Introduced by members of the committee’s bipartisan Foreign Arms Sales Task Force set up to investigate and help resolve existing acquisition hurdles, the six bills include provisions to incentivize domestic capabilities and munitions manufacturing, and expand other nations’ options to adopt American-made defense articles.

“We have to make sure the process that’s put in place is effective, it has the right level of accountability and that it delivers,” the task force’s chairman, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told DefenseScoop in an interview on Wednesday.

Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) refer to two methods the U.S. applies to sell and provide equipment, technology and services to other nations. FMS is a government-to-government process where the U.S. serves as an intermediary between a foreign country and a U.S. defense contractor, while DCS involves direct contracts between other nations and American vendors, with the U.S. government overseeing export controls and licensing. 

In the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and separate conflicts in the Middle East that emerged after Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, countries’ interest in buying U.S. weapons has grown substantially. 

According to data from the State Department, the U.S. transferred assets with a total value of $117.9 billion via the FMS system in fiscal 2024, which represented a 45.7% boost from the previous fiscal year — and at the time marked the highest-ever amount of sales and assistance America provided to foreign nations in the span of one year.

However, experts have raised increasing concerns in recent years about bureaucratic and modernization issues that increasingly plague these procurement processes, like lengthy requirements leading to delivery delays, complexities that result in a lack of oversight and transparency, and other obstacles that ultimately impact U.S. competitiveness.

“Unfortunately, what’s happening now is that our allies — we expect them to fight with us. And what happens is they pay for weapon systems upfront, but by the time that they get them, the weapon systems are going to be obsolete in many cases, because the battlefield is changing so rapidly. Particularly with [unmanned aerial vehicles] and autonomous weaponry and missile systems, by the time we get the equipment to them, it’s oftentimes obsolete,” Zinke said.

The U.S. industrial base for military hardware depends heavily on foreign military sales, he noted.

In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the government to essentially overhaul its current approach to transferring defense software and hardware. 

A few weeks before that, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., launched the FMS Task Force and named Zinke and Ranking Member Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., to lead it.

To shape the creation of their six new proposals, the task force heard from international partners, defense industry stakeholders, and U.S. government officials from multiple agencies to gain feedback on where there are needs for reform.

The overarching vision, Zinke said, was for the “working group to actually address how to restructure foreign military sales so it meets [the president’s] goals.”

According to a fact sheet viewed by DefenseScoop, the six task force-led measures that moved forward in Tuesday’s markup include: 

• Streamlining Foreign Military Sales Act — introduced by Zinke, and Rep. James Panetta, D-Calif.; would raise the Congressional Notification value thresholds to levels requested by the Trump Administration’s April mandate
• AUKUS Reform for Military Optimization and Review (ARMOR) Act — introduced by Dean and Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif.; seeks to “address a variety of impediments” to trilateral security partnership’s Pillar II implementation 
• ITAR Licensing Reform Act — introduced by Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash.; would codify the prioritization requirement in Trump’s directive by requiring the State Department to establish a list of priority partners and end users for DCS and creating a time-bound process for issuing such licenses. 
• Made-In-America Defense Act — introduced by Rep. Sheri Biggs, R-S.C.; would codify the FMS-only list review requirement in Trump’s order and direct the Departments of State and Defense to conduct an annual review of that list
• Missile Technology Control Review Act — introduced by Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas; would amend the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to allow for expedited defense trade with nations that the president determines to be eligible for an exemption
• Abraham Accords Defense Against Terror Act — introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; would reduce bureaucratic hurdles for regional partners that commit to fighting the threat posed by Iran and its proxies by creating an expedited formal review process for defense sales to these partners

When asked if he’s confident all of the proposals will pass through the full Senate, Zinke said “I think they’re necessary.”

He added that the task force has also been working closely with federal departments and human rights organizations to confront the potential for misuse, as the current process has been criticized for being difficult to monitor U.S. military equipment and associated civilian casualties.

“I think you need to make sure you have the authorities in place to do it. That means the decision process has to take in consideration things like the Leahy Act, child trafficking and child soldiers. There’s a lot of things in law that need to be, on a sale, absolutely adhered to,” Zinke told DefenseScoop.

After serving as a Navy SEAL from 1986 to 2008, he went on to become the first-ever SEAL elected to the House of Representatives — and the first to occupy a position in the Cabinet, when he was tapped as secretary of interior during the first Trump administration.

Drawing from his experiences as a Naval Special Warfare Officer, the congressman said he understands “how important currency is on the battlefield, and the currency is the best technology, because sometimes six months makes a difference.”

“What I saw [as a SEAL] was a system that was multiple departments with different objectives, unable to communicate with each other. That resulted in our allies paying for equipment upfront, oftentimes receiving obsolete equipment, but that equipment is most assuredly always late. With peacetime, you could take it out of the stockpile, right, because, you’re not shooting that much,” Zinke said, suggesting the U.S. supply chain is not presently equipped for wartime demands.

With that tenure, plus his time as a businessman, Zinke said he felt uniquely positioned to steer the FMS Task Force. He noted he has “excellent relationships” with Trump, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Congress should step up and do our part, making sure that there’s still transparency and oversight, because that’s Article One. And I think we can shake it up a little and present our recommendations to Hegseth and Rubio — which we’re doing — and then pass a series of bills to make sure that we update and get the authorities where necessary in order to, again, deliver on what we’re promising,” Zinke told DefenseScoop. 

The post Inside the congressional Foreign Arms Sales Task Force’s effort to spearhead reform appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery, or SPEED Act, unveiled Monday, seeks several changes to improve how the department fields systems to troops in a faster manner with more relevant technologies.

While Congress has taken aim many times in the recent past to hasten the delivery of tech to military users, the SPEED Act is directly targeting the requirements process left of the procurement cycle.

