links for 2009-11-11 November 11, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in Uncategorized.add a comment
-
An administration official has confirmed that Rajiv Shah will be nominated to be the next administrator of USAID. POLITICO reported yesterday that the 36-year-old USDA chief scientist and undersecretary for research, education and economics, a medical doctor and health economist who previously managed vaccine and agriculture programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seemed to be the most intriguing and plausible candidate, despite his youth
-
The primary weapon in the Taliban’s deadly, dumbed-down arsenal of explosives is the simple fertilizer bomb. Each one typically weighs 50 or 60 pounds. Each one is powerful enough to blow holes in armored vehicles, and kill soldiers instantly.
-
Few would dispute that preventing conflict, instability, and humanitarian disaster is preferable to confronting these problems after they arise. Preventive measures are generally less expensive than remedial ones. They also allow policymakers to address potential crises before they threaten international stability, U.S. interests, and human lives.
-
How best to measure success in Afghanistan remains a question in search of an answer. The debate over which metrics best chart the path to a successful campaign wasn’t advanced much when South Asia special envoy Richard Holbrook threw out the fairly hazy measure of success: “We’ll know it when we see it.”
-
A small group of officers at the Pentagon is in the early stages of work on a new concept to combine the capabilities of the U.S. Air Force and Navy, offset their vulnerabilities and better use their assets to deter or defeat future enemies.
-
U.S. defense officials expect to finalize by late November a plan to avoid new F-35 cost increases and schedule slips that have been forecast by a Pentagon analysis cell, Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said Monday.
-
The Obama administration has been pursuing arrangements with Pakistan's military that would enable U.S. forces to help secure the Asian nation's nuclear weapons if they came under threat in a terrorist offensive or internal coup, the New Yorker reported in its latest issue.
-
All good mysteries contain twists of plot, characters and motive. The saga of a leaderless USAID keeps on delivering on all three fronts. Last week, you all took out your calendars and saw that if an Administrator was to be in place by year-end, the nominee would need to be an already-vetted official.
In Today’s News November 10, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in News.add a comment
-
The Obama administration has been pursuing arrangements with Pakistan’s military that would enable U.S. forces to help secure the Asian nation’s nuclear weapons if they came under threat in a terrorist offensive or internal coup, the New Yorker reported in its latest issue (see GSN, Nov. 5).
-
U.S. defense officials expect to finalize by late November a plan to avoid new F-35 cost increases and schedule slips that have been forecast by a Pentagon analysis cell, Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said Monday. New Yorker reported in its latest issue (see GSN, Nov. 5).
-
Few would dispute that preventing conflict, instability, and humanitarian disaster is preferable to confronting these problems after they arise. Preventive measures are generally less expensive than remedial ones. They also allow policymakers to address potential crises before they threaten international stability, U.S. interests, and human lives.
-
All good mysteries contain twists of plot, characters and motive. The saga of a leaderless USAID keeps on delivering on all three fronts. Last week, you all took out your calendars and saw that if an Administrator was to be in place by year-end, the nominee would need to be an already-vetted official.
-
A small group of officers at the Pentagon is in the early stages of work on a new concept to combine the capabilities of the U.S. Air Force and Navy, offset their vulnerabilities and better use their assets to deter or defeat future enemies.
-
How best to measure success in Afghanistan remains a question in search of an answer. The debate over which metrics best chart the path to a successful campaign wasn’t advanced much when South Asia special envoy Richard Holbrook threw out the fairly hazy measure of success: “We’ll know it when we see it.” To be fair to Holbrooke, guerrilla warfare doesn’t lend itself to simple measurement equations.
JIEDDO: Effective Counter-IED Effort? November 9, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in Analysis.Tags: Afghanistan, IEDs, JIEDDO
add a comment
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), often makeshift bombs of fertilizer, fuel and metal, are the top killer of coalition forces in Afghanistan, causing 70 to 80 percent of the coalition force casualties. Insurgents know IEDs are effective, and are amplifying the quantity, size and strength of the bombs. As the IED problem grows, the role and impact of DOD’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) in developing effective counter-IED policy has come into question.
