more machine-to-machine exploitation at scale. The last couple of decades have been focused on how humans visualize imagery.

Q: With Project Maven, and with a lot of these things like Joint All-Domain Command and Control, there’s just an incredible amount of collection and data that has to be sorted through. So you can’t ignore the AI or ML portion on your side, right? That has to be baked in, basically?

Krischer: Absolutely.

Frazier: Correct.

Q: Is there a need for a One Space Terrain? Maybe with a more artful name?

Frazier: I can see that happening.

You heard the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, his comments, about how they’re supporting the lunar mission. And I think, yeah, we need to have an accurate representation of all domains, where we expect to safely navigate, to be able to mitigate threats, et cetera.

Lloyd Austin was speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit here. The event convenes defense ministers from the Indo-Pacific and around the world to discuss and enhance security in the region and is organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies – Asia or IISS-Asia.

“The United States believes that open lines of communication with the People’s Republic of China are essential, especially between our defense and military leaders,” Austin said.

He added that dialogue between both nations is an important guardrail to preserve regional peace and stability, particularly in the Taiwan Strait, and will help to avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations that may lead to crisis or conflict.

“The right time to talk is now,” Austin added.

Chinese defense and military officials have stopped contacts and engagements with their American counterparts, culminating in a refusal by Chinese defense minister Li Shengfu to meet with Austin while they are both in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue.

“A cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute for substantive engagement,” Austin said, referring to the lack of a formal bilateral dinner despite him shaking hands with Li prior to the dialogue’s opening dinner and keynote speech on Friday.

Asked about accusations that the U.S. is trying to provoke China into invading Taiwan, Austin denied the charge.

He had said earlier in his speech “the United States remain deeply committed to preserving the status quo in the [Taiwan] strait, consistent with our one-China policy and fulfilling our well-established obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act.”

“We do not seek conflict or confrontation, but we will not flinch in the face of bullying and coercion,” Austin added.

U.S. engagement with regional allies and partners was also a key focus for Austin, as he highlighted recent DoD efforts to expand its interactions with militaries in the Indo-Pacific.

This included the April announcement that the U.S. military will expand its footprint in the Philippines under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Arrangement, which will see four of the US ally’s facilities upgraded and made available to US forces.

Austin also touched on the upcoming Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia, which will take place this summer. This year’s iteration will involve 14 countries and approximately 30,000 personnel, including a “significant contingent” from Japan.

The exercise has scaled up significantly in recent years; it was until recently primarily a bilateral event involving Australia and the U.S.

Austin praised recent moves by Japan and South Korea to improve ties. The U.S. allies have recently taken steps to thaw frosty relations dating back to Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula that only ended with its surrender following World War II.

The agency, which aims to push technology from non-traditional and commercial companies to military users, awarded a contract in March through its Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities, or HyCAT, program. The company’s DART AE demonstration platform will pair with a launch provider, showcasing its ability to support Defense Department testing needs.

DIU is partnered with the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center and the principal director for hypersonics on the project, which aims to use commercial aircraft, payloads and supporting technology to relieve the strain on government testing infrastructure.

Lt. Col. Nicholas Estep, HyCAT program manager, told C4ISRNET that to prepare for next summer’s flight, DIU is refining the details of the mission, including the flight conditions, the launch provider and the location. While DART AE has flown, this will be the vehicle’s first fully integrated, autonomous flight.

“These next couple months are really where we’re going to solidify exactly how that’s going to look,” Estep said in a May 26 interview. “We’re trying to basically validate and make sure that we understand exactly how that mission has to run from start to finish.”

The U.S. Defense Department has about 70 programs focused on developing weapons and aircraft that can travel and maneuver at hypersonic speeds, or faster than Mach 5. The testing infrastructure needed to validate those projects, including aircraft and ground-based test beds, is in high demand, limiting the number of flight tests for major programs to a few trials each year.

The Pentagon wants to increase that rate to one hypersonic test flight per week, and HyCAT is part of its strategy for reaching that target. The program is particularly focused on leveraging commercial capabilities to help the department hit that higher cadence at a low cost.

Commercial teams

Hypersonix is one of three companies awarded contracts through HyCAT since the program was initiated last September. Rocket Lab and Fenix Space will provide launch capabilities, and DIU expects to announce a fourth company to provide a second test vehicle. Neither the firms nor DIU have disclosed the value of their agreements.

The organization is eyeing a second phase to the program, dubbed HyCAT 2, where it will select companies to provide payloads and other technology to integrate onto the test vehicles. Those capabilities include alternative navigation, advanced communication, manufacturing technology and low-cost materials.

Barry Kirkendall, DIU’s technical director for space, said that while the lowest-cost HyCAT configuration would be a reusable experimental cruise vehicle, that option likely won’t be available until the end of the decade. For now, he said, the focus is on convening teams of contractors that can create relatively low-cost test options using proven technology.

“The DIU program is evolutionary in nature. We’re starting out by saying, ‘Let’s do something cheaper. Let’s do something higher cadence,’” he told C4ISRNET in the same interview. “There are many needs in the hypersonic community. We’re just addressing here at DIU the need for a low-cost, high-cadence test platform for better understanding hypersonic flight.”

While other Pentagon efforts address ground and flight testing, HyCAT is honing in on long-duration airborne missions. According to Kirkendall, when the program conducts a successful test, it will feed that capability into another DoD test program, the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Testbed, to use as needed.