“As we began to look at the structure of the requirements process, the length of time it takes to move from a warfighter saying that they have a capability gap and need a materiel solution to the time it actually makes over in the hands of the acquisition community, we can be from six to 10 years,” a senior congressional official told reporters Monday. “During the course of that time, the threat has changed, the technology has changed, the political leadership in the nation has changed, and the budget priorities have changed. One of the things that the chair and ranking member had us go do is try to expedite the requirements process.”

In order to shrink that timeline, the bill seeks to alter the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and create a Requirements, Acquisition and Programming Integration Directorate (RAPID). The proposal is to get the JROC out of oversight, renaming it the Joint Requirements Council, which currently serves as a “chokepoint instead of a catalyst,” a summary of the bill states.

If approved, the new JRC will no longer validate specific capability documents, but rather, will focus on assessing evolving threats and technologies to shape future force design and joint operational needs, especially those identified by combatant commanders who are directly in the fight and require urgent capabilities in the face of evolving threats.

“You’ll see some significant changes in the bill with respect to the role of the JROC, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and their current role in validating requirements, looking to move them more to an intake body, listening to the combat commanders, and then rapidly making requirements, alerting the need for a materiel solution, up into a new body that is designed to bring together all key stakeholders,” the senior congressional official said.

RAPID — which would be co-chaired by the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office — would assess proposed solutions, evaluate costs, review experimentation results and make recommendations to the deputy secretary of defense much earlier in the requirements process.

The goal behind RAPID is to make an assessment of technologies once they come in and prioritize them to move forward much faster.

“Collectively, these reforms will streamline the requirements process and focus it on addressing capability gaps and urgent needs, rather than prescribing fixed solutions and generating volumes of paperwork. As a result, PEOs and program managers will be unbound from overly prescriptive—and in many cases non-essential—requirements that are all but set in stone once validated by the JROC,” a summary of the bill states. “Instead, PEOs and program managers will be able to iterate quickly and make informed tradeoffs. Moreover, these reforms accelerate the new requirements process to between 90 and 150 days, which is more than five times faster than the current process.”

The legislation overall outlines five pillars for reform:

-Aligning acquisition to warfighter priorities and operational outcomes.

-Accelerating the requirements process.

-Striking the right balance between regulation and efficiency.

-Strengthening the defense industrial base and leveraging commercial innovation.

-Developing a mission-oriented defense acquisition workforce.

In many instances, the bill doesn’t always provide new authorities, but rather, codifies certain practices and provides top cover.

“With our legislation, there’s not a lot of new authority that the department needs. The problem is that they’ve not been using the authorities that they have, because the system has become one that exists to serve itself and it’s very risk averse. You’ve got really good people trying to do really good work, but they’re in a broken system,” the senior congressional official said. “Where it may be just that the department needs the Congress to say, ‘Go do,’ then that’s — that’s another question to be asked.”

The committee wants to be able to fully empower PEOs and program managers to make the necessary decisions.

“One important area where we said we’ve got to fix is having senior acquisition leaders actually have the responsibility to go and make the changes they need. There are many areas where even a two-star PEO may not be fully empowered to make all the decisions he or she may need to make to get something fielded correctly and fast,” another senior congressional official told reporters. “We took a stab at that, and I think we created a new process where the people that should be empowered to make decisions have the actual roles and responsibilities and then can be held accountable.”

Leadership on the Senate Armed Services Committee released legislation in November, similarly aimed at improving innovation and reducing the time it takes to get warfighters new capabilities.

Both panels will have to agree on a final version of reform legislation before it can be enacted.

The post House Armed Services leaders unveil bill to reform defense acquisition, speed up requirements process appeared first on DefenseScoop.

While largely expressing support for the initiative, lawmakers said they need more info.

“Unfortunately, we still have not received any real information on the Army’s budget request, nor have we received any detailed information on the Army’s Transformation Initiative, or ATI, the secretary and the chief announced over a month ago,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said. “I believe I speak for most of the members of this committee when I say that we share the goal of developing a more modern, agile and well-equipped Army.”

At the end of April, the service announced what it dubbed Army Transformation Initiative, seeking to shrink its headquarters elements, become leaner, cut programs that aren’t efficient and change how it spends, following a directive from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for sweeping changes to the service.

Rogers told Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll at Wednesday’s HASC hearing that the committee wants to see the service’s “homework” given the significance of what leaders are trying to do.

“We need to see your homework. An overhaul this significant should be based on a thorough assessment of requirements. And it should include a detailed blueprint of the specific changes being proposed and how the Army plans to implement them. We need to see those assessments and blueprints,” he said. “We also need you to provide us a timeline for implementing ATI. These details will help Congress understand, evaluate, and ultimately fund, your transformation efforts.”

That concern was shared by other top members of the committee as well.

“I want to applaud both of you publicly for diving into that very difficult subject. It needs to be done. Now, the chairman is right, the details need to be worked out, but there is no question that the nature of warfare is changing dramatically. How do we adjust our force to meet those challenges?” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the panel’s ranking member, said. “Your efforts in that are broadly supported by this committee. Devil’s in the details, but you’re headed in the right direction and we look forward to working with you to make some of those changes.”

Others expressed dismay regarding how the Army has presented the reform effort and requested more details from leadership.

“Like many of my colleagues, I am frustrated by how the Army has decided to roll out this Army Transformation Initiative. It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle that we’re on here, we all want to make sure that the Army is lethal, it is ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., said. “However, you chose to give us a plan with few details, with no budgeting and a failure to answer a lot of our questions. Now we’re hearing about how this plan will be implemented from my own constituents, not from leadership. The Army and Congress have always had a better relationship than that.”

When service leaders announced their intentions for reforms, they stated that they were aimed at better posturing the service to deter China in the Pacific theater. But some on the Hill want them to be more forthcoming.