JIEDDO was created in 2006 in response to the growing use of IEDs in Iraq. It was created as a joint organization to enhance coordination among DOD entities engaged in counter-IED strategy and to spearhead DOD’s investment in counter-IED R&D. Previous DOD investments had lacked such coordination and had been generally ad hoc in nature. Since that year, JIEDDO has spent more than $16 billion on the counter-IED effort.
According to JIEDDO Director LT. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, the tactics and technologies developed in part through JIEDDO helped reverse the damaging impact of IEDs in Iraq, but are proving inadequate in Afghanistan. There the IED threat is exacerbated by differences in terrain and technology. Afghanistan’s terrain has been described as “vast and wrinkled” and unforgiving. Coalition forces find it difficult to identify booby traps and concealed trip wires in the many unpaved dirt roads. In addition, American forces in Iraq could use jamming devices and unmanned aircraft to spot insurgents planting roadside bombs. In Afghanistan, the IEDs do not use radio frequencies that can be jammed, and are placed in terrain that complicates surveillance. (more…)
In Today’s News November 9, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in News.add a comment
-
The Pentagon has performed a study or two that found each of its acquisition programs will have to spend about $90 million to comply with the recently passed defense acquisition reform bill, sponsored by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain.
-
WASHINGTON — Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey warned Sunday against focusing on the Muslim faith of the suspected Fort Hood shooter. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist at Fort Hood, Texas, is suspected of shooting 13 and wounding 29 during last week’s rampage.
-
As policymakers continue to debate U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, we asked Rick Nelson, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to weigh in on the possibility of reconciling Taliban fighters, efforts to track down Al Qaeda and the potential risks that an escalation of the war in Afghanistan might pose to neighboring Pakistan.
-
BRUSSELS — A top Pentagon official says President Barack Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan will be certain to include reinforcements of foreign troops from both the United States and allied nations. Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy said a strategy decision on new deployments involving the U.S. and other troop-contributing nations would be made within the next few weeks, according to an official transcript released Saturday.
-
No hand-me-downs this time from the big Air Force. The Air National Guard is getting C-27J Spartans straight from the assembly line in 2010. It will be the first time the Air Guard has owned and operated brand-new aircraft.
-
The Pakistani military reported that they entered and largely cleared the “Taliban headquarters” in South Waziristan today. The reported success is part of a large-scale offensive in the region, which is a stronghold of Tehrik-i-Taliban, an umbrella organization of Pakistani Taliban factions drawn together under the leadership of (the recently-killed) Baitullah Mehsud.
-
OMAHA, Neb. — Citing the resource-constrained U.S. Army budget, the general overseeing the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command says he would prefer the U.S. Navy to assume oversight and execution of the mission to land-base SM-3 Block IB ballistic missile killers in Europe for protection against an Iranian attack.
Federal Retirement Benefits and the FY 2010 NDAA November 6, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in Analysis.add a comment
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a cost estimate of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010 (H.R. 2647), which was signed into law by President Obama last week. According to the estimate, which focused solely on mandatory costs, the FY 2010 NDAA would increase direct spending by $855 million between the FY 2010-FY 2019 period. A significant portion of the direct spending would result from changes to federal employee retirement programs, including credit for sick leave and locality-based compensation. These changes have real budgetary implications and are highlighted below.
Retirement credit for sick leave
Full-time federal employees are entitled to thirteen days of sick leave per year, and unused sick leave carries over from year-to-year. Whether or not accrued sick leave is calculated into retirement benefits, however, depends on the hiring date. Federal employees hired prior to 1984 are in the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) which does incorporate all accrued sick leave hours into retirement benefits. Employees hired after 1983 are in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) which does not compensate for accrued sick leave. Like most places of employment, upon retirement unused sick leave hours are simply lost for those federal employees in FERS.
