Defense One - Policy

As warfare becomes engineering, the era of the digital mercenary dawns

Patrick Tucker — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:28:52 -0400

Private cyber firms will be allowed to take action against foreign threats under a new White House policy, another step into a future where tech developers are ever more closely entwined with military operations, which now evolve faster than governments can keep up.

Under the policy, announced Wednesday, the U.S. government will pay private cybersecurity companies to “manipulate,” “degrade,” “disrupt,” and “destroy” foreign adversary computer networks. The U.S. government historically reserves the right to take those sorts of actions, although they increasingly do so with help from front-line private workers.

The companies will undergo vetting, be supervised by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and be forbidden to take actions that could “result in the loss of life or serious injury,” according to the presidential memo.

“The United States just revived privateering for the digital age,” wrote Jeff Gray, who led training for DHS’s emergency response team and currently leads incident response training with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The phrase recalls the 17th and 18th centuries, when governments issued letters of marque that allowed swashbuckling sea captains to attack foreign merchant ships. That official authorization is what distinguished men like Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan as “privateers,” not pirates. But when they lost that marque, many, like Kidd, went on to be pirates anyway.

Gray acknowledges that the term isn’t a perfect fit; for one thing, letters of marque are granted by Congress, not the president. Nevertheless, he says, “The government is authorizing private actors to conduct offensive cyber operations on its behalf, under its control. That's privateering.”

The memo says hiring private hackers is only logical: “American businesses’ innovative capabilities have historically been underutilized” to “secure a critical offensive cyber advantage for the United States.”

Russia has been doing this sort of thing for years: enlisting, or coercing, private companies and groups to carry out cyberattacks against Western targets.

One cybersecurity exec said the policy makes sense, especially as AI gives adversaries more tools.

“There will be more cyberattacks for sure, so I do think you want to expand the takedown activity as well,” said the executive, a founder of a prominent U.S. cybersecurity firm that works with the U.S. government.

AI-assisted cyberattacks rose 89 percent in 2025, according to a February report from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Gray also described the strategy as “strategically sound.” But he expects it to provoke a short-term increase in attacks, and over a longer timeframe, to cause adversaries to shift tactics, accelerate operations, and gain additional “cover” to hide their operations.

Finally, Gray noted that law-enforcement agencies have long hired private firms for this sort of work, particularly taking down botnets. “The work is still the same. But the environment just got more complicated,” he said.

The cyber exec agreed. “Instead of a law-enforcement person pushing the button, it will be a private-sector person,” said the company founder. “I expect every Israeli cyber startup to jump at the chance.”

Cyberops and physical war

The policy is the latest indication that software weapons are evolving to be as crucial as hardware on the modern battlefield—and that is putting private coders and weapon designers closer to real-world operations. In Ukraine, for example, engineers with drone maker Shield AI and other contractors work closely with soldiers, sometimes under fire, to modify weapons based on digital attacks.

The job of fighting is, more and more, becoming a job of engineering, said one former senior defense official we spoke to in 2025, just after Donald Trump returned to office. The official said that the Pentagon’s new leaders were considering a plan to let drone makers and other tech companies conduct operations under company-owned, company-operated agreements.

The idea was not without precedent. SpaceX operates the Starlink satellites that connect U.S. troops, rather than allowing U.S. personnel to do so. And under the first Trump administration, the Pentagon paid Anduril to maintain and update drones in the field, deploying along with special operations forces.

The official said putting engineers in the field is essential to getting new capabilities to the front lines faster.

“A lot of these technologies,” they said, are “super exquisite, they're fragile, they're very technical. The people that built them are the ones that know how they work.”

Having the weapons’ makers observe and even operate their products in the field reduced red tape in getting new designs approved, changed, or deployed.

The official last year acknowledged that most defense firms don’t operate that way, and federal law outlines boundaries on what defense contractors can and can’t do (engaging in combat is in the "can’t do" column). But ultimately, they said, “If you want capability in 2027 the only way you're going to get is if this happens.”

In April, CENTCOM hired Shield AI to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to U.S. forces with its V-BAT drone, under a contractor-owned, contractor-operated arrangement.

Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s co-founder, said of the agreement: “We aren’t just bringing the V-BAT product and service to the Navy; we’re bringing a world-class team with a wealth of operational experience and the ability to produce undeniable outcomes for our warfighters.”

]]>

Intel ops are underway at Space Command’s nascent Alabama HQ

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:24:35 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Less than a year after President Trump reversed a Biden-era decision to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado, space intelligence operations are being conducted in existing offices at Redstone Arsenal while a permanent headquarters is built on base.

By year’s end, SPACECOM plans to have roughly 200 of the 1,800 Colorado-based positions at the Army base. Roughly 50 of those employees are already conducting missions with the command’s Joint Intelligence Support element, or JISE, which is already doing analysis for space operations and coordinating with allies. Those analysts are also coordinating with colleagues working, at least for the next few years, at Space Command’s existing headquarters in Colorado.

“We've designed our facilities with collaboration spaces and with the collaboration tools that allow our personnel here in Huntsville—of course, those numbers are growing—to work back with our people in Colorado Springs to execute our missions,” Whiting told reporters on Wednesday. “So far, our folks are crushing that, and I'm very proud of how they're performing.”