Estep said DIU expects HyCAT to drive the cost of flight testing lower over time, but noted that the program hasn’t set specific requirements around cost. The organization has an “internal estimate” of what it thinks the first flight’s price tag will be, but he declined to share it.

“In general, going through this approach where we’re not dictating the exact requirements of the mission and doing a very traditional DoD acquisition with a traditional integrated prime, we know that it’s going to be a less cost for user than one of those . . . traditional hypersonic missions,” he said.

The tank training got underway as the United States and its allies began to work out agreements to train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets, another long-sought advanced system. Those aircraft would be part of a security plan to deter future attacks, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley said late Thursday as he arrived in France.

“Everyone recognizes Ukraine needs a modernized Air Force,” said Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It’s going to take a considerable amount of time.”

The intent is to provide capabilities for Ukraine in the mid- to long-term, said Nicolas Vaujour, a vice admiral who is chief operations of France’s Joint Staff and spoke to reporters traveling with Milley.

Milley said detailed planning on the size of F-16 training classes, the types of flying tactics and locations for training was being worked out among the U.S. and allies such as the Netherlands and Britain that have pledged to provide the American-made F-16s. The United States has not said whether it will directly provide jets, but President Joe Biden has said the U.S. will support F-16 training as part of the coalition.

As those logistics are figured out, the Abrams tank training is moving ahead.

About 200 Ukrainian soldiers began an approximately 12-week training course in Germany over the past weekend where they are learning how to maneuver, fire and conduct combined arms operations with the advanced armored system. An additional 200 troops are receiving training on tank fueling and fuel truck maintenance.

The U.S. training schedule is timed to get the troops up to speed on the systems before 31 of the 70-ton Abrams tanks the Biden administration has promised to Ukraine are scheduled arrive by this fall. Those tanks will make up part of a force of about 300 tanks in total pledged by Western allies including Challenger tanks from the United Kingdom, Leopard 2 tanks from Spain and Germany, and light tanks from France.

The U.S. and its allies balked for months at providing such tanks, citing the significant maintenance and fueling challenges the systems require. Abrams tanks can burn through fuel at a rate of at least 2 gallons per mile (4.7 liters per kilometer), whether the tank is moving or idling. That means a constant supply convoy of fuel trucks must stay within reach so the tanks can keep moving forward.

As with the recent decision on F-16 training, the U.S. approval to send its own Abrams systems was a necessary part of the allies’ negotiations on tanks for Ukraine so that no Western nation would be providing the systems alone, possibly incurring direct retaliation from Russia. In January, the Biden administration reversed course and agreed that Ukraine would get the tanks.

Milley is in France to mark the 79th anniversary of D-Day, which launched the allies’ World War II massive ground counteroffensive to push back Nazi forces in Europe. The war involved some of the largest armored battles in modern history, including a major Soviet counteroffensive against the Nazis in 1943 along the Dnieper River, the same edge along which tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian forces are now entrenched.

“You can look back to World War II and some of the biggest armored battles that were ever fought in history were fought, basically, in parts of Ukraine,” Milley told reporters traveling with him. “So tanks are very important, both to the defense and the offense, and upgraded modern tanks, the training that goes with it, the ability to use them, will be fundamental to Ukrainian success.”

WASHINGTON — Dissatisfied with the $886 billion military budget laid out in the debt ceiling bill, defense hawks are looking to channel additional funds to the Pentagon through supplemental spending packages.

Six Republican senators took to the floor on Thursday to demand an emergency defense spending bill after Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., floated the idea of attaching other Pentagon priorities to a Ukraine aid supplemental that Congress will likely need to take up later this year.

“The first problem of an inadequate defense budget could be addressed and remedied by having an emergency defense supplemental,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee. “This is what I would ask the [Biden] administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to commit to because we know that this budget is not adequate to the global threats we face.”

Five other Republican defense hawks joined Collins on the floor: Roger Wicker of Mississippi – the Armed Services Committee ranking member – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Mike Rounds of South Dakota.

Their remarks came hours before the Senate passed compromise legislation needed to avoid a potential U.S. debt default by a 63-36 vote. The House passed the bipartisan bill 314-117 on Wednesday following weeks of negotiations between Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and President Joe Biden. If Congress had not raised the debt ceiling, the government would have had to suspend payments to troops, veterans and defense contractors.

The bill locks in Biden’s proposed fiscal 2024 defense budget, a 3.3% increase over this year, while cutting non-defense discretionary spending down to $704 billion. It would allow for 1% growth to both defense and non-defense discretionary spending the year after, for a military top line of $895 billion in FY25.

“This debt ceiling deal does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia and our other adversaries,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said ahead of the vote late Thursday. “A strong bipartisan majority of senators stands ready to receive and process emergency funding requests from the administration.”

While numerous Republican defense hawks in the House passed the compromise bill to avoid a catastrophic default, the senators seeking to surpass the military budget caps point out that the 3.3% growth falls below the rate of inflation. They regularly seek 3% to 5% annual defense budget growth above inflation.

“It’s basically a cut when you consider inflation,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Defense News.

But the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, argued Wednesday on the Senate floor that the U.S. already spends more on defense than the next 10 countries in the world combined and that “Pentagon spending keeps increasing” because of price gouging from defense contractors in addition to inflation.

Packing the Ukraine supplemental?