“The Army Transformation Initiative has generated more questions than answers in the department’s attempt to deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure and eliminate waste and obsolete programs,” Rep. Derek Tran, D-Calif., said. “In particular, I am concerned with how the ATI positions the Army to better counter a near-peer adversary like the People’s Republic of China. China’s ability to rapidly field new capabilities can be attributed to its centralized political and military decision-making, state-directed industrial base, incremental fielding of new systems and their blatant theft of foreign intellectual property, all with little to no public oversight.”

When asked for a timeline for details of what the service is proposing, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told the committee that the transformation will be an iterative process and that there won’t be a single date for everything in the initial batch of transformation.

“We will be hopefully doing what the best companies in America do and learning as we go,” Driscoll said, noting some efforts are in progress. He promised to share details as soon as “reasonable drafts” are in place.

He said many of the cuts to obsolete programs will be reflected in the forthcoming fiscal 2026 budget.

“We’re obviously continuing with FY25 [spending] because that’s what we were directed to do with our budget,” George said, adding that they’re canceling Humvees and haven’t asked to purchase new ones.

HASC members said they wanted to ensure that the Army was making transformation choices based on real policy decisions that will help the service counter battlefield threats more effectively rather than being purely rooted in budgetary constraints.

“If budget is driving policy, you’re going to have a problem by this committee. If policy is being driven first and budget is a consequence, then we’re going to be open ears,” Rogers said. “But you can’t just try to make your policy or your construct fit a number that’s arbitrary. We need you to let us know what you need and then let us worry about funding it, because that’s what we’re here for. Just know that there’s other people that see this same way you do, which is why we need a budget so we can talk about these things. But I can’t overstate, we are not going to be hostile to dramatic changes if it’s being driven by the need for change and not just to meet some budget number that somebody’s handed to you.”

The post Congress wants to see Army’s ‘homework’ on transformation initiative appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Put forward by HASC Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama and SASC Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the reconciliation bill would give a $150 billion boost to defense spending. By using the budget reconciliation process, Republican lawmakers are hoping to expedite funding towards 11 high-priority defense issues without threat of a Senate filibuster.

“This legislation represents a generational upgrade for our nation’s defense capabilities, including historic investments in new technology,” Wicker said in a statement. “This is about building the future of American defense, achieving peace through strength, and ultimately deterring war.”

The Golden Dome missile defense shield would receive $24.7 billion to help kick off the massive project, if the legislation is approved.

The vision for the effort was introduced via an executive order signed by Trump in January and looks to field a multi-layered, homeland defense architecture able to defeat a range of missile threats. As outlined in the EO, Golden Dome would comprise both existing Defense Department programs as well as nascent technologies — such as space-based sensors and weapons.

To that end, lawmakers added around $15.6 billion for space systems under “next-generation missile defense technologies,” according to the bill text. That includes $7.2 billion for development and procurement of new space-based sensors, $5.6 billion to develop space-based and boost phase intercept capabilities, and $2 billion for air-moving target indicator satellites.

The bill also puts money towards other emerging technology efforts. If approved, the legislation would add $2.4 billion to development of non-kinetic missile defense effects like electronic warfare and cyber capabilities. In addition, the Pentagon’s Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) effort — which aims to accelerate flight testing for hypersonic weapons — would receive $400 million.

As for “layered homeland defense” initiatives, lawmakers are proposing $2.2 billion to accelerate hypersonic defense systems and $1.9 billion for improvements to ground-based missile defense radars. The bill would also add $800 million for expedited development and deployment of next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile defense systems.

Besides efforts related to Golden Dome, the reconciliation bill proposes additional funds towards other key defense priorities such as shipbuilding and munitions production capacity. Notably, lawmakers also allocated around $14 billion towards rapid fielding of emerging capabilities — including small unmanned aerial systems, command-and-control technologies and attritable weapon systems — as well as improving integration with the commercial sector.

“This legislation is a historic investment of $150 billion to restore America’s military capabilities and strengthen our national defense,” Rogers said in a statement. “America’s deterrence is failing and without a generational investment in our national defense, we will lose the ability to defeat our adversaries. With this bill, we have the opportunity to get back on track and restore our national security and global leadership.”

HASC will hold a markup session for the reconciliation bill on Tuesday where members can submit amendments, after which it will be sent to the House Budget Committee.

The post Lawmakers propose $25B to fund Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense shield appeared first on DefenseScoop.

During Senate and House subpanels, military leaders and members of Congress outlined force cuts and budget reductions that have led to risks in missions for special operations forces because, in many cases, the head of Special Operations Command has been forced to tell combatant commanders “no” when they request capabilities.

Headlining the details outlined on Capitol Hill in recent days is the fact that SOCOM has had a flat budget since 2019, leading to a 14% decrease in purchasing power and a 5,000-person reduction in forces across the command over the last three and a half years. That includes reducing roles in communications, logistics, intelligence, civil affairs and psychological operations, and specifically a reduction of 3,000 personnel for military information support operations.    

“SOCOM has operated under stagnant budgets. The limitation of SOF end strength was a very short-sighted decision at a time when SOF capabilities are needed more than ever. We must change course now,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. “That is why I intend to work with the DOD to rebuild SOCOM’s budget. Given SOF’s critical role in national security, this is a wise and cost-effective investment.”

That view was shared among other members of the panel, as well as their counterparts in the House.

“I would like to plus them up … A big bump up in funding for the SOF community,” Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a retired Navy SEAL, told DefenseScoop in an interview Tuesday. “I know for a fact that they are hurting for funding lines, for pots of money in certain places, through discussions with the leadership. My stance is: Hey look, I’m going to work as hard as I can with the members in [House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations] and with the committee to get you what you need, which we are having those discussions.”