Reporters toured the up-and-coming facilities and saw the progress of the new headquarters on Wednesday during the Space and Missile Defense Symposium here. While the personnel moves and construction projects will not be complete until 2032, military officials said that the combatant command remains focused on its mission.

In April, Gen. Stephen Whiting, Space Command’s leader, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Joint Intelligence Support element on base. Wednesday’s tour was among the first access allowed to media outlets.

“Make no mistake, the JISE leading this charge serves as a symbol of our commitment to ensuring mission needs are executed flawlessly throughout this move,” Brig. Gen. Nathan Rusin, who leads the USSPACECOM Intelligence Directorate, said in an April press release.

In 2021, in the last weeks of his first term, Trump announced that Space Command would move its headquarters from Petersen Space Force Base in Colorado to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Several congressional probes followed. In July 2023, President Biden reversed the decision and said it would stay in Colorado.

An April 2025 Defense Department Inspector General’s probe wondered why the 2023 basing decision was made by the White House instead of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. The service secretary told lawmakers in 2023 he thought “the projected cost savings, together with the availability of potential mitigation measures, outweighed the operational risks that had been identified” for moving the command to Alabama.

But a May 2025 Government Accountability Office probe showed that if SPACECOM headquarters were to remain in Colorado that “new military construction would be needed to support the headquarters’ operations” and that officials “faced ongoing personnel, facilities, and communications challenges” in setting up a permanent facility out West.

Whiting told reporters that the goal is to have half of SPACECOM at Redstone Arsenal by 2028 with a full move-in completed by 2032. The command’s joint operations center, the main command-and-control hub for space warfare missions, will remain in Colorado until the completion of the new headquarters.

“The opportunity for U.S. Space Command is that we get a purpose-built command and control headquarters out of this, we did not have that in Colorado,” Whiting said. “So to get this facility is going to be an incredible accelerant to our mission.”

]]>

New Marine commander takes the helm in the Pacific

Jennifer Hlad — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:39:12 -0400

MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII—The Marine Corps’ “future lies in the Pacific,” Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said Tuesday as Lt. Gen. James Glynn transferred command of roughly two-thirds of the service to Lt. Gen. Roger Turner.

Glynn is a “once-in-a-generation” talent whose “efforts under a constrained budget, doing things across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific” have been “truly Herculean,” Smith said at the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific change of command ceremony here. But Turner, who comes to the command from the Okinawa-based III Marine Expeditionary Force, also has “spectacular” leadership skills, technical ability, and interpersonal skills, Smith said.

“We’re a Pacific-facing nation, and we put our best and brightest out here,” he said.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, who leads U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, echoed that sentiment minutes later.

“We live in incredibly dangerous times, and we live in incredibly dynamic and exciting technological times. Our nation is under threat like it hasn’t been in generations, and it requires hard, innovative, smart, determined people in order to meet the challenges of the time,” he said.

Glynn has been “so key in transforming the Marine Corps,” and “meeting the challenge of the times,” going from “leading a formation of 40 in Desert Storm in 1991 to leading a formation of 84,000 in 2026,” Paparo said.

As commander of III MEF, Paparo said, Turner has already “changed the face of the United States Pacific Command,” “enhanced deterrence,” and “never given up an inch, and gained ground. It is the most Marine thing that you can do.”

Glynn and Turner graduated from The Basic School together, but “absolutely no one” 37 years ago was saying “there goes the next two commanders of Fleet Marine Forces Pacific,” Glynn said.

Now, as Glynn steps into retirement, he said he stayed in the Marine Corps as long as he did “because I like to fight. I like to fight in this outfit, because we win. And who doesn’t like to fight for a winner?”

]]>

‘There is no Golden Dome’ unless Congress prioritizes funding, general warns

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:25:54 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—The sprawling Golden Dome missile-defense program is in peril because the White House decided to seek the vast majority of its 2027 funding via a controversial budget maneuver, the program’s leader said Tuesday.

Gen. Michael Guetlein didn’t explicitly call out the administration’s decision to propose using reconciliation to fund about 97 percent of the program’s $17.5 billion request. But the Space Force four-star did say it creates a “tough budget environment" as lawmakers remain cool to the administration’s request for a third partisan-led defense-funding measure.

“If they don’t figure it out, there is no Golden Dome,” Guetlein told attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, “because there is no funding.”

His public cry for help contrasts sharply with the mysterious gag order imposed by Pentagon leaders at last year’s symposium.

And it comes, Guetlein said, as the program makes good progress. He said that 90 percent of the roughly $24 billion allocated for the missile defense program through last year’s reconciliation effort has been obligated. He also said there’s been two “phenomenally successful” tests tied to the effort, and that contracts have been awarded for many of the key parts, such as space-based interceptors, radars, and data networks.

The general also warned that progress could stall without consistent funding.

“So if there's no additional funds, we have to continue to leverage the enormous amount of investment that [Congress] already gave me in reconciliation in FY 25-26, and then leverage that going forward,” Guetlein said.

One of Golden Dome’s cornerstone capabilities—space-based boost-phase interceptors— could be too costly for the final architecture. Physicists have said such a scheme would require thousands or even tens of thousands of armed satellites to provide 24/7 defense against even a handful of incoming missiles.