The Biden administration expects that it will run out of Ukraine aid authorities by the end of the fiscal year and intends to ask Congress for an additional supplemental spending package for Kyiv within the next few months. Reed floated putting other Pentagon spending priorities in that Ukraine bill.

“They’ve built this incredible mouse trap that we have to figure out,” said Reed, according to Punchbowl News and Politico. “I think with Ukraine, you’re going to have to have a supplemental. We might put some other stuff in, too.”

Additionally, Graham told reporters he’s “hoping” the Senate will use a forthcoming Ukraine supplemental “as an opportunity to repair the damage done by this budget deal.”

Collins also endorsed adding other Pentagon funding measures to the next Ukraine supplemental, telling Defense News it “would be one way to deal with the inadequate top line for the Department of Defense.”

Congress started using emergency spending in the early 2000s to help fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq outside of the base budget through an overseas contingency operations account. From 2013 to 2021, Congress routinely used OCO funds to circumvent the defense spending caps imposed by sequestration, even as non-defense spending remained subject to spending limits. This averaged about $119 billion per year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Total defense spending for FY23 — which ends Sept. 30 — will come to $893 billion after accounting for $35.4 billion in emergency Ukraine aid. Total FY22 defense spending came to $794 billion after Congress allocated an additional $26 billion in Ukraine aid.

Meanwhile, House Republicans who voted for the compromise debt ceiling bill are preparing to begin marking up the defense authorization and appropriations bills under the $886 billion cap.

“We’ll make it work,” House defense appropriations Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., told Defense News on Wednesday before voting for the bill.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., also voted for the bill despite panning Biden’s defense budget request as too low. He had planned to mark up the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act in May but postponed the bill at the last minute following a request from Republican leaders engaged in the debt ceiling negotiations.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also voted for the debt ceiling compromise while deriding the defense spending cap, stating Thursday on the Senate floor that “we cannot neglect our fundamental obligation to address the nation’s most pressing national security challenges.”

The Army bought two Iron Dome batteries from Israel in order to fill a gap in cruise missile defense as it develops its own indirect fire protection capability, but has stressed it won’t buy more of the stand-alone systems, partly because the Israeli government has been unwilling to turn over its proprietary source code.

But at a May 30 Center for Strategic and International Studies event, Moshe Patel, who heads the Israel Missile Defense Organization, said he believed relevant information sharing limitations between the two countries have now been resolved.

“I can tell you that just recently, we solved all the issues and problems that they have and we are going to give them the right solutions and whatever they need in order to integrate fully the capability of Iron Dome inside their systems,” Patel said in response to a question about whether he believed Iron Dome could be integrated into the U.S. system, as opposed to being merely interoperable.

“More than that, we deployed two Iron Dome batteries already that we are willing to fully integrate those Iron Dome batteries into the [Integrated Battle Command System] and whatever is needed,” he added.

The IBCS, which is the Army’s command-and-control system that will connect sensors and interceptors across the battlefield, was recently approved for full-rate production. Army officials have maintained if a system can’t connect with IBCS, it can’t be a part of the service’s emerging air-and-missile defense architecture.

While the Army has deployed Iron Dome to Guam for a short period of time to evaluate its capability in an operational environment, it has yet to talk about how it might deploy it or any plans for the two systems in detail.

Tom Karako, a missile defense expert at CSIS, said earlier this year that Iron Dome cannot be integrated into the Army’s future air and missile defense network until Israeli provides access to the source code, with cybersecurity a major concern.

“Unless Israel permits access to address these concerns, these two batteries will remain a standalone niche capability,” he wrote in a recent opinion piece. “As such, the Army seems to not know what to do with them.”

Technological solutions exist to tie Iron Dome effectively into the Army’s air-and-missile defense architecture that don’t require the Israelis to pass over proprietary source code, former Missile Defense Agency director retired Lt. Gen. Henry Obering wrote in an opinion piece for Defense News in 2020.

“One option could be through technical escrow accounts, which would allow trusted national security officials to process integration without putting Israeli ingenuity at risk,” he writes. “At the same time, the United States does not need proprietary Israeli intellectual property to derive use from the air defense system. Integrating the Iron Dome within U.S. defenses would be ideal, but there are still discreet interoperable uses for the system, similar to how the Marines reportedly connected it to their Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar.”

Patel pointed to several other efforts where Iron Dome was able to connect effectively such as the command-and-control element of the brand new AN/SPY-6 radar aboard Navy destroyers and the Marine Corps’ air defense system as well.

“Whatever we can help you in the United States to have better defense and to fill your gap, we will do with all the support that we have received from you along the years. I think that is our obligation,” he said.

“As of today, the Army does not have a requirement for the Iron Dome software,” Doug Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief told Defense News in a June 1 statement sent through a spokesperson. “However, given recent discussions that issue is under review.”

Currently, the Army has “an acceptable interoperability strategy in place with an existing command and control system planned for implementation by the end of the calendar year,” Bush added. “This approach ensures the Army’s two Iron Dome systems will be effective if they are deployed.”

Even so, IBCS is the “critical element that connects everything,” Bush said. “Commanders could make the decision to employ United States-owned Iron Dome units for specific missions and threats, but the long term operational defensive design for air defense relies on IBCS and IBCS-enabled equipment.”