Understandably, as FERS employees approach retirement many opt to use their accrued sick days so they are not “wasted.” Studies have shown that FERS employees either eligible for retirement or approaching retirement used more of their sick leave hours as opposed to their CSRS counterparts. The loss in productivity costs the federal government, on average, $68 million a year.
To address this issue, Section 1901 of the FY 2010 NDAA would allow federal employees that retire prior to 2014 to add 50 percent of their remaining sick leave hours to their total years of service when calculating retirement benefits. Federal employees who retire after 2014 would receive 100 percent credit of their sick leave. The report estimated that the addition would increase the average retirement benefit by roughly $150 per year, once it is fully phased in. Approximately 13,000 federal employees are expected to retire between FY 2010 and FY 2019, and the added benefit is expected to increase direct spending by $343 million over that time period.
Locality-based Compensation
Approximately 41,000 federal employees living in Alaska, Hawaii and other US territories receive cost-of-living allowances (COLAs), which compensate for the higher cost of living. Federal employees living in the contiguous US, however, receive locality-based pay, designed to offset the gap between federal and nonfederal positions. The difference between COLAs and locality pay is that COLAs are not subject to federal income or payroll taxes. Locality pay, on the other hand is taxed. Consequently, COLAs are not considered in the calculation of retirement benefits while locality pay is included. Arguably, individuals receiving COLAs are at a disadvantage come retirement.
Section 1911-1919 of the FY 2010 NDAA would gradually replace COLAs with locality-based comparability payments for these federal employees. Increased retirement benefits caused by the increase in salaries would increase direct spending by a total of $276 million between FY 2010 and FY 2019. Accordingly, the increase in taxable income would increase revenues by $979 million over the same time period.
In Today’s News November 6, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in News.add a comment
-
WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.
-
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) on Wednesday said several administration officials and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have pressured him not to fund a new presidential helicopter.
-
In our ongoing discussions of hybrid war and how to counter a hybrid enemy, we’ve examined some of the evolving doctrinal concepts, such as the Marine Corps “distributed operations” concept. It envisions large numbers of small units using cover, either urban or complex terrain, to infiltrate the enemy’s defenses and then call in precision fire to destroy the enemy’s strongpoints.
-
Laura Rozen accompanied Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on an eventful eight-day trip to Pakistan, the Mideast and North Africa. Here are five things she learned from the trip: 1. Running for president was good training to be secretary of state.
-
SEOUL – U.S. forces in Korea will take charge of securing or eliminating weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in North Korea when contingency situations occur, even after South Korea takes over wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops from the United States in 2012, according to Korean and American military officials here.
-
Defence Minister John Faulkner has told his American counterparts that Australia will not be sending any extra troops to Afghanistan. On his first visit to Washington as Defence Minister, Senator Faulkner met with congressional members, military commanders and his American counterpart, Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
SIGIR’s Special General Advocates for New Civil-Military Office November 5, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in Analysis.Tags: Civil-Military, SIGIR
add a comment
Ginger Cruz, Deputy Inspector General at SIGIR, considers identifying where and when fraud and waste occur in Iraq contracts to be the “easy part” of SIGIR’s job. The hard part, in her view, is creating the right recommendations and solutions for many of the issues. Addressing this issue, Special Inspector Stuart Bowen has proposed the establishment of a new office that would essentially staff, coordinate and mange all civilian functions in war zones. The new agency, referred to as an “international FEMA”, would seek to remedy the myriad of issues caused by shaky coordination between US civilian and military agencies.
Special Inspector General Bowen’s recommendation carries significant weight. The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) has seen first hand the successes and failures associated with reconstruction and rehabilitation activities in Iraq. SIGIR was created in 2004 to provide effective oversight of Iraqi relief and reconstruction programs, which to date have totaled more than $52 billion in US taxpayer dollars. SIRGIR has repeatedly reported on the complex interagency issues that have taken place in Iraq when numerous US federal agencies are involved in large reconstruction and stabilization efforts (which are complicated by security concerns) and no clear lines of authority are drawn. As US political focus re-shifts back to Afghanistan, the hard lessons learned in Iraq become even more salient.