In April, Guetlein told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee that if building and deploying satellites armed to down enemy missiles early in flight can’t be done affordably or at scale then “we will not go into production.”

On the sidelines of the symposium, Guetlein told reporters that he hadn’t seen anything from the defense industry to change his mind on the affordability of space-based interceptors, but added he was impressed with what he’s seen.

“All of the providers that are part of the competition are progressing exceptionally well,” the general said, adding that he expects those companies developing the technology to progress to the next stage, which involves building the on-orbit capability. He declined to say how Space Systems Command plans to test those interceptors.

Guetlein told reporters that the Defense Department is already planning for contingencies if they don’t secure the requested funding in the 2027 budget, but said no final maneuvers have been settled on.

“There are discussions within the department about how to go forward because we have diversified execution of a lot of these capabilities, and a lot of these capabilities are already requested by combatant commands,” Guetlein said. “There are some alternatives that we can pursue. We have not made any decisions on any pathway.”

He said, as an example, that some of the capabilities in the Golden Dome program are also being funded by the Space Force, and added that the service could continue to work on those systems.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said it isn’t likely that Golden Dome would have to raid various service budgets to continue its progress.

“I think that Congress would prioritize Golden Dome funding and find it another home, either through a supplemental bill, a smaller reconciliation package, or tuck it into a higher base budget,” Harrison said.

Earlier this year, Golden Dome’s price tag had already swelled $10 billion over the original $175 billion goal, and the potential long-term costs have already been the focal point of criticisms.

In the absence of a publicly released architecture, Congressional Budget Office analysts crafted an estimate for a national missile defense system based on Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” executive order. The watchdogs calculated it would cost $1.2 trillion to “develop, deploy, and operate” for 20 years.

Guetlein has since gone on defense, publicly pushing back on that trillion-dollar figure and saying that the analysts “did not estimate the architecture that we're building.”

During his panel at the symposium, Guetlein acknowledged Golden Dome’s steep price tag, but averred its necessity.

“That’s a lot of money. That’s one of the biggest systems that we’ve ever put together as a nation,” he said. “We got to keep it affordable.”

]]>

How Congress is reshaping the administration's FY27 budget

Shaun McDougall, Forecast International — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:21:24 -0400

The start of the 2027 fiscal year is less than two months away, and in typical fashion, the annual defense budget is in limbo. Three out of Congress' four defense committees have released markups that adhere to the Trump administration’s $1.1 trillion topline request. None has addressed the White House's proposal to spend another $350 billion through the unusual use of reconciliation funding, though discussions are underway for a smaller reconciliation package that could include money sought in a supplemental request for operations in Iran and other priorities.

The administration's decision to seek funding for many of its top priorities through the reconciliation process—until last year, it had never been used for defense appropriations—creates a "terrible risk," as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, put it earlier this year. Congressional resistance to the idea of using novel funding mechanisms could mean that various programs get far less money than the adminstration wants.

Per Forecast International's U.S. Defense Budget Spotlight dashboard, the biggest drops would be seen in defense industrial base and equipment investments contained in the Defense-Wide accounts, such as:

$54.6 billion for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group
$40.6 billion for Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment
$30.5 billion for equipment funded through the Office of the Secretary of Defense
$30 billion for Defense Production Act purchases
$20 billion for the Office of Strategic Capital Loan Program
$17.1 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense initiative

Infographic by Jorge Morejon

The White House also sought to buy many munitions through reconciliation, a choice rendered fraught by the subsequent decision to launch the war on Iran and expend much of the Pentagon's stockpile. For example, the reconciliation portion of the request contained $10.9 billion for Patriot interceptors and $10.5 billion for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors. The administration also aims to use reconciliation to backfill other programs, such as the F-35, KC-130J, and several shipbuilding programs.

Acquisition adjustments

Dzens of programs across the services would see their funding adjusted under the legislation released by the House and Senate armed services committee and the House Appropriations Committee (HAC) legislation. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not released its markup. House appropriators recommended the biggest variance from the administration request: a $9.2 billion cut for procurement programs and a $2.2 billion plus-up for research, development, test and evaluation.

Discretionary research budgets came out ahead in all the defense bills so far: proposed increases of $2.2 billion by the HAC, $1.1 billion by the SASC, and $687.2 million by the HASC. All three committees recommended additional funding for Army and Navy research, to varying degrees, while the adjustments for the Air Force’s account were mixed. The HAC and SASC proposed to add $1.7 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, while the HASC recommended a net reduction of $480.9 million. Meanwhile, every committee cut the Space Force’s research budget, from as little as $201.4 million by the HASC to as much as $3.1 billion by the HAC. Defense-Wide research was also cut by nearly $1 billion by the HAC and SASC, while the HASC proposed to add $558.1 million. The Air Force’s E-7, the Navy’s F/A-XX fighter, and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are poised to benefit from congressional adjustments, while efforts like the hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike and the Space Force’s Automate Sat C2 effort may lose funds.

The graphic below shows total procurement and RDT&E funding adjustments by branch across the three defense bills that have been released so far.