While Iron Dome’s future with the U.S. force structure remains uncertain, Rafael, the company that developed and manufactured Iron Dome in a partnership with the United States government and U.S. based Raytheon, is also setting its sights on the possibility that some parts of Iron Dome could see wider adoption.

For example, while the Army picked Raytheon’s AIM-9X for its first Indirect Fires Protection Capability missile, the service plans to evaluate and hold competitions later on for other missiles to add to the inventory that are capable of taking out rockets, artillery and mortars as well as cruise missiles and drones. Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor would likely be a candidate in any future IFPC interceptor competition.

Collins will replace Vice Adm. Jon Hill, who has served as director since 2019.

The Air Force general is currently the MDA’s program executive officer for Ground-Based Weapons Systems at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Within that $3.4 billion portfolio, Collins manages the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, consisting of interceptors in the ground at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, designed to intercept potential intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran.

Also under his purview is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, four Joint U.S. and Israeli programs and other classified programs.

Collins previously was the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons and director of the armament directorate, where he worked on the Air Force’s $92 billion non-nuclear weapons, munitions and ammunition portfolio.

The general began his military career in 1993 as a missile analyst in the 83rd Fighter Weapons Squadron at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

As the services are moving to develop offensive hypersonic capability, Collins recently oversaw the ups and downs of the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon development, or ARRW, which experienced a successful test last year. Amid a slew of failed test events before and after its successful one, the Air Force decided to drop the Lockheed Martin-developed program earlier this year.

Now, Collins will oversee an MDA program in its nascent phase of development — an interceptor capable of taking out hypersonic weapons in the glide phase of flight, a difficult technical challenge.

MDA has also spent the last four years working to upgrade the GMD system, which resides in Collins’ current portfolio. Two teams are competing to build a next-generation interceptor for the system as the current system undergoes a service life extension program.

Collins will also manage the MDA portion of a major new venture in Guam to develop a highly capable air and missile defense architecture to defend the island territory from continuously evolving and growing threats in the region. Some elements of that architecture include systems already in his purview.

The MDA’s $10.9 billion fiscal 2024 budget request continues to prioritize regional and homeland missile defense with a major focus on building the defensive architecture in Guam.

WASHINGTON — Equipment drawn from the U.S. Army’s Kuwait-based pre-positioned stock bound for Ukraine was not ready for combat operations, the Pentagon’s inspector general has found.

During the inspector general’s audit of that pre-positioned stock area, the fifth of seven such locations around the world, “we identified issues that resulted in unanticipated maintenance, repairs, and extended leadtimes to ensure the readiness of the military equipment selected to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the May 23 report stated.

All six of the M777 howitzers and 25 of 29 M1167 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles were not “mission ready” and required repairs before U.S. European Command could send the equipment to Ukraine.

By January 2023, the U.S. government used its drawdown authority 30 times in total to provide $18.3 billion in equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, which is fighting a Russian invasion.

Army pre-positioned stock, or APS, is meant to be kept at the highest level of readiness so that it can be used immediately in case of an emergency.

The inspector general issued the report mid-audit out of concern that “issues with poor maintenance and lax oversight of the [APS] equipment could result in future delays for equipment support provided to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the report read. “In addition, if U.S. forces needed this equipment, they would have encountered the same challenges.”

The 401st Army Field Support Battalion in Kuwait is responsible for overseeing contractor maintenance work, which includes issuing equipment. Army Materiel Command confirmed the contractor conducting the work at the site is Amentum, which is based in Chantilly, Virginia.

Hazardous howitzers

Because the battalion did not ensure the contractor was meeting its maintenance requirements for approximately 19 months on M777 howitzers, an Army Materiel Command senior representative from Kuwait issued a request for assistance, bringing in a U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command mobile repair team from Anniston Army Depot, Alabama.

When the team arrived at Camp Arifjan in March 2022, the contractor provided a howitzer that it said was fully mission capable. But the weapon system was not maintained according to the standard technical manual, per the mobile repair team, and “ ‘would have killed somebody [the operator],’ in its current condition,” the report stated.

The team subsequently found that all six howitzers had operational issues. Four of the six howitzers had breech blocks improperly aligned with the rack gear, which prevented the breech from correctly locking. A breech not properly locked could result in an explosion that could kill the crew, the report noted.

Additionally, all six howitzers contained reused, old hydraulic fluid, which is not allowed because the fluid degrades over time and could lead to “disastrous results and malfunctions of critical systems,” the inspector general found.

The contractor paid the mobile repair team $114,000 for labor and travel expenses, according to the report.

As the howitzers were being prepared to leave Kuwait for shipment to Europe on June 21, 2022, one of the howitzers experienced a brake fire, likely due to the contractor not releasing the parking brake when moving it, according to the report, which cited a specialist with the mobile repair team. The contractor claimed it was likely due to leaking brake fluid, the report noted.

When the howitzers reached Poland for distribution to Ukraine, officials there said all six howitzers still had faults that made them non-mission capable, according to the report, including worn firing pins and issues with the firing mechanism. The repairs cost about $17,490 in labor and materials.

Officials said they were able to avoid delays in getting the howitzers to Ukraine, but the inspector general noted in the report the inadequate maintenance on the howitzers highlights the need to consider the time it would take to maintain and repair equipment coming from the APS site in Kuwait for Ukraine.

Tire troubles

Prior to August 2022, the 401st declared 28 of 29 Humvees as fully mission capable, but when it received an order to pull those out for Ukraine on Aug. 24, only three of the 29 were ready, the inspector general said.