A bump in funding for SOF will provide more placement and access for units forward-deployed, Luttrell said. Their global footprint and ability to flex at a moment’s notice provide a defensive posture that exceeds traditional measures, he said, whereas if conventional forces are required to show up, “we are in trouble.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, noted that, like how Space Force was excluded from taking cuts, her hope was these high-demand mission sets would be taken into consideration as well.

“[I] just would hope that if there’s someone who’s picking and choosing missions that are going to be cut versus protected, I know you’re advocating, but that we realize that the units that are in highest demand should not be taking the same haircut as everybody else across the force,” she said.

Members of Congress led witnesses in talking about how the cuts to purchasing power and end strength have hurt special operations forces’ ability to meet the requirements of combatant commands, with SOCOM Commander Gen. Bryan Fenton explaining how it’s hurt his ability to offer support.

Combatant command requests are up 35 percent in the last three years due to the need for deterrence, Fenton said. Special operations forces bring a variety of capabilities in the way of building relationships, developing access, providing indications and warnings, closing kill webs or kill chains, and giving commanders options and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have in the hopes of preventing a drawn-out conflict.

“Where we’ve had to say, ‘no,’ I’ll give you a number: Last December in one of the global force management tanks, I had to say no 41 times to request[s],” Fenton told members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations on Wednesday. “It’s a high compliment that this SOF team is that value proposition to the entire department … [Why] we couldn’t do it, my sense, and I’ll wind this down for you, is two reasons: There’s certainly a capability and capacity piece against the great humans that do that work. And as you know, we’ve been reduced in the past couple years by up to 5,000. But there’s also now a fiscal constraint that’s pulling at us based on an increasingly decreasing top line that now comes into play.”

Others warned of the proposed eight percent cuts the Department of Defense is seeking across the board in a measure to reduce inefficiency and redundancy.

“I’m not a doctor, but if I was, it would be cutting into bone. We are already lean and efficient,” Colby Jenkins, the official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said when asked by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., what an eight percent cut would look like.

To that, Crow added: “There’s no fat in SOCOM. You’re lean and mean as you’re supposed to be.”

Jenkins replied that special forces leaders are doing their best to avoid the negative impacts of DOD-wide budget cuts at all costs.

Aside from deterrence, the cuts in personnel and resources have also hurt SOCOM’s ability to modernize, particularly as the character of war changes, slowing its ability to adopt new technologies such as uncrewed systems, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and autonomy.

Fenton described that due to a 14 percent reduction in buying power, which equates to about $1 billion, his command is unable to acquire capabilities that might be able to provide asymmetry on the battlefield.

To stress the importance of that, he used the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, where the Ukrainians have been outmatched in terms of legacy capabilities — tanks, missiles, airplanes and helicopters — against the Russians, but adopted asymmetric tools to impose costs on Russian forces and stay in the fight.

“From the modernization piece first, I think first and foremost, the risk is not winning, not being able to complete the mission in the future environment,” Fenton said. “We’re taking risks there, the inability to get after the things I think that are asymmetric, that are part of the changing character of war, to do it at speed. You could add anything uncrewed, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, autonomy, all that. I think we’re accruing high risk because we as SOCOM are not able to get after that based on a flat top line.”

Fenton noted that, additionally, the acquisition system needs significant modernization to keep up with these emerging technologies driving the changing character of warfare.

He called the current system “outdated” and “glacial,” designed for the old world of aircraft carriers and airplanes, but not suited for the modern battlefield.

“But what we’re seeing through the lens of Ukraine needs to be an acquisition and procurement system that is hyperspeed, supersonic. Because over there, we’re watching the changes in minutes, hours and days,” Fenton told members of the House.

He added that requirements must be addressed and updated by reducing the number of people involved in them to enable a faster cycle between operator, commander and acquisition, such as allowing those downrange to directly inform requirements.

The cycles could also be faster.

“As I think about the requirements process, certainly the buckets of time give us an opportunity to think through multi-year processes,” Fenton said. “Two years might see multi-year. I think to all of us, multi-year probably needs to be five-to-10 years so we can move at the speed and evolution of what we’re seeing out on the battlefield.”

Fenton also advocated for consolidating the “colors” of money and compressing multiple funding pots. Within the DOD, funds are divided into separate categories of operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development, and they must be used only for those purposes, negating flexibility to move around additional allocated funds if needs require more in another pot.

“I think there’s a way to take a lot of that off, compress the multiple lines to just a couple and really modernize there,” Fenton said.

The post Lawmakers fearful of SOCOM cuts, possible risk to mission appeared first on DefenseScoop.

A senior committee staff official involved in the meeting briefed a small group of reporters Thursday about key issues the stakeholders’ referenced. They also shared new details about the bipartisan group’s six-month plan to influence major government reforms targeting capabilities transfer and acquisition options.

“[HFAC Chairman Rep. Brian] Mast and his fellow members of the committee on both sides of the aisle have long recognized the impact that the delays and lack of transparency associated with our current foreign arms sales process has on national security and our ability to boost interoperability with our partners,” the official said.

Mast, R-Fla., launched the task force in late March with Reps. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., and Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., at the helm.

America’s existing mechanisms for foreign military sales are seen by many as lagging behind global demand.

“In recent years, our allies must often choose between waiting on the U.S. for needed defense capabilities — or potentially looking elsewhere, at the expense of U.S. influence and strategic priorities, domestic defense manufacturing and American jobs,” the senior committee staff official told reporters.

The new group aims to build on progress led by a similar congressional “TIGER” team and task force that operated in a prior session, which the official noted put forward multiple policy and lawmaking recommendations, including some that were advanced to the committee.

“This time around, obviously, we’ll be working on a report that will further legislative and policy goals. And we’ve had initial engagements with the [second Trump] administration and we are waiting for the executive order, as well,” the official said. 