Infographic by Jorge Morejon

On the procurement side, one of the standout performers is Army aviation, which did not benefit from the overall influx of money in the FY27 request. Despite the record size of the request, Army aviation funding declined in FY27 compared to FY26 levels and was $1 billion less than originally planned by the previous administration. Driven by ongoing transformation efforts, the request reduced funding for key programs, including the UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook. The HASC and HAC aimed to reverse some of those cuts, recommending increases of 27 percent and 47 percent, respectively, for Army aircraft procurement. However, the SASC recommended further reductions, trimming the service’s aircraft account by 7 percent. Following the initial release of the FY27 request, the Pentagon said it was open to revisiting its proposed aircraft reductions for the Army, and additional funding is expected to appear in the final version of the defense spending bill. Outyear spending plans may also be more favorable to Army aircraft.

The SASC pushed for a 12 percent increase in Air Force missile spending, a move the other committees did not match. That adjustment stems from an additional $845 million for the service’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM) program, which aims to field a range of new low-cost cruise missiles. House appropriators did recommend an extra $300 million for FAMM, which would offset a lack of reconciliation funding for the program. However, the committees reduced discretionary Army and Navy missile funding across the board.

The White House asked for a boost for Navy shipbuilding this year, but lawmakers demurred. The SASC and HAC proposed reducing the shipbuilding account by 5.1 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively. The SASC removed $1 billion requested for the BBG(X) battleship, as well as $2.4 billion for CVN refueling overhauls. The submarine tender program was also cut by up to half. House appropriators recommended stripping $1.4 billion for the service’s P-8A maritime patrol aircraft.

Topline with caveats

Even without reconciliation, all the budget proposals released by congressional defense committees so far sign off on a $1.1 trillion discretionary budget request, which is around $242 billion more than the FY26 base budget and $91 billion more than the total FY26 enacted level. The latter included around $152 billion from the initial reconciliation bill signed in July 2025. The result is that many of the appropriation accounts that faced discretionary cuts in the congressional markups are still funded at higher levels than in previous years, and the administration expects future base budgets to to exceed $1 trillion.

At the same time, the administration’s efforts to quickly increase production of munitions, drones, and missile defenses, among other priorities, may have to be tempered. Reconciliation requires only a simple majority in both chambers, several Republican lawmakers said they do not see enough support to pass a $350 billion reconciliation bill. Meanwhile, the defense industry is already struggling to keep up with growing demand.

The GOP has been working on a smaller reconciliation bill that includes $60 billion for the Pentagon. If adopted, that funding would primarily support initiatives contained in the Iran war supplemental request, particularly munitions replenishment. At the same time, the House and Senate have drafted continuing resolution proposals with the understanding that a final discretionary defense budget will not be passed until after the mid-term elections, meaning the FY27 budget process is far from over.

]]>

The government was ready to expand its voting-security work. Then it pulled the plug

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:00:00 -0400

LAS VEGAS — After spending roughly six weeks analyzing Dominion voting systems used in Puerto Rico’s 2024 elections, Mojave Research came back to the Trump administration with findings that startled its researchers.

The systems contained at least a dozen high- or critical-severity software vulnerabilities. Passwords were reused, firewalls were disabled and basic cryptographic protections were poorly implemented. And in Puerto Rico, active cellular hardware modems opened additional pathways into underlying software that was thought to be isolated.

But the small cybersecurity firm found no evidence that any of those weaknesses had actually been exploited, or that votes had been changed. The company still wanted more time to be certain.

Federal officials initially seemed willing to give them considerably more of it. The company was asked to grow the team working on the effort from roughly 10 people to about 60, according to CEO Jason Wareham.

Chief Technology Officer Manbir Gulati also said Mojave received an authorization to proceed with a follow-on effort, hired personnel, and was given funding to acquire equipment for examining more voting systems ahead of the November midterms. A contracting officer had even been brought in to finalize the new agreement, Gulati said.

Then, as Mojave prepared to move ahead, the work was abruptly shut down.

Wareham and Gulati recounted the episode on Friday at DEF CON hacker convention’s Voting Village, where they publicly unpacked their technical findings before sitting down with a small group of reporters and onlookers.

Their account fills in new details about a federal effort that grew out of the Trump administration’s broader focus on voting machines and election interference, and the political pressures that emerged when Mojave’s findings did not support claims of election manipulation.

The ODNI request

Mojave never set out to become an election security provider. Its involvement began last year through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under then-director Tulsi Gabbard, where it was already performing unrelated technical work for the agency when officials approached the company about examining voting machines and data obtained from Puerto Rico.

Reuters reported in February that the May 2025 operation was tied to an effort involving ODNI and the FBI to investigate allegations that Venezuela had hacked Puerto Rico’s voting systems, though Gabbard’s office denied that Venezuela drove its work and said the examination was focused on technical vulnerabilities. The probe produced no clear evidence of Venezuelan interference.

Wareham said at DEF CON that ODNI asked whether his team of reverse engineers and forensic specialists could travel to Puerto Rico and capture an image of a voting system that had actually been used in an election, without the vendor overseeing the process. He agreed, thinking it would be a relatively small addition to Mojave’s existing contract.