Problems with the Humvees included dead batteries, inoperative lights, faulty gauges, damaged seat belts, broken door lock latches and fluid leaks, the report listed.

In order to meet the deadline to ship the equipment to Europe, the contractor took parts from other Humvees in the inventory, including in one case a transmission, “potentially making that equipment non-mission capable,” the report noted.

When the vehicles arrived in Poland, officials there reported one of the tires on a Humvee was shredded due to dry rot. When the tire was replaced with a spare, that one also failed due to dry rot, the report described.

The officials in Poland opened up work orders to replace tires damaged with dry rot in September 2022. Additionally, the vehicles did not come with spare tires, the officials noted, causing concern they would cross the border and fail with no means to replace tires there.

Tires were ultimately pulled from other equipment for the Humvees headed to Ukraine.

The process delayed delivery to Ukraine and required significant labor and time, “pulling soldiers away from primary duties,” and cost $173,524 for labor and material, the report added.

Getting back in fighting shape

The head of Army Sustainment Command explained, in response to the report, that the service’s funding level for APS maintenance in Kuwait was 30% of the validated requirements in fiscal 2023 — about $27.8 million of the $91.3 million requirement.

And the commander stated the contractor “is not contractually obligated or appropriately resourced to maintain [APS] equipment” at standards laid out in the technical manual the inspector general followed to make determinations regarding mission-capable readiness of the equipment.

The inspector general disagreed that the contractor was not obligated to follow the same technical manual used by the inspector general and also noted in the report that the Army obligated nearly $1 billion from Aug. 31, 2016, through April 13, 2023, for the APS location.

The inspector general recommended in the report that the Army’s deputy chief of staff — or G-3/5/7, which is responsible for issuing what goes into APS — “consider the level of maintenance and leadtime required before selecting Army Prepositioned Stock [in Kuwait] equipment for sourcing Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

The commander of the 401st should also develop and implement “increased inspection procedures to not only validate that the [APS] contractor has properly corrected known maintenance deficiencies but also to conduct a thorough visual inspection of equipment and correct any deficiencies including tires damaged by dry rot, before shipping the equipment to [U.S. European Command] for transfer to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

It would also cut non-defense spending to $704 billion. The compromise legislation comes after weeks of negotiations between the Biden administration and House Republicans, who demanded non-defense spending cuts and several other concessions in order to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a U.S. default.

“We cut spending year-over-year for the first time in over a decade while fully funding national defense and veterans’ health benefits,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement upon introducing the compromise bill Sunday.

While the agreement grows the defense topline to Biden’s proposed $886 billion, numerous Republican defense hawks in Congress have already lambasted that proposal as “inadequate” for not keeping pace with inflation. In March, when the budget request was released, they pushed for a 3% to 5% increase over inflation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaking on Fox News on Sunday after details first emerged, said the deal “increases defense spending below inflation.”

“The Biden defense budget was a joke before, and if we adopt it as Republicans, we will be doing a big disservice to the party of Ronald Reagan,” said Graham. “I like Kevin [McCarthy] a lot, but don’t tell me that the Biden defense budget fully funds the military.”

The bill also authorizes a 1% increase for both defense and non-defense spending in FY25. That would put the FY25 defense spending topline at $895 billion.

If Congress does not pass all 12 appropriations bills by the end of December, the debt deal mandates a full-year continuing resolution to fund the government with a 1% budget cut that would apply to defense and non-defense spending alike.

The House and Senate are expected to vote on the legislation later this week. The Treasury Department has said it expects to run out of money to pay its bills by June 5. If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling by that date, the government may have to suspend payments to troops, veterans and defense contractors.

In November 2021, the DIA — which analyzes and distributes information in support of combat-related missions and foreign intelligence — established a similar role within its agency, naming Greg Ryckman its deputy director for global integration.

According to Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, DIA’s director, that position has been invaluable. Speaking May 24 at the GEOINT Conference in St. Louis, Berrier compared the role to that of a U.S. Department of Defense “J3,” an operations officer with the authority to shift resources in response to emerging threats from adversaries like China and Russia.

“The DIA needed a J3 to be able to look across the enterprise and, with my authority, move things to where they needed to be,” he said. “I think that needs to happen in the IC as well.”

Berrier said in a 2021 statement announcing the office’s creation that the DIA’s goal in creating the position was to “go beyond” its observe and report mission and “illuminate opportunities to disrupt, degrade, deter and deny adversaries’ ability to and willingness to compete globally.”

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, who oversees the IC, said in a separate May 24 speech she’s happy with how the various agencies are collaborating to get after shared challenges. While she didn’t directly address the need for a high-level global integration director, she acknowledged there are opportunities for improvement.

“There’s still room to be had to grow, essentially, in the integration space,” Haines said. “I think it’s a constantly evolving process and one that we have to be disciplined in promoting.”

“Gen. Brown is a warrior, descended from a proud line of warriors,” Biden said, referencing Brown’s Vietnam veteran father as well as his grandfather, who led a segregated unit in World War II.