Special Inspector General Bowen recommended the creation of the Office for Contingency Operations (USOCO), a civil-military organization inside the federal government. The USOCO would be the singular civilian point-of-contact with the US military during complex oversees operations (e.g., Iraq and Afghanistan), synthesizing all civil-military operations and allowing one single agency to be held accountable for operations and initiatives undertaken in such theaters, as well as ensuring that all entities involved work together cohesively. Moreover, USOCO would report to both the DOD and State, which Special Inspector General Bowen believes to be the best solution for the interagency coordination dilemma, stating that “As the US reconstruction effort in Iraq demonstrated, when everyone is in charge, no one is in charge.”
As the US withdrawals from Iraq and SIGIR’s time comes to a close, it appears that the agency’s final mission is to advocate for an office that would address the issues of interagency coordination, bureaucratic politics, and turf wars, exactly the sort of thing that SIGIR reported on but had no control in fixing.
In Today’s News November 5, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in News.add a comment
-
While both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have talked about the demilitarization of foreign policy and the shifting of resources to the diplomatic corps, the full-fledged fight over money inside the system is now coming to a head as each group jockeys to protect its money under the assumption that once it’s gone from your coffers, you can’t get it back.
-
The Afghan National Police have been penetrated by the Taliban “at every level” with officers poorly trained, corrupt and some addicted to drugs, a former Army officer has said.
-
A bipartisan group of retired military officers says without more educational and health investments in children the country will face a growing “national security threat.” The nonprofit group, Mission: Readiness, will unveil a study next Thursday that shows that 75 percent of 17 to 24-year-olds do not meet the basic minimum standards required for military service.
-
President Karzai has six months to sideline his brother and reduce corruption or risk losing American support, Afghan officials have told The Times. Senior palace insiders said that President Obama delivered the ultimatum when he congratulated Mr Karzai on his re-election on Monday.
-
The Navy’s top admiral told a think-tank audience yesterday he wants more unmanned aircraft in the sea service, and he wants ‘em in a hurry. In particular, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead said he’d like a robotic attack aircraft that can land and take off from a carrier. As it happens, I saw a full-scale mock-up of just such a plane a few weeks ago.
-
BAGRAM, Afghanistan — Afghan insurgents are using roadside bombs powerful enough to throw the military’s new 14-ton, blast-resistant vehicles into the air, increasing broken back injuries among U.S. troops.
-
Omaha, Neb. – Under instructions from U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, the military services are building into their long-term spending plans the costs of quickly putting into orbit crucial space-based tools.
-
There may be widespread, bipartisan agreement in the United States that Pakistan needs to crack down on the Taliban in the country’s rugged frontier areas, but among Pakistanis, the picture is not so clear, according to a new poll.
In Today’s News November 4, 2009
Posted by Trice Kabundi in News.add a comment
-
As the United States’ special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart Bowen has blown the whistle on millions of dollars worth of waste, fraud and abuse. But one of his final acts in the job will be to address something more fundamental: the way U.S. civilian officials interact with their military counterparts during the complex wars of the future.
-
WASHINGTON, Nov 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. government does not know exactly how many contractors it employs in Afghanistan, a U.S. commission said on Monday, raising basic questions about oversight of wartime operations.
-
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — Iran’s military will be subject for the first time to the kind of U.S. assessment reserved for China’s expanding forces as lawmakers seek a more accurate analysis of the Persian Gulf oil power’s strengths and strategy.
-
As the dust settles from Afghanistan’s election, President Hamid Karzai’s emergence as the victor by default cements the central dilemma facing President Obama as he decides whether to escalate the U.S. involvement in the war there.
-
U.S. military-age youth are increasingly unfit to serve — mostly because they’re in such lousy shape.According to the latest Pentagon figures, a full 35 percent, or more than one-third, of the roughly 31.2 million Americans aged 17 to 24 are unqualified for military service because of physical and medical issues.