The assignment instead dropped Mojave into a much larger skirmish over American elections. “Ultimately, I made the worst decision of my life in a business context,” Wareham said.

President Donald Trump has spent years falsely maintaining that his 2020 loss was stolen and the product of widespread fraud and foreign interference, claims that have been rejected by courts and officials in his own administration. A 2021 intelligence community assessment found no indication that a foreign actor attempted to alter ballots, vote tabulations or any other technical aspect of the election.

Since returning to office, Trump and allies have revived investigations into the 2020 contest and pushed election security back to the center of his administration’s agenda. Gabbard’s ODNI was one part of that effort, hauling off and analyzing voting systems from Puerto Rico and later becoming involved in a federal investigation of 2020 election records in Georgia.

Wareham said the ODNI officials directly overseeing the company’s technical work wanted the research to continue. Both he and Gulati described the ODNI staff they worked with as professionals who wanted to protect the security of election systems.

The resistance, Wareham said, came from a separate White House collective that was repeatedly dissatisfied Mojave had not produced evidence supporting claims that the 2020 election had been manipulated.

“There was a separate group — let’s call them White House-adjacent — who was dissatisfied,” he said. “They were dissatisfied overall that I was not willing to name and shame at that moment” and declare that Trump had actually won the 2020 election.

Asked whether he believed Mojave’s government work was axed because it failed to find the “smoking gun” some officials wanted, Wareham said: “I believe that was part of the termination, yes.”

Reuters reported in April that Kurt Olsen, a prominent 2020 election-denier and Trump adviser involved in efforts to investigate the election, pressed Mojave to broaden its work in search of evidence that could support those claims.

Olsen, who now works at the Justice Department, turned against the company when its research failed to uncover evidence that the Puerto Rico machines had been hacked. He advocated terminating its work and accused Mojave of secretly receiving money from billionaire George Soros, a frequent target of right-wing conspiracy theories, the news agency reported. ODNI has said Mojave’s contract ended because the company completed its voting-machine analysis.

Wareham said an ODNI official informed him while Mojave was preparing to expand its work that the company had been accused of receiving Soros funding. The allegation prompted him to compile a detailed accounting of the young company’s funding sources within three days and send it up the government chain. Asked who he was told had made the accusation, he said an ODNI official reported to him that it was Olsen.

“One, I’m not funded by George Soros,” Wareham said. “Two, it would be great to be funded by George Soros because I would probably not be here, I’d be on a yacht.”

The company kept moving forward. Wareham said Mojave briefed the White House on some of its findings around September. The firm believed it was heading toward a broader effort to remediate vulnerabilities before the midterms and conduct a deeper analysis for signs that the weaknesses it discovered had ever been actually abused.

Then came the record-long government shutdown. Wareham said that on the day he expected an expanded contract to move ahead, Mojave instead received a stop-work order and no additional funding.

“I think the government shutdown was all that was required, really, to have some folks that I didn’t know were still in the game, again, White-House adjacent, to take their shot,” he said. Wareham stopped short of saying he had direct proof that White House officials ordered Mojave removed because of its findings, but said “it was reported to me it was Kurt Olsen” who led the efforts.

The White House, ODNI and Olsen did not return requests for comment.

Identified vulnerabilities

Mojave had found many issues with the machines it examined. Gulati described the Puerto Rico system during the Voting Village presentation as “deeply insecure,” saying it did not meet the security bar he would expect from “an average low-risk application, let alone critical infrastructure.”

Researchers identified at least 12 major vulnerabilities in commercial software installed on the system, Gulati said. Mojave successfully executed five of them. None were newly discovered flaws, and fixes were already available — in some cases well before the system was used in the election.

Other weaknesses were rooted more deeply in how the system was built and deployed. Some passwords could be easily cracked and others were embedded directly into software. Firewalls were turned off on critical systems and ports were left open. Gulati was particularly critical of the system’s cryptography, which he described as being “in shambles.”

The company does not believe every problem it found necessarily stopped at Puerto Rico, as its formal review covered only one system from one manufacturer in one jurisdiction. Gulati suspects the issues could extend beyond a single voting machine company, though Mojave has not examined enough systems from other manufacturers to establish that.

“I don’t expect that the problems are unique to them,” he said. “I think many manufacturers probably exhibit the same problems.”

Mojave produced an approximately 100-page document of the Puerto Rico findings. Gulati said Mojave has been in discussions with Liberty Vote — which acquired Dominion’s election business last year — and that Liberty told the researchers it does not plan to make changes before November.

Liberty said it has not received Mojave’s report.

“Liberty Vote is not in receipt of any such report so, therefore, we cannot provide any comment,” a spokesperson said. “As always, Liberty Vote is committed to advancing the future of secure American elections.”

No evidence of vote tampering

Looking at the systems headed into the midterms, Gulati said, “I do know that as of now, the state that we have described is going to be pretty similar to what will be deployed in November.”

Despite the extensive findings, Gulati repeatedly returned to what the researchers did not establish: “We found extensive and largely unacceptable weaknesses,” he said in the presentation. “But we did not find evidence that those weaknesses were actively exploited or that votes were altered.”

That distinction has drawn renewed attention as Trump and his allies again focus on election matters.