Brown’s command roles in the Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East and Europe give him “an unmatched firsthand knowledge of our operational theaters, and a strategic vision to understand how they all work together to ensure security for the American people,” Biden said, flanked by Brown, Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“While Gen. Brown is a proud, butt-kickin’ American airman, first and always, he’s also been an operational leader in the joint force,” Biden said. “He gained respect across every service from those who have seen him in action, and have come to depend on his judgment. More than that, he gained the respect of our allies and partners around the world, who regard Gen. Brown as a trusted partner and a top-notch strategist.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Brown — who has served as the Air Force’s chief of staff for nearly three years — will succeed Army Gen. Mark Milley as the military’s top uniformed officer.

Milley sat in the front row of the audience at the ceremony, next to Brown’s wife Sharene. Biden, wearing his signature aviator shades, thanked Milley and his family for their years of service.

“As chairman, you’ve led our military through the most complex security environment our world has faced in a long, long time,” Biden said. “We’ve strengthened our alliances from NATO to the Indo-Pacific, and built new partnerships like AUKUS [the trilateral defense agreement between the United States, U.K., and Australia]. ... You’ve helped set our country and our military on a course that will put us in the strongest possible position to succeed in the years ahead.”

And Biden saluted Sharene Brown for her work to improve the quality of life for military families as part of her “Five and Thrive” initiative.

As chairman, Brown would advise the president on military matters, including the potential defense of Taiwan if China invades and NATO’s effort to support Ukraine in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion. He would also regularly consult with top military leaders across all services to gather their thoughts on strategy, operations and budgets, so he could present a range of options to Biden.

The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Brown’s nomination to become Air Force chief of staff in June 2020, which made him the first Black person to head a branch of the U.S. military, and he is expected to be easily confirmed as the nation’s top military officer. However, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has placed a hold on Defense Department nominations over the department’s decision to provide leave and travel services so troops can obtain abortion services, which could create a stumbling block for Brown’s confirmation.

What Gen. CQ Brown would bring as chairman of the Joint Chiefs

During his three years as Air Force chief of staff, Brown has focused on overhauling the service, a plan he dubbed “Accelerate Change or Lose,” which has also become something of a mantra for him. This effort involves reshaping the service’s structure, changing how the service prepares for potential conflicts with major adversaries like China and Russia, and divesting old and outdated air frames like the A-10 Warthog, E-3 Sentry and older F-15C fighters, which he and other Air Force leaders say would be unsuited for future high-end wars.

Biden singled out Brown’s Accelerate Change or Lose strategy as exactly what the military needs.

“General, you’re right on,” Biden said. “To keep the American people safe, prosperous and secure, we have to move fast and adapt quickly. We have to maintain a combat-credible force capable of deterring and defeating any potential threat.”

A retired general officer familiar with the discussions told Air Force Times Biden strongly considered both Brown and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger for the job, but ultimately chose Brown.

Brown would be the second Black person to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman, with the first being Army Gen. Colin Powell under President George H.W. Bush. It would be the first time in the nation’s history that both the top civilian and uniformed leaders in the Defense Department are Black, as Austin is the first Black secretary of defense.

An ‘unflinching’ video

In June 2020, shortly after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and days before the Senate voted to confirm him as chief of staff, Brown made an emotional video in which he spoke about Floyd’s death and his own experiences as a Black person in the military. The video went viral, and observers say Brown’s frank talk helped spark conversations about racism and injustice in the military community.

Biden said that “unflinching” testimonial shows Brown is “unafraid to speak his mind [and] will deliver an honest message that needs to be heard, and will always do the right thing when it’s hard.”

Biden said the video also showed “his deep love of our country, to which he’s dedicated his entire adult life.”

Republicans praised Brown’s nomination and called on him to remain out of politics should the Senate nominate him for the post.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, praised Brown as an “exceptionally qualified officer” and said he should maintain a “laser focus on readiness, deterrence and warfighting instead of politics.”

“I have also known him to be a thoughtful advocate of accelerating innovation so that our armed services can be ready to defend our country and deter potential threats, especially those from the Chinese Communist Party,” said Wicker.

House defense appropriations Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., said Brown “must be focused on maintaining our edge in the air, land, sea and space and not be distracted by other issues that don’t ultimately result in the enhanced lethality of U.S. forces.”

Calvert praised Brown’s tenure as Air Force chief, noting he understood “we must innovate and equip our warfighters with the next generation of resources to secure our nation” in order to “surpass the technological advancements of China and other adversaries.”

Ties around the world

In a Wednesday interview with Defense News, retired Gen. Dave Goldfein — Brown’s predecessor as Air Force chief of staff — said Brown’s skills, honed throughout his nearly four decades in uniform, and the bonds he’s created with counterparts across the world will be vital as the United States faces multiple challenges.

“When it comes to … Ukraine or China or Korea or Iran, or you name the challenges that he will face, he has built enough relationships and enough credibility that he can walk into the room and, in his very thoughtful way, provide his military advice and assessment of the risks involved, allowing the president and the senior civilian leadership to make the most informed decisions,” Goldfein said.

Since he first met Brown in the mid-1990s — when Brown was aide-de-camp to then-chief of staff Gen. Ron Fogleman and Goldfein was aide to the commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe in Naples, Italy — Brown has always been a deep thinker and a quiet consensus builder, Goldfein said. Those traits will serve him well as he advises Biden on the nation’s most pressing military matters.

“He really thinks things through,” Goldfein said. “He’s not usually the most vocal at the table, and he’s certainly not the loudest, but he always has the most to say. … When he spoke in a meeting, everybody was leaning forward, listening, taking notes.”

