“The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer — the second reported instance of the secretary sharing operational plans in an unclassified chat. The revelations have reignited the so-called Signalgate scandal and deepened scrutiny over Hegseth’s judgment and leadership.”
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“Ullyot — once a vocal supporter of the Defense secretary — accused Hegseth’s team of spreading unverified claims about three top officials who were fired last week, falsely accusing them of leaking sensitive information to media outlets.”
“The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 to help the Pentagon adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises and push Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon. It built rapid response tools for the military during the Afghanistan withdrawal, databases to transfer Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid, drone detection technologies and more.
Without the program, some key efforts to streamline the DOD’s tech talent pipeline and counter adversarial drones will be sunsetted, one soon-to-be former employee said.
Once dubbed the Pentagon’s “SWAT team of nerds,” DDS was one of the department’s earliest efforts to inject Silicon Valley ethos into its massive bureaucracy.”
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“every employee interviewed said they wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t for DOGE.
One former senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be named because of possible retaliation, described DOGE’s wider incursion into the Defense Department as damaging and unproductive
“They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything,” the former official said.”
“Building lethality in the military may be the buzzword for the new Trump administration, but busywork and paperwork have become the reality at the Pentagon, as service members and civilian workers are facing a broad mandate to purge all of the department’s social media sites and untangle confusing personnel reduction moves.
On Wednesday, the department’s top public affairs official signed and sent out a new memo requiring all the military services to spend countless hours poring over years of website postings, photos, news articles and videos to remove any mentions that “promote diversity, equity and inclusion.””
“China is conducting the largest military build-up seen since that of Nazi Germany during the 1930s, one expert warns, after a new Department of Defense report detailed Beijing’s operations including bolstering weapons and psychological warfare.”
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“”Now the big difference there, is that he really focused on land power, which frankly is pretty easy to build up pretty quickly,” he added. “Navies are much more difficult to build up. And we are way behind. And not only do we need to catch up, but we also need to modernize our nuclear weapons, and we need to put a lot of effort into missile defense.”
“They’re massively building up their nuclear arsenal. We expect it to expand to at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, only five years from now. Probably going to be bigger than that,” DeVore said Sunday. “The Chinese Navy, not by tonnage, but by numbers is now larger than the U.S. Navy. China has something like 250 times the ship building capacity that America does.”
The report cites how China has bolstered its People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) arsenal to include 50 new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can strike the continental U.S., raising its total to 400. As far as the report discloses, the DoD says China has added 300 medium-range ballistic missiles and 100 long-range cruise missiles. Their arsenal also now includes more than 600 operational nuclear warheads and is expected to have more than 1,000 by 2030.
The DoD says the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has the world’s leading arsenal of hypersonic missiles, including the DF-27, which as DeVore notes, “are capable of evading U.S. missile defenses and targeting Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska.””
“Zheng Wei is a fairly common Chinese name. A tennis player, a movie director, an archaeologist, and multiple Chinese-American academics all share that name. So do an inventor at the consumer drone company DJI and a professor at China’s National University of Defense Technology.
And the U.S. government mixed up the last two people, with serious consequences, according to a recent lawsuit by DJI. The drone manufacturer is suing the U.S. Department of Defense for designating DJI as an arm of the Chinese military”
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“Similarly, the Pentagon claimed that DJI software engineer Zhang Tao was listed on a patent for a temperature-sensing device designed by China’s Military Science Academy. Again, DJI provided a declaration from its own Zhang Tao stating that he is not the same person as the Military Science Academy’s Zhang Tao.”
“Overcharging is a massive problem for the U.S. military budget. In 2015, the Pentagon found that it was severely overpaying for Patriot missiles, and negotiated a new contract that saved $550 million. In 2019, the inspector general found that the military was paying $4,300 for a half-inch metal drive pin that should have cost $46.
The similarly extreme markup on soap dispensers is what led to the audit of C-17 parts in the first place. The Office of the Inspector General says that it opened its investigation in June 2022 after a whistleblower told its anonymous tip line that Boeing was severely overcharging for airplane bathroom fixtures.
The inspector general found that the Air Force did not “validate the accuracy of the data used for contract negotiation, conduct contract surveillance to identify price increases during contract execution, or review invoices to determine fair and reasonable prices before payment.””
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“The inspector general found that the Pentagon had trouble catching overcharging because officials “would not question the costs if they matched what Boeing paid” its suppliers.”