Last month, the president used a prime-time White House address to release newly declassified intelligence he said showed China interfered in the 2020 election. Among several disclosures, Trump pointed to intelligence showing Beijing had acquired personal information on roughly 220 million American voters. But the documents did not show China altered votes or gained the ability to manipulate voting systems.

Gulati echoed those conclusions Friday when asked about the declassification.

“The China thing isn’t really much of anything,” he said, arguing that a large amount of the voter information at issue could be obtained commercially and should not be confused with access to election systems in ways that can manipulate votes.

“There is no evidence that I know of that says China successfully or any other country has successfully infiltrated our systems and manipulated votes in any way,” he added.

Wareham called the 100-page document a preliminary report and said the firm had wanted another six months to a year to dig deeper into the underlying data.

Gulati said the company’s interactions with the ODNI employees overseeing that work were markedly different from the political pressure the researchers later encountered. “We were never pressured to put anything in our reports that was untrue or politically leaning in a certain way,” he said of those officials.

Wareham said Friday that Mojave itself has pushed for its report to be made public for roughly a year and has recently been told it could soon emerge through a Freedom of Information Act request. Nextgov/FCW could not immediately determine the origin of the FOIA requester. As of publishing time, ODNI’s FOIA logs are available up until January 2025.

“I’m a little annoyed that we are very close to midterms and we had a whole year to freaking figure this out,” Wareham said.

With their government work scrapped, he announced at the Voting Village that he had filed paperwork to create the Machine Assurance Institute, seeking to bring together cybersecurity researchers and election technology companies to examine and independently verify voting infrastructure.

“We wanted to be the national security answer, and put to bed, finally, discussions about prior elections and/or accusations of voter fraud,” said Wareham. “Because, believe it or not, I find it fairly national security-destabilizing to constantly accuse each other of cheating.”

]]>

Did AI blow a $450M Army contract decision? Company lawsuit says yes

Christian Robles — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:34:00 -0400

Trax International Corporation is asking the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to direct the Army to reevaluate bids for mission support services at White Sands Missile Range — in part because the department allegedly misused AI to determine the contract award.

Trax's complaint, filed in late July, alleges that the Army used AI that hallucinated multiple times, creating the false impression that the company's bid was weaker than rival Southwest Range Services’ successful bid of roughly $450 million. The Government Accountability Office denied Trax’s bid protest in May.

The lawsuit claims that records the Army provided to GAO did not explain whether assigned strengths for the Southwest Range Services bid came from a human at the Source Selection Evaluation Board or an AI tool.

The suit also claims that the Army conceded that one of the weaknesses it identified with Trax’s bid is unsupported by documentation. In fact, the suit said, the purported weakness is a “classic AI hallucination, with made-up references to TRAX’s proposal, that no one on the [Source Selection Evaluation Board] checked.”

“Given the $29.4 million price premium associated with [Southwest Range Services’] proposal, there is a reasonable possibility that the removal of this Weakness could have changed the award decision,” the lawsuit states.

The Army declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

Trax is not the first contractor to publicly allege that an agency has wrongfully used AI to evaluate contract bids.

Salient CRGT alleged that a Defense Department subagency improperly used AI, rather than human employees, to evaluate bids. The Government Accountability Office dismissed the allegation in a decision dated Jan. 5, 2026.

Contractors will likely continue to scrutinize federal agencies’ use of AI in evaluating bids, according to David Timm, a partner at Burr & Forman.

In a recent Washington Technology op-ed, Timm raised concerns that few civilian agencies are reporting the use of AI in bid evaluations as “high-impact.” That means agencies have either not implemented minimum risk practices or have not publicly disclosed them if they have, he told Nextgov/FCW in an email.

The Defense Department has said that it used AI to help evaluate bids in several recent solicitations. But if agencies don’t widely disclose this, it could become harder for contractors such as Salient CRGT and Trax to successfully argue the government misused AI.

“More bid protests are likely to come as the ungoverned and undisclosed use of GenAI tools results in errors throughout the procurement, but if agencies do not comply with the [Office of Management and Budget] rules it will complicate how contractors prove their allegations,” Timm wrote in the op-ed.

]]>

How many worked for DOGE? New data emerges, but many agencies stonewall

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 16:52:42 -0400

At least 206 people worked for the Department of Government Efficiency, but much remains unknown about the Trump administration's government-overhaul effort because federal agencies refused to fully cooperate with a Congressionally-ordered inquest.

In a new report published on Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office said it was largely unable to determine whether DOGE employees completed required ethics training and paperwork. GAO looked specifically at employees who worked for DOGE in the Executive Office of the President or were detailed from EOP between Jan. 20, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2026.

GAO identified 206 such people and that at least 128 of them had left by Jan. 31, 2026.

At least 27 were special government employees who were limited to serving 130 days during any one-year period. One prominent SGE was Elon Musk, the former de facto head of DOGE, whose companies received billions of dollars in federal contracts during his government service.

Investigators were not able to determine the appointment type, such as Schedule C political appointee or noncareer Senior Executive Service, for more than 150 of the personnel because many agencies did not provide the requested information.