Goldfein pointed to the 2019 Pacific Air Chiefs Symposium at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii as an example of Brown’s skill in bringing together people from different backgrounds and with different interests to build common ground.

During that conference, attended by air chiefs from about 18 nations, then-PACAF Commander Brown set up a series of small panel discussions that brought every attending nation’s air chief to the table. During those talks, Goldfein said, the “chemistry” between Brown and the other Pacific nations’ air chiefs was evident.

“What struck me was the relationships that he’d invested in across the region, which were on display during the entire conference,” Goldfein said. “It was relationships built on trust, it was relationships built on confidence in each other, it was relationships built on how he valued each of them and their participation and their input. Because he’s such an incredible listener, they knew that he was paying attention to everything they had to say.”

Brown’s breadth of experience in some of the world’s most vital military theaters is unparalleled among general officers today, Goldfein said — particularly his time commanding the nation’s air forces in the Pacific and the Middle East, and serving as a senior leader in Europe.

“I don’t know that we’re going to find an officer who has had more time in joint operations, in every theater, than CQ Brown,” Goldfein said.

The kind of relationship-building Brown excelled at during the 2019 Pacific conference will be vital in his new role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Goldfein said. Brown has already built up a considerable contact list of top leaders around the world, such as ambassadors, top defense ministers and heads of state, during his last three years commanding the Air Force, Goldfein said. He predicted that as chairman, Brown will be able to quickly form ties with international leaders he doesn’t yet know.

“When there’s a crisis and you need to talk to one of your counterparts, that’s the worst time to start building a relationship,” Goldfein said. “You want to build on relationships that you’ve already invested in. … He’s going to bring relationships — across the highest levels of government — with some of the most important countries we ever have to deal with.”

Rachel S. Cohen contributed to this report.

Biden announced that he would seek legislation to designate Australia as a “domestic source” under Title III of the Defense Production Act – a privilege currently only enjoyed by Canada – when he met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the G7 summit in Japan on Saturday.

His remarks came after the Pentagon submitted an April 28 legislative proposal to Congress that would amend the law to add both Australia and the U.K. to Title III, which would allow the president to direct grants and loans to companies in each country as if they were U.S. companies.

“Doing so would streamline technological and industrial base collaboration, accelerate and strengthen AUKUS implementation and build new opportunities for United States investment in the production and purchase of Australian critical minerals, critical technologies and other strategic sectors,” noted a joint U.S.-Australia statement released after Biden’s meeting with Albanese.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategies, Plans and Capabilities Mara Karlin told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that using Defense Production Act grants for the Australian and British industry would help implement the technology-sharing components of AUKUS, known as Pillar II. These capabilities stand apart from the plan to help Australia develop its own nuclear-powered submarine fleet. They include joint development on hypersonic weapons, quantum technologies and artificial intelligence.

“Pillar II – the scope, the scale, the complexity of it – it’s really unlike anything that we have ever done,” said Karlin. “We’re still looking, of course, at what it would mean for specific AUKUS projects.”

“This is a two-way street,” added Karlin. “Given of course the security environment, given the rapidly evolving technological environment, we need to be able to work with one another as much as possible.”

When the House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act last year, it included an amendment from Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., that would have put Australia and the U.K within the purview of the Defense Production Act. However, Congress dropped the provision in the final bill after negotiations with the Senate.

Courtney said he hopes that Biden’s endorsement at the G7 would spur Congress to pass his legislation into law this year.

Defense Production Act

“Under current law, the [Defense Production Act] allows the president to stimulate investments in technology in both U.S. and Canadian companies to allow our nations to tackle pressing national priorities in partnership with private companies, as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Courtney told Defense News in a statement. “By expanding the definition of a ‘domestic source’ to include both Australia and the United Kingdom, we can accelerate innovation in critical technologies to fulfill the goals of the AUKUS security agreement.”

Both Biden and former president Donald Trump used the Defense Production Act to procure vital medical supplies amid significant supply chain disruptions during the pandemic. The White House also invoked the Defense Production Act in March in the hopes of speeding up hypersonic weapons development. Adding Australia and the U.K. to Title III could allow defense contractors in both countries to take advantage of U.S. grants and loans for their own hypersonics programs.

Biden also used the Defense Production Act last year to unlock $43 million in funding to address critical mineral shortfalls in large-capacity batteries. China largely controls the global supply chain for critical minerals like cobalt needed to produce these batteries.

Putting Canberra within the purview of the Defense Production Act could stimulate U.S. investment in Australian mines. The Australian government’s geoscience agency notes that Australia remained the world’s largest lithium producer in 2021, controlling 53% of the global market. It is also among the world’s top five producers of cobalt and antimony, an alloy largely controlled by China that is needed to make bullets and ammunition.

Congress allocated $600 million in Defense Production Act funding as part of a Ukraine aid package last year, in part to shore up critical mineral supply chains that were further disrupted after Russia’s invasion. The State Department also developed a minerals security partnership to bolster these supply chains with 10 other allies, including Australia.

Digital luminaries including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Getty Images CEO Craig Peters and Twitter’s Elon Musk, alongside academics and others, signed an open letter in March advocating for powerful AI development to proceed “only once we are confident their effects” will be manageable and net positive.

But doing so, Sherman said May 24 at the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis, risks ceding AI hegemony to China or Russia, powers the U.S. considers premier national security threats.