As they suggested, reports have recently surfaced that President Donald Trump’s new appointees are exploring an executive mandate that would ease certain rules that govern U.S. military equipment and service exports. 

“I think we’ve seen an extra ‘wind in the sail,’ in terms of what has been something that Congress has been involved with, that’s linked up with the administration,” the official said.

They noted that the new task force aims to expand upon some of the momentum Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz helped influence during his tenure serving in Congress and on that previous TIGER team in 2024. 

Beyond reporting and resources to help stakeholders “digest” any forthcoming executive orders, the team also hopes to pave the way for interdepartmental memorandums and other instructions or guidance for agency leadership.

“It’s fair to say this will be a pretty broad look. If we were to have this effort 10 years ago, maybe autonomous [systems] wouldn’t be as big of a focus, but I think it’s emblematic of an issue that needs additional attention as technology has advanced … [and this] challenging weapon sales process isn’t able to keep up with cutting-edge advances in technology that support the warfighter for ourselves and that of our allies,” the senior committee staff official told DefenseScoop.

In America, domestically produced defense assets and services that are delivered to foreign countries are regulated by Congress. These transactions generally entail either government-to-government sales (Foreign Military Sales, or FMS) or Direct Commercial Sales (DCS). 

“I will also quickly mention that the Trump administration is laser-focused on getting the FMS and DCS process where it needs to be — and President Trump has put the right people in the right positions to make that happen,” the official said.

They added that the new task force is “taking a wider view” compared to efforts led by Waltz and others during the last session, by focusing on reforms across both FMS and DCS.

Lawmakers who participated in Wednesday’s engagement heard insights and recommendations from nearly two dozen attendees. The official noted the industry participants were broadly “representing DOD primes, innovative startups, small arms manufacturers.”

Regarding main themes from the confab, the official said: “First, the foreign arm sales process as it stands today is overly complex, lacks transparency and poses significant risk to American competitiveness, to our national security and that of our allies. Second, charting an effective path forward will require bipartisan and interagency buy-in. Lastly, it’s safe to say that each participant recognized the urgency for making reforms to the process and ensuring America can get the right weapons to our allies and partners as fast as possible.”

Going forward, the task force will “continue to hear from those on the frontlines of this issue,” the official told reporters.

The post Congress’ new Foreign Arms Sales Task Force eyes disruptive reforms appeared first on DefenseScoop.

“I’m confident that next steps are not only going to follow, but I think we’re going to see potentially even more progress this year than we have in the last seven,” Lue Elizondo told DefenseScoop on Thursday in an interview shortly after departing from those meetings.

Elizondo spent much of his early career in the shadows, working as a career intelligence officer and counterintelligence special agent all over the world on counternarcotics, counter-espionage, counter-insurgency and other covert operations. 

In the early to mid-2000s, he led the Pentagon’s now disbanded, secretive task force that was then studying sky-based anomalies, dubbed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). That hub was essentially a precursor to the Defense Department’s nascent All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which was established via the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act following mounting pressure from the public and high-profile proponents like Elizondo and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon.

Under AARO, the Pentagon’s scope has expanded to investigate not just UFOs, but also other types of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” — a broader term that also encompasses undersea objects and those that transition between mediums.

Elizondo said his team for the series of meetings last week included Mellon, two attorneys and a security representative. They met in-person with lawmakers and staff from multiple offices including at least one senator, as well as Reps. Anna Luna, Tim Burchett and Eric Burlison. Officials from several of those offices acknowledged the meetings but declined to provide comments regarding specific discussions.

“The purpose was twofold. One, was to offer our assistance in helping them find the information they’re looking for and help to, I think, increase transparency [on the UAP] topic that is often misunderstood and not very well-appreciated. And we are now seeing with drone incidents that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate between the typical or classic UAP-type incursions and signatures, and those of drones, especially now with the proliferation and the fact that the technology is continuing to get better and better,” Elizondo said.

They discussed how, as he put it, “drones can do now what in 2017 we could only dream of.”

Elizondo noted that cutting-edge battery technologies now allow unmanned aerial systems to deploy on longer flights with better power options. New and lighter materials, such as carbon fiber, are more accessible and affordable to use. And innovation in motors is reducing wear and tear on modern systems.

“Drones are now being used like never before. And in fact, we’re seeing in Ukraine the lethality of these drones is to the point now where there are more casualties caused by drones now than there are by artillery. So this is changing warfare. Now, if there’s one thing we haven’t learned since 9/11 it’s that we don’t seem to be taking these emerging technologies very seriously. It is a matter of time — not if, but when — an adversary, whether it’s a state or a non-state actor, decides to deploy these capabilities in a hostile manner” against the U.S. homeland, he said.

One simple difference between UAP and drones, according to Elizondo, comes down to attribution. 

“Our hope is that drones are attributable — to country X, country Y, company XYZ, right? This rebel group, that rebel group, that non-state actor, this non-state actor. UAP is a little bit different. Both have very unique signatures. In some cases, no signature at all. So ultimately, you don’t know what you don’t know,” he said.

However, “it may turn out that some of these UAP are indeed new drones, [or] some sort of adversarial technology that is flying completely unchallenged, like we saw over Langley Air Force Base,” which disrupted U.S. military flights, Elizondo added.

Roughly a year after that incident happened, the Pentagon confirmed that for 17 days in December 2023, officials reported incursions of unauthorized unmanned aerial systems in restricted airspace over Langley, where highly advanced military assets are housed.

More recently, military officials expressed uncertainty and frustration regarding a series of baffling incidents where mystery drones were repeatedly reported maneuvering over at least two defense installations and elsewhere in New Jersey late last year.

The Trump administration suggested in late January that most of those drones were approved by the Federal Aviation Administration and were not perceived as threats.