“This total includes the 127 [U.S. DOGE Service] employees who held titles as digital services experts or consultants within USDS,” according to the report. “Although USDS has stated that USDS positions last no more than 4 years, we were unable to determine whether these USDS employees or other personnel had held such time-limited appointments.”

In total, 10 agencies and the EOP did not respond to requests from GAO for records that these DOGE employees participated in ethics training and completed financial disclosure reports.

“As a result, we are not able to determine the total number of DOGE personnel who held positions within EOP who received trainings or who completed financial disclosures at those 10 agencies or at EOP,” investigators wrote.

Nine agencies, covering 64 DOGE employees, did submit information about whether the staffers did such training and reports. But GAO argued that much of the documentation was incomplete. For example, the Agriculture Department provided an “ethics-related presentation” for Trump appointees but didn’t offer evidence for when, or if, the DOGE staffers received the training.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

While “the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization” terminated on July 4, pursuant to the executive order establishing it, GAO pointed out that the directive permanently renamed an existing White House office as the U.S. DOGE Service.

“Since the EO does not call for the termination of the broader USDS entity, it is possible that USDS and personnel at federal agencies could continue to do work that advances some of these initiatives after the temporary organization’s termination,” investigators wrote.

DOGE spearheaded many of the civil service reductions that took place last year, resulting in a decrease of more than 350,000 to the federal employee headcount.

GAO in April reported that the Treasury Department and DOGE did not follow all security protocols with respect to granting access to government payment systems.

]]>

Senate confirms Clayton as Trump’s next intelligence director

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:17:00 -0400

The Senate on Tuesday night confirmed Jay Clayton to serve as President Donald Trump’s second permanent national intelligence director, replacing an acting chief whose leadership alarmed Democrats and disrupted efforts to renew a major foreign surveillance program.

Clayton was confirmed in a 51-47 vote. He will oversee the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies and serves as the president’s principal intelligence adviser.

His confirmation ends Bill Pulte’s roughly six-week tenure as acting director, during which the Trump loyalist presided over repeated personnel cuts and faced accusations that he was politicizing the intelligence community. Pulte said Tuesday that ODNI had completed a fifth round of cuts without disclosing details of who was affected.

Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, served as a Securities and Exchange Commission chairman during Trump’s first term. His nomination was initially viewed by some Democrats as a stabilizing alternative to Pulte. Democrats had pushed the White House to nominate a permanent intelligence director and agreed with Senate Republicans to move Clayton’s confirmation process quickly, hoping to curtail Pulte’s time in the role.

But Clayton shed much of that prospective support during his confirmation hearing this month, when he repeatedly declined to say directly that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced Clayton’s nomination last week in a 9-8 party-line vote, with every Democrat and Democratic-aligned independent on the panel opposing him.

Clayton also faced scrutiny over subpoenas his office issued to New York Times journalists in an effort to identify the sources behind reporting on security shortcomings of Trump’s new, Qatari-donated Air Force One.

During his July 15 hearing, Clayton defended the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation and said he was comfortable that prosecutors had followed the proper process. The department withdrew the subpoenas days later, however, after a federal judge sharply questioned government attorneys about how they had obtained reporters’ phone records and whether they had complied with legal safeguards intended to protect journalists.

Clayton also signaled that he wants the intelligence community to devote more attention to the connections between economic competition and national security, an emphasis informed by his time overseeing U.S. financial markets.

“National security and economic security are synonymous,” Clayton told lawmakers. Understanding the economic consequences of major events and their broader effects, he added, should be a larger part of what the intelligence community provides policymakers.

His arrival could also revive negotiations over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to collect the electronic communications of non-U.S. citizens located abroad without a warrant.

The authority statutorily lapsed in June after Democrats joined other lawmakers in blocking a largely unchanged renewal package, citing Pulte’s installation as acting intelligence director. Democrats had argued that they would reconsider an extension once the Senate confirmed a permanent official to lead the intelligence community.

Intelligence collection under Section 702 has continued despite the expiration, with providers still complying with government requests to furnish communications for spy agencies, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., told Nextgov/FCW last week, but he added that, at any moment, “they can decide to challenge the validity of the request” and he is “very concerned” by that possibility.

Asked whether a Clayton confirmation would help get votes necessary to legislatively reauthorize Section 702, Himes said, “I think that certainly helps.”

]]>

Unions ask for injunction restoring collective bargaining at Defense

Erich Wagner — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0400

A pair of federal employee unions on Monday urged a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction restoring their collective bargaining agreements with the Defense Department, arguing that Secretary Pete Hegseth failed to follow the Trump administration’s own process for implementing two executive orders banning organized labor at most federal agencies.

Earlier this month, the American Federation of Government Employees and National Federation of Federal Employees sued the Pentagon over the April termination of their collective bargaining agreements, a move that the Defense Department said was aimed at complying with President Trump’s March 2025 executive order barring collective bargaining for two-thirds of the federal workforce on national security grounds.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for Maryland, focuses not on the legality of Trump’s edict, but rather whether Hegseth fulfilled his obligation to conduct “reasoned decision-making” under the Administrative Procedure Act when he ordered CBAs be terminated with just 24 hours’ notice.