“I’ve said this in other venues, and I’m going to say it here today, that I know some have advocated for taking a knee for six months,” he said. “No. Not at the Department of Defense, not the intelligence community.”

Why the military moves faster than government on AI

Defense leaders see AI, autonomy and related technologies as critical to long-term competitiveness on the world stage. A Pentagon strategy for AI implementation describes breakthroughs as shaking up “the national security landscape,” with foreign governments “investing heavily” in ways “that threaten global security, peace and stability.”

At least 685 AI-related projects were underway at the Pentagon as of early 2021, according to the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog. They include several tied to major weapons systems. The tech will play a critical role in navigation and targeting aboard the Army’s future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle as well as the streamlining of logistics and maintenance needs across the broader military.

“One thing we take pride in — the United States, working with our allies — is to be responsible in how we apply AI and develop it. Not in ways that you see in China and Russia and elsewhere,” Sherman said. “We can do this, and create decision advantage for our warfighters, correctly with our democratic values.”

The Biden administration this week rolled out guidance for federally backed AI research. Months prior, the White House published a blueprint for an AI bill of rights, which laid out a road map for responsible AI application.

Austin spoke as defense leaders from around the world assembled for a virtual meeting to discuss the ongoing military support for Ukraine. They were expected talk about which countries will provide F-16s, and how and where the pilot training will be done.

The officials will also get an update on the war effort from Ukrainian leaders, including preparation for that anticipated counteroffensive and how the allies, who have faced their own stockpile pressures, can continue to support Kyiv’s fight against Russia.

“We’re going to have to dig deeper, and we’re going to have to continue to look for creative ways to boost our industrial capability,” Austin said before the military leaders began their closed session. “The stakes are high. But the cause is just and our will is strong.”

European countries have said they are talking about which countries may have some of the F-16s available. The United States had long balked at providing the advanced aircraft to Ukraine, and only last weekend did President Joe Biden agree to allow other nations to send their own U.S.-made jets to Kyiv.

“We hope this training will begin in the coming weeks,” Austin said. “This will further strengthen and improve the capabilities of the Ukrainian Air Force in the long term. And it will complement our short-term and medium-term security agreements. This new joint effort sends a powerful message about our unity and our long-term commitment to Ukraine’s self-defense.”

The leaders will also likely discuss Ukraine’s other continuing military needs, including air defense systems and munitions, artillery and other ammunition.

It was not immediately clear whether they will make any firm decisions on the F-16 issue, but initial steps have begun.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Tuesday that training for Ukrainian pilots had begun in Poland and some other countries, though Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said training was still in the planning phase. The Netherlands and Denmark, among others, are also making plans for training.

“We can continue and also finalize the plans that we’re making with Denmark and other allies to start these these trainings. And of course, that is the first step that you have to take,” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said, adding that initial discussions about who may have F-16s available to send is underway.

Ukraine has long sought the sophisticated fighter to give it a combat edge as it battles Russia’s invasion, now in its second year.

The Biden administration’s decision was a sharp reversal after refusing to approve any transfer of the aircraft or conduct training for more than a year because of worries that doing so could escalate tensions with Russia. U.S. officials also had argued against the F-16 by saying that learning to fly and logistically support such an advanced aircraft would be difficult and take months.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said this week that the U.S. decision on the F-16 was part of a broader long-term commitment to meet Ukraine’s future military needs. He said the jets would not be relevant in any counteroffensive expected to begin shortly.

ST. LOUIS —The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will demonstrate the ability to process and disseminate data in hard-to-reach locations at several military exercises this summer.

The agency, the intelligence community’s lead organization for analyzing satellite imagery and turning it into usable data, is developing four Joint Regional Edge Nodes, or JRENs, that will be based in various locations around the world. The idea is to stage the processors closer to users, allowing them to receive and distribute large swaths of data on faster timelines.

The first node, which NGA expects to deliver in fiscal 2024, will be located in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Mark Chatelain, the agency’s chief information officer, said NGA will showcase JREN as part of multiple military exercises in July, though he didn’t specify which ones.

“Getting this capability out forward supports our analysts that are out in the field,” Chatelain said May 24 at the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri. “It will also support applications so that when they are disconnected, they still have all the applications they need on this Joint Regional Edge Node and be able to operate as if they were connected back to our data centers.”

Last December, NGA Director Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth described JREN as a way to handle what he described as a “deluge” of data and to address the challenge of sharing that information in remote locations.

The agency relies on what’s called the National System for Geospatial Intelligence, or NSG, to distribute nearly a petabyte of data around the globe each day. Since 2018, it has relied on the Odyssey GEOINT Edge Node to process sensor data and help operators on the ground use that data to make real-time decisions.

Odyssey has been in high demand from various combatant command, and JREN provides a chance to increase that capacity while also providing a more resilient capability.

According to E.P. Mathew, deputy chief information officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, placing more processing nodes across the globe supports the National Defense Strategy, which calls for decentralizing systems and approaches. Systems like JREN, designed for degraded locations where access to the cloud may not be available, help the intelligence community support international partners, combatant commands and defense attaches, he said during the same May 23 panel.

“How do I provide information to them in either a cloud disconnected or degraded environment? In that scenario, cloud computing does not work or is not ideal,” Mathew said. “I have to think in terms of resiliency, redundancy, with the intent of passing information to the warfighter or the policymaker in the short time that is available.”