The Defense Department has spent billions to fix its antiquated financial systems. So why does the Pentagon still have no idea where its money goes?

Pentagon's Accounting Mess

If you want to understand how former allies end up going to war -- or former lovers end up getting divorced -- take a look at how Boeing and the Air Force are treating each other in their angry confrontation over the award of a next-generation tanker program to Northrop Grumman. Boeing expected to win the contract, and now finds itself facing the prospect of losing a 50-year aerial refueling franchise (and $100 billion in sales) while its main rival in the commercial airliner business sets up shop on Boeing's home turf. Boeing is convinced it should have won, and is spending millions of dollars on lawyers and advertising to press its case in a formal complaint to the Government Accountability Office.

Air Force leaders, on the other hand, believe that Boeing is willfully mis-stating the facts in a bid to obscure the inferior performance of the plane it proposed. A marathon session of Air Force acquisition experts two weeks ago concluded that none of the 200 issues raised by Boeing in its complaint to GAO was likely to be upheld, and that whatever minor problems the accountability office might uncover would be far from sufficient to overturn a competitive outcome the service says was not close. Beyond the merits of Boeing's case, Air Force officials are insulted by the tone of the company's public statements, which have used phrases such as "deeply flawed" and "severely prejudiced" to describe the tanker selection process.

Boeing and the Air Force At War: The Damage Spreads

This research brief summarizes research detailing a methodology for assessing the benefits and costs of U.S. Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance employment strategies.

New Approaches to Planning, Executing, and Assessing ISR Operations

Commanders on the battlefield will soon be able to anticipate enemy moves through Deep Green, a new program developed in part by USC's Viterbi Information Sciences Institute.

On the Battlefield, There Are No Surprises

The Department of Defense (DoD) is rapidly moving forward into the cyber domain of warfare, but the United States Government is not ready to exploit this evolution in Civil-Military affairs. With the United States facing new threats to its national security at home and abroad like never before, U.S. policy and law must change to enable DoD to fully defend and fight in cyberspace. Due to the highly automated and interconnected nature of U.S. critical infrastructure, it is not practical to erect a barrier between military and civilian operations that can serve U.S. national interests. Within the interagency framework, DoD should serve as the lead, including the response phase whenever defense critical infrastructure is involved or when a cyber attack has seriously affected other national critical infrastructure. To enable this transformation, the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) should be amended or rescinded so DoD can conduct full defensive and offensive cyberspace operations against all required targets.

DoD Computer Network Operations: Time to Hit the Send Button

DOD has taken a number of steps to implement its global strike concept and has generally assigned responsibilities for the planning, execution, and support of global strike operations. However, key stakeholders, particularly the geographic combatant commanders, have different interpretations of the concept, scope, range, and potential use of capabilities needed to implement global strike. Several factors affect the understanding and communication of DOD’s global strike concept among key stakeholders, including the extent to which DOD has (1) defined global strike, (2) incorporated global strike into joint doctrine, (3) conducted outreach and communication activities with key stakeholders, and (4) involved stakeholders in joint exercises and other training involving global strike. GAO’s prior work examining successful organizational transformations shows the necessity to communicate to stakeholders often and early with clear and specific objectives on what is to be achieved and what roles are assigned. Without a complete and clearly articulated concept that is well communicated and practiced with key stakeholders, DOD could encounter difficulties in fully implementing its concept and building the necessary relationships for carrying out global strike operations.

DOD Needs to Strengthen Implementation of Its Global Strike Concept

Are chip makers building electronic trapdoors in key military hardware? The Pentagon is making its biggest effort yet to find out

The Hunt for the Kill Switch

A project heralded as the dawning of an innovative, low-cost era in Navy shipbuilding has turned into a case study of how not to build a combat ship. The bill for the ship, being built by Lockheed Martin, has soared to $531 million, more than double the original, and by some calculations could be $100 million more. With an alternate General Dynamics prototype similarly struggling at an Alabama shipyard, the Navy last year temporarily suspended the entire program.

The program’s tribulations speak to what military experts say are profound shortcomings in the Pentagon’s acquisitions system. Even as spending on new projects has risen to its highest point since the Reagan years, being over budget and behind schedule have become the norm: a recent Government Accountability Office audit found that 95 projects — warships, helicopters and satellites — were delayed 21 months on average and cost 26 percent more than initially projected, a bill of $295 billion.

Lesson on How Not to Build a Navy Ship

The policy debate over using U.S. reconnaissance satellites to obtain imagery of targets in the United States dates back to the earliest days of spy satellites, according to an updated collection of declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).

Obtained and edited by Archive senior fellow Dr. Jeffrey Richelson, the documents add significant historical context to current Congressional concerns (Document 46 and Document 50) about privacy and civil liberties guidelines for the new National Applications Office (Document 41 and Document 48).

Additional historical documents include the charter for the Civil Applications Committee, the statement of authority for National Reconnaissance Program activities over the United States, as well as documents that focus on the question of "proper use" of the satellites and the risk to senior officials should the space assets be used inappropriately.

Documents concerning current plans to establish a National Applications Office and associated Congressional concerns include the letter from the Secretary of Homeland Security to the Director of National Intelligence (reporting his interest in establishing a domestic applications office), expressions of Congressional concern, and the proposed charter (from February 2008).

U.S. Reconnaissance Satellites: Domestic Targets

With all the cyber spies and state-sponsored hackers on the Internet, is there any way to defend ourselves? Critics say not completely

Defenseless on the Net