-
OMAHA, Neb. – U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. Kevin Chilton said Nov. 3 he would give up new, state-of-the-art space systems to swell the number of satellites the military could launch as needs arise.
Research and Development in the FY 2010 Defense Budget November 3, 2009
Posted by Rebecca Williams in Analysis.Tags: FY 2010 Defense Budget, RDT&E, reseach and development
add a comment
Each Tuesday BFAD features a guest blogger- these are experts from a variety of backgrounds writing about what they know best. This week features Patrick J Clemins, Director of AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program.
Research and Development in the FY 2010 Defense Budget
by Patrick J Clemins
Background
Historically, between 50 and 60 percent of the federal R&D investment is made in defense. Most of this investment (93.6 percent in FY 2010) is made in the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RTD&E) account in the Department of Defense (DOD) with smaller amounts coming from Atomic Energy Defense Activities at the Department of Energy and other programs within the DOD. The only other agency with greater than a ten percent share of the federal R&D investment is the Department of Health and Human Services (21.0 percent in FY 2010) which includes the National Institutes of Health. Therefore, the DOD is the most influential contributor to the federal R&D portfolio.
FY 2010 Budget Overview
The FY 2010 budget request proposes $3.6 trillion in spending and a $1.3 trillion unified debt. In contrast to the budget request in past years, this includes military costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the new administration comes a shift in discretionary spending. According to projections in the FY 2010 budget proposal, the federal government will spend almost as much on non-defense as defense in FY 2009, due in large part to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), and the gap between defense and non-defense spending will continue to much smaller through 2014, averaging $6 billion, than it has been in the last 5-6 years when defense spending outpaced non-defense spending by as much as $90 billion in FY 2008.
This shift in discretionary spending is reflected in the R&D portfolio. While total federal R&D spending will remain relatively flat between FY 2009 and FY 2010 (not including ARRA), there is change in priority as the proposed budget contains a decrease in defense R&D spending of $1.7 billion, but an offsetting increase of $2.2 billion in non-defense R&D spending. The increase in non-defense spending focuses on four R&D investment priorities outlined by the Obama administration including (1) investing in the sciences for a prosperous America, (2) a clean energy future, (3) healthy lives for all Americans, and (4) a safe and secure America. These priorities are reflected in a plan for doubling the basic research budgets of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Science and Technology Research and Services (STRS) program; an increase in the Department of Energy’s energy programs (5.4%); and an increase in Homeland Security funding (23.8%) across various agencies. However, despite this shift in R&D investment priorities, defense R&D spending continues to outpace non-defense R&D spending by $20 billion.
Breakdown of the Defense R&D Investment
Currently, the defense R&D investment consists of programs at the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. The Department of Homeland Security used to house defense R&D programs, but these were transferred out by FY 2007. The Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) account in the Department of Defense contains the great majority of defense R&D spending with $78.6 billion in the FY 2010 budget request. Atomic Energy Defense Activities in the Department of Energy add $4.0 billion in FY 2010 to the defense R&D portfolio and other R&D investments in medical research, personnel, and construction at the DOD contribute $1.4 billion in FY 2010.
In the RDT&E account, the R&D investment is divided into eight types of investment. The first, denoted 6.1, is basic research and is comparable to other investments in the federal government categorized as basic research. The second, 6.2, is applied research and is equivalent to other investments categorized as applied research. The third, 6.3, is advanced technology development and is analogous to development activities in other agencies. Four of the other DOD categorizations, 6.4 – 6.7, are advanced stages of development, manufacturing, testing, and management and together is referred to as weapons development. The last type of RDT&E investment is classified programs, denoted 6.9. The first three types of investment, 6.1 – 6.3 are collectively labeled science and technology (S&T) and represent the initial stages of the innovation cycle that are typically performed in a university or lab, while the last four stages, 6.4 – 6.7 represent the final stages of the innovation cycle that are commonly referred to as product development. (more…)