“People will tell you, ‘Well, these are all attributable drones.’ Why is it we haven’t recovered a single one? Why is it we haven’t found a single source, a single person [on the record] that is actually flying one of these things? Why is it we don’t have the electromagnetic signature, right?” Elizondo said. 

In the meetings with members of Congress last week, his team called for more public transparency on what the government knows about those recent incursions — and for AARO experts to investigate them.

“Everything is unidentified until it becomes identified. You can’t have a conversation about drones of unknown origin without having a conversation about UAP. You have to think of it as a large umbrella of the UAP issue, and then drones is a smaller umbrella, underneath that bigger umbrella. Drones are a subset of a bigger problem,” Elizondo noted.

Participants in the exchanges also explored possibilities around new legislation to further push the government’s UAP records-release campaigns and information-sharing this year.

“We also discussed the need for certain administrative tools and mechanisms to be implemented, which Congress has the authority to implement, to force elements within the intelligence community and the defense community to be more forthcoming, not only with unclassified information, but with classified information,” Elizondo said.

The lawmakers were also keen to connect on some of their “biggest concerns about expectations management,” in the context of their constituents’ demands for government documentation and oversight for UAP-related projects and materials, according to Elizondo.

“I’ve said before that disclosure and transparency is a process — it’s not an event — meaning you’re going to be sadly disappointed if you think all the revelations are going to be provided all at once. Congress is very concerned. They want to make sure that the American people know this is just step one in a multi-step process to give the American people what they want and what they deserve,” he told DefenseScoop.

The post UAP disclosure advocates call for transparency on drone incursions appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Communist China is especially dangerous because, unlike other adversaries, it is able to compete with and potentially surpass the United States economically. Many of my colleagues in Congress have appropriately pointed out the urgency with which the United States needs to modernize our economy with the most state-of-the-art technology, a key component of which is building out a robust 5G telecommunications infrastructure. Information flow is increasingly central to our highly digitized economy, and the importance of a modern, optimized 5G telecommunications network is vital. I agree with my colleagues that we need to dominate next-generation wireless technologies to stay ahead of our adversaries and advance strong economic growth. Economic power is military power — just ask the totalitarian adversaries the United States has left on the dust heap of history.

You will find no disagreement in the halls of Congress on the importance of building out America’s 5G infrastructure. Many are frustrated with the slow pace at which the Federal Communications Commission and Congress have been moving to restore spectrum auction authority and open up more spectrum bands for commercial use. Unfortunately, when it comes to how to reach that goal, some are willing to sell Department of Defense (DOD) capabilities for short term economic gain. This would be just as disastrous to our national security in the long run as not developing our 5G networks. 

Many of our military’s most important radar systems operate on the 3.1-3.45 gigahertz (GHz) band of the spectrum, referred to as the lower-3 band. These radars are essential to homeland defense missions and protecting our troops overseas. Right now, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are conducting missile defense missions off the coasts of the United States and protecting our deployed forces in the Red Sea against sophisticated Houthi missile and drone attacks. The Navy’s Aegis Combat System relies heavily on the lower-3 band, using radars to track threats and guide weapons to targets. Forcing the DOD to vacate or share those portions of the spectrum would cost taxpayers dearly — the Navy alone estimates that it would cost them $250 billion to migrate their systems to other bands of the spectrum, and that would take time we do not have with the looming threat of a belligerent Communist China.

Furthermore, on January 27, 2025, President Trump issued a potentially game changing Executive Order directing the DOD to develop and build an “Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield for America.” Before the Senate Armed Services Committee this month, General Guillot, the Commander of Northern Command charged with protecting our homeland, confirmed that NORTHCOM needs unfettered access to portions of the spectrum, and that any Iron Dome for America concept is dead on arrival if the DOD has to vacate the lower-3 band and other crucial portions of the spectrum. In short, the binary choice many in the telecommunications industry are lobbying Congress to make would kill President Trump’s Iron Dome for America and continue to leave the U.S. homeland exposed to an array of long-range strike threats ranging from intercontinental ballistic missiles to cruise missiles to hypersonic weapons. The American people should not accept this. I agree with President Trump’s vision, and therefore want to safeguard the DOD spectrum necessary for developing and deploying an Iron Dome for America, ranging from point defense up to a space-based layer.

Advocates for restricting DOD’s use of the lower-3 band or portions of the 7 and 8 GHz band of spectrum argue that Communist China has been willing to build out some of their 5G infrastructure on those bands. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can arbitrarily turn off or blow out commercial use and infrastructure of any portion of the spectrum whenever they want with no recourse for civilian users, and provide their military primacy in spectrum use. Certainly, that is not a situation the U.S. telecommunications industry is interested in.

The telecommunications industry should abandon its quest to restrict the DOD’s use of the lower-3 band or require it to share all or a portion of the band — a course of action which would materially damage the national security of the United States. The DOD has developed exquisite radars on this portion of the spectrum precisely because of the unique physics there which enable them to function so effectively. There is a reason the CCP is actively advocating that other countries around the world build out their 5G infrastructure on the lower-3 band. It is to limit the capabilities of our most capable radars.

The twofold path forward must be (1) an aggressive pursuit of spectrum sharing technology for use throughout the spectrum (not just the critical lower-3 band), and (2) a thorough and candid assessment of what portion, if any, of the 7 and 8 GHz band of spectrum can be auctioned off to industry without harming national security. From there, Congress can give the spectrum auction authority necessary. This should happen quickly as 5G expansion remains a priority.  