“The militarization of space is really heating up after the Pentagon accused Russia of launching a satellite that national security officials believe is capable of attacking other satellites in orbit, the BBC reports.
And most chillingly, this satellite, which the Russians launched last week, is on the same orbit as a US government satellite.
“Russia launched a satellite into low Earth orbit that we assess is likely a counter space weapon,” said Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder on Tuesday, as reported by the BBC.”
“By signing the bill, Biden will be forced to agree to a repeal of the Pentagon’s policy requiring troops to receive the Covid vaccine or face expulsion from the military.
The repeal is a victory for Republicans who pushed to do away with the policy during negotiations on a final defense bill. Conservatives have hammered the administration for forcing out thousands of military personnel and piling onto an already rough recruiting environment.
Rescinding the August 2021 mandate is a black eye for Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who still back the policy as a matter of health and readiness for the armed forces.”
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“The bill, however, doesn’t prohibit a new vaccine requirement in the coming months, meaning Austin could implement a new policy when the 2021 directive is repealed. Doing so, however, would spark a battle with the Republican-controlled House next year.”
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“Both parties roundly rejected Biden’s $813 billion military spending plan as too low to meet worldwide threats and counter the impacts of inflation on the Pentagon.
Instead, Congress endorsed that hefty $45 billion increase to Biden’s budget, which already would have boosted defense by about $30 billion over last year’s level. The final bill amounts to an increase of roughly $75 billion, or nearly 10 percent, from the previous year.
The additional money went toward buying more weapons as well as efforts to blunt the effects of inflation on Pentagon programs, troops and construction.
This marks the second straight year that Congress has significantly rewritten Biden’s budget. Defense legislation approved last year authorized an increase of $25 billion to the administration’s first proposal. It’s a pattern Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who is set to chair House Armed Services next year, chalked up to Congress and the White House rarely seeing eye to eye on federal spending.”
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“Congress foiled one of the few major changes Biden proposed to the nuclear arsenal, keeping alive a sea-launched cruise missile first proposed by the Trump administration.
Proponents of canceling the developmental program criticized it as costly, destabilizing and redundant, because Biden kept low-yield nukes fielded by the Trump administration deployed aboard ballistic missile submarines. A 2021 report by the Congressional Budget Office estimated the missile will cost $10 billion through 2030.
But lawmakers ultimately authorized $45 million to continue the program after top military brass, including Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley, publicly expressed support for the weapon, in a split with Austin and other top civilians who argued the missile isn’t needed.”
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“Lawmakers also voted to require the Pentagon to keep most of its inventory of B83 nuclear gravity bombs, which Biden proposed retiring. The agreement prohibits retiring or deactivating more than 25 percent of the stockpile until the Pentagon provides Congress with a study on how it will field capabilities to strike hard and buried targets.”
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“Lawmakers authorized $32.6 billion to buy new ships, boosting the budget by $4.7 billion and ordering up three new hulls the Navy didn’t ask for.
The additions include a third unrequested Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which the White House said it “strongly opposes” when the House approved it. Navy leaders have questioned whether a strained shipbuilding base can handle a rate of three destroyers per year. The bill also set a legal floor of 31 amphibious warships for the Navy, which the administration also opposes, arguing it would “unduly constrain” military planning.
Congress also threw a wrench into Navy plans to retire two dozen ships. The move was aimed at saving money but it also drew criticism on Capitol Hill because the plans would have scrapped some troubled littoral combat ships relatively early in their service lives.
The compromise bill ultimately bars the Navy from retiring a dozen warships it had planned to decommission, including five littoral combat ships and a Ticonderoga-class cruiser.
The legislation also crimps efforts by the Pentagon to retire dozens of aircraft. It jams up the administration’s plans to retire Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets, requiring the service to maintain a fleet of at least 158 aircraft through fiscal 2027. The bill similarly blocks efforts by the Air Force to retire some F-22 fighters through fiscal 2027.
Lawmakers also limited the Air Force’s ability to reduce its fleet of E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System planes below a certain level. Those restrictions would be eased if the service submits an acquisition strategy or awards a contract for its successor, the E-7 Wedgetail.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, boosted procurement for a swath of aircraft across the military services. Most notably, Armed Services leaders approved $666 million for eight Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets the Navy didn’t seek in its budget, keeping the production line active.”