As the United States engages in this competition with Communist China with a renewed vigor under the Trump administration, it is imperative that we not trade national security for economic prosperity. Now is not the time to degrade our military capabilities, especially those capabilities needed to defend our homeland from attack. We never want to send our troops into a fair fight. We want to give them every possible advantage to prevail with minimum losses. That includes crucial bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. I look forward to working with my colleagues to find a solution to the ever-increasing demand for spectrum usage, while acknowledging our need to restrict certain portions for national security.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chair of the SASC Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, and also serves on the SASC Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities and the SASC Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

The post Protection of spectrum by Congress also protects Trump’s Iron Dome from shortsighted 5G policy appeared first on DefenseScoop.

As cyber has become a ubiquitous part of society, so too is it an integral part of military operations. Congress, in the fiscal 2023 annual defense policy bill, directed the creation of a new position within the Office of the Secretary of Defense to oversee all of cyber policy — the assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy — elevating the role of cyber, which sources and officials noted signifies the importance and maturity of digital capabilities within DOD.

“It’s the maturation of cyber,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, told DefenseScoop in an interview. “We put it at the assistant secretary level because you will never have another confrontation, worldwide confrontation, without first having a cyber event.”

Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said these types of threats have increased and told DefenseScoop “we have to stay aggressive.”

Previously, cyber and cyber policy oversight within the Pentagon was spread too thin, according those interviewed.

“When we were talking with the folks responsible for this portfolio, we wanted to know how are you handling that huge portfolio of threats. They said, ‘Well, with regard to cyber, we delegate it,’” Rounds said. “That convinced us that it was necessary to take a look at cyber and make that a separate area of study and a separate area of responsibility with the appropriate authorities.”

The assistant secretary of defense for space policy had been overseeing cyber — serving as the principal cyber adviser to the secretary of defense — as well as nuclear, counter-WMD, space and missile defense policy, a huge portfolio. Additionally, there was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

This created the need to move cyber out and provide a new office with the bandwidth to focus on these issues and consolidating all the various roles.

“Cyber needed to be pulled out from space. It’s the fastest changing domain of warfighting right now and it needs specific focus,” Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and former executive director of the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission, said in an interview.

Within the hierarchy of defense officials and offices at the Pentagon, ASDs, as they’re known, fall beneath undersecretaries, which are just below the secretary and deputy secretary roles.

“I think it’s very significant and I think it’s necessary … In the [Pentagon] function follows form. Nothing significant happens without the DASD behind it and nothing important can be done without an ASD behind it,” Tom Wingfield, a senior international and defense researcher in RAND’s Department of Defense and Political Sciences and the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy from 2019 to 2021, said in an interview. “I think this is absolutely the right direction for cyber to be moving within the building and within the department.”

Others pointed to the fact it took over a year to officially create the office and nominate an official to lead it, drawing congressional ire.

Michael Sulmeyer, currently the principal cyber adviser for the Department of the Army, was nominated for the ASD role in March and the office was officially created later that month.

The Senate Armed Services Committee favorably passed Sulmeyer’s nomination to the full Senate by voice vote at the start of a hearing July 30, following his July 11 confirmation hearing. He could be confirmed by the full Senate later this week ahead of Congress’ August recess.

Shadow service secretary?

Some interviewed noted that the new position puts a civilian official on par with the commander of Cybercom. Cybercom is atypical within the DOD as a combatant command with service-like authorities such as acquisition and setting training standards for the services. In fact, officials have maintained that Special Operations Command, which also possesses these qualities, was the template for the organization.

Congress modeled the ASD for Cyber Policy position off the Socom and ASD for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict relationship, creating what some deemed a shadow service secretary.

“The committee intends for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy to provide service secretary-like functions for U.S. Cyber Command, mirroring the current relationship that exists between Special Operations Command and the ASD for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at Sulmeyer’s confirmation hearing. “It will be important for your office to not only support Cybercom’s growth, but also to maintain strong civilian control and oversight of the command.”

As a warfighting organization, Cybercom is constantly in the fight while also having to focus on administrative tasks such as budgeting, resourcing, acquisition and manpower. While some sources didn’t totally agree with the shadow service-like secretary analogy, most agreed that this higher level of oversight would help to unburden Cybercom, which earlier this year received enhanced authorities allowing the command to be in direct control and management of planning, programming, budgeting and execution of the resources to maintain the cyber mission force, known as enhanced budget control.

“We’ve seen a lot of maturation in terms of the authorities that Cybercom has been granted. You need that corresponding credible civilian oversight to make sure that those authorities are being leveraged in appropriate ways,” Erica Lonergan, an assistant professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, said in an interview. “Some of the enumerated roles and responsibilities of the new ASD position are things like overseeing the budget, overseeing how Cybercom is using its new EBC authorities and things like that.”

In fact, Cybercom commander Gen. Timothy Haugh in April noted that the combination of the new authorities and the new ASD role puts the Defense Department’s enterprise in a position to realize the next generation of digital capabilities.

“I think the assistant secretary of defense does unburden Cyber Command from having to be the lead advocate inside the department,” Montgomery said.

For Congress, the office provides a focal point to coalesce various areas into a cohesive vision.

“It provides us with an opportunity to actually be able to acquire the weapons systems on a more timely basis. And second of all, it allows us the ability to put the manpower in place and to train the manpower more quickly. You need both. You need not only the tools, but you got to have the educational requirements in place as well,” Rounds said. “I’ve watched the development of Cybercom over the last decade. They’ve become more sophisticated and clearly more capable. Now, as we mature those weapons systems and those defensive capabilities, it’s important that we be able to acquire the necessary resources as quickly as possible. This is our opportunity with the assistant secretary position to elevate that, to get the decisions made as quickly as possible.”

Oversight and bureaucracy

Some indicated that it will be natural for there to be growing pains with the new position given anytime new bureaucracy is established, it creates new channels for reporting and oversight.

“Whenever you are creating a new office or structure within the Department of Defense, there are going to be growing pains. There’s no way around that,” Emerson Brooking, director of strategy and resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council Technology Programs, said in an interview.

Brooking, who was also one of the authors of the 2023 DOD Cyber Strategy, added that the new budget control authorities for Cybercom come with oversight expectations from Congress and those must be routed through the proper bureaucratic lanes.

“It can’t just be Congress direct to Cybercom. It’s not good for civilian control and it’s not really the best situation for Cybercom to be in either because decisions being made may lack adequate context or top cover, which can be provided if they’re routed properly through OSD Policy with clear oversight of the secretary and his representatives,” he said.

Others noted that there will also likely have to be several deputy assistant secretary positions added beneath the ASD to handle a variety of cyber areas. Wingfield said the ASD will need a variety of so-called DASDs to be fully effective.

“Right now, it’s really a shoestring effort. Whether it takes more people from policy, or more focus from inside the building, the idea of deciding what DASDs are needed inside cyber policy — do you need one for cyber, do you need one for information and the fight that would cause was with the special operations community? Do you need one for electronic warfare? Do you need one for emerging technologies?” he said. “You can imagine different portfolios of DASDs within that would be the natural evolution beyond the minimal state we’re at now with just the former DASD of cyber policy and the [principal cyber adviser].”

Given all that cyber touches right now, it’ll be important for the new position to also seek to ingrate cyber into other areas and domains within DOD.

Moreover, there are tight linkages between electronic warfare and cyber as well as the information domain and cyber.

Sulmeyer, in a questionnaire from senators ahead of his confirmation hearing, acknowledged the new office has responsibilities for certain electronic warfare topics that relate closely to cyber, and he committed to working with officials to discuss additional duties and responsibilities. He also noted that information operations are often complementary to cyber operations and promised to examine how the current assigned responsibilities have evolved and how they align against current and future threats.

Sulmeyer will be entering the office at a critical time for cyber within the department as calls for an independent military service focused exclusively on cyber grow louder, given the incongruencies of the way each service presents forces to Cybercom and readiness issues associated with those forces. There are currently identical provisions that have passed both armed services committees in each chamber of Congress directing an independent study on the matter.

“Indeed, the first challenge you will face is meeting the personnel manning and retention goals for our Cyber Mission Forces. The Defense Department faces significant difficulties in training and retaining personnel for key positions requiring special skills,” Reed said at Sulmeyer’s confirmation hearing. “In order to mature the cyber force and advance our nation’s capabilities to conduct cyber operations, the military services must provide qualified and trained personnel to Cybercom on time and at the beginning of their tours.”

Sulmeyer told senators in his questionnaire that he will prioritize the evaluation of force generation models to determine the most effective and efficient approaches to “build combat power and sustained readiness to defend the nation from cyber threats,” vowing to work closely with Haugh on executing the command’s service-like authorities.

Many agreed that Sulmeyer is the right person at the right time for the role. Previously, he served as director for plans and operations for cyber policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, before departing government to head the Cybersecurity Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. He then came back to the Biden-Harris administration to serve as a special assistant to the president and senior director of cyber policy at the National Security Council, and senior adviser to Paul Nakasone — the most recent commander of Cybercom — before transitioning to his current role as principal cyber adviser for the Army.

Rounds noted that Congress wanted a cyber expert to be the inaugural ASD for Cyber Policy given the importance of the role and cyber in the DOD, adding that Sulmeyer “fits that bill perfectly at this stage of the game.”

Moreover, his vantage of a service principal cyber adviser best postures him to understand the ins-and-outs of cyber issues within the department.

“Sulmeyer is the right guy. Having a guy come from a service PCA role means he really understands the acquisition challenges cyber command is facing,” Montgomery said. “There’s no one better positioned than a serving service PCA to be the first assistant secretary, because all the shortfalls, all these challenges are ones he’s dealing with on a micro level, on a single service level, that he’ll now have to deal with on a macro level across all the services.”

The post New assistant secretary of defense position signifies maturation of cyber within the department appeared first on DefenseScoop.

A provision in the fiscal 2025 Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act from the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces would require the Army to create what it calls the Electronic Warfare Center of Excellence within the service’s Training and Doctrine Command.

Centers of excellence are the primary organizations within the Army for training soldiers in their field — be it artillery, aviation or now even electronic warfare — and developing doctrine.

In 2017, the Army decided to take electronic warfare, which was independent, and move it under the cyber branch, in part, due to the close relationship at the tactical level between radio frequency signals and cyber. At the time, the Army was looking to combine these capabilities on the battlefield for integrated radio frequency-enabled cyber effects.

However, in preceding years, experts have noted that there may be limited utility in what some refer to as “tactical cyber” from the Army’s perspective.

As the Russia-Ukraine conflict has shown, electronic warfare will be a critical capability moving forward. Some inside and outside Congress have warned that electronic warfare within the Army still has not gotten the attention it needs as it is subservient to cyber.

“Establishing a dedicated Electronic Warfare Center of Excellence reflects both the indispensable role electronic warfare plays on contemporary battlefield, the unique permeation of electronic warfare across every domain the Army operates in, and the necessity to elevate electronic warfare holistically,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, said in a statement to DefenseScoop. “The lessons learned from Ukraine have showed us that the Army has been caught flatfooted in this critical domain and we need to get on track—establishing a dedicated Electronic Warfare Center of Excellence is an important step in that direction.”

According to the proposed legislation, the Army would have a year after it is enacted into law to transfer electronic warfare-related programs, projects and activities of the Cyber Center of Excellence — where they currently exist — to the Electronic Warfare Center of Excellence.

The subpanel’s bill will be marked up along with all the subcommittees within the full Armed Services Committee on May 22.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to add comment from Rep. Rob Wittman of Virginia.

The post House NDAA provision would require Army to create Electronic Warfare Center of Excellence appeared first on DefenseScoop.