“The Hegseth memorandum did not point to any facts showing that any of plaintiffs’ CBAs, much less all of them, were inconsistent with national security,” the unions wrote. “DOD agencies had voluntarily agreed to these CBAs. Nor did the Hegseth memorandum consider the obvious alternatives to immediate mass termination of all CBAs, such as refraining from terminating CBAs until litigation about [the executive order] runs its course, allowing CBAs to expire pursuant to their own terms, or identifying only those specific parts of CBAs that the secretary determined to be inconsistent with national security . . . The Hegseth memorandum was the opposite of the reasoned decision-making that the APA requires before final agency action.”

The unions said that the Defense Department did not even follow a template for terminating union contracts issued by the Office of Personnel Management in February, seemingly designed to address the APA’s requirements for agencies to explain policy changes and consider the reliance interests of stakeholders. Instead, Hegseth wrote simply that the actions were “required” in order to comply with Trump’s order.

“The OPM termination template reinforces that CBA terminations are discretionary and must comply with the APA’s requirements for reasoned decision-making,” the unions wrote. “The OPM template indicates that agencies should specify that, after the issuance of the EO, the agency ‘considered whether to terminate any CBA, in whole or part, as it pertains to those bargaining unit employees who fall within the EO’s scope.’”

Since the contracts’ termination in April, management officials have told union members that their union “does not exist any longer,” and some employees have been required to sign documents attesting that they lack union representation. Employees in disciplinary proceedings are denied access to union representation, managers are unilaterally changing employees’ work schedules with little notice, and the labor groups’ membership is on the decline.

“Plaintiffs face an existential threat because workers are afraid to engage in any union activity or are confused about their right to do so,” they wrote. “DOD is telling plaintiffs’ members and prospective members that they are ineligible to join unions and that their unions ‘do not exist.’ Plaintiffs cannot successfully retain or recruit members under such circumstances, and union membership is declining. These harms are irreparable.”

Since its initial filing earlier this month, AFGE and NFFE’s case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a jurist who was nominated to the federal bench by both presidents Obama and Trump.

]]>

Hegseth’s conflicting statements, evasions drain lawmakers’ patience, support

Patrick Tucker — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:50:25 -0400

Given a rare chance to press top Pentagon leaders, senators from both parties on Tuesday pleaded with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to outline a strategy for the U.S. war on Iran or simply to defend his previous statements about it. Hegseth responded at times combatively or evasively.

The meeting highlighted growing frustration over the costly war and the Trump administration’s multiple and shifting rationales for it—all of which appear to be reducing lawmakers’ appetite for the White House’s unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense-spending request.

Lawmakers are not the only ones frustrated with Operation Epic Fury. Last week, 68 percent of the public said the war was “not worth fighting,” according to an Ipsos poll. Wednesday brought fresh numbers from Politico showing that just one-third of self-identified MAGA voters approve of the war—a 13-point drop in two months.

At the hearing, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said that the drops don’t reflect differences in concern about a potential Iranian nuclear arsenal, but rather disapproval of how the White House has gone about trying to prevent it.

“This radical Iranian regime should never possess a nuclear weapon. I think we agree on all of these core basic points,” Coons said. “I think your first strategic mistake was to not consult the American people and Congress and make a clear case for the reasons behind this war. There have been many, lots offered.”

Perhaps the most telling portion of the hearing came toward the end, when Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., read Hegseth’s previous public statements back to him verbatim and then asked Hegseth to recommit to the statement.

Ossoff: “You said, quote, ‘Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory.’ You said Iran's military had been rendered, quote, ‘combat-ineffective for years to come,’ and you stated we had, quote, ‘achieved every single objective.’ Were those accurate statements?”

Hegseth answered that U.S. strikes had decimated Iran’s Air Force, Navy, and industrial base, but acknowledged that the country was still developing and launching drones and missiles. “So we never expected they would stop having capabilities to shoot. The question is at scale against opponents like the United States of America.”

Ossoff repeated the question, seeking a declarative yes or no that did not come. He continued, “On March 8, day nine of the war, on 60 Minutes, you assured the American people of Iranian surrender. Does that remain your prediction?”

Hegseth replied, “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon to threaten the United States of America. That has been the objective, and it remains so.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., put the consistency and credibility issue to Hegseth more bluntly.

“The reason why [voters] are so upset with you and this administration is because the words you have used in the past don't add up,” she said. “About Iran, specifically, you said that we had obliterated, quote unquote, Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. The president made the same claim. Yet eight months later, in 2026, the president launched an act of war, claiming Iran was within two weeks of having a weapon. So when you say two very different things, the American people don't know who to believe or what to believe.”

She went on to reframe the issue in terms of growing economic uncertainty among voters, merely seeking consistent answers as they are asked to make sacrifices. “They just know they can't afford their health care; they can't afford their food; they can't afford housing, and our farmers are continuing to suffer. So, which is true? Was it obliterated or wasn't it?”

Even some staunch supporters of President Trump and his agenda lost patience with Hegseth’s inability to articulate a clear goal for ending the war and the consequences of the United States leaving it before a favorable outcome could be reached.

One such Trump ally, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked Hegseth whether Iran would be able to restart its nuclear program if the United States concludes operations too soon.

Without providing a clear yes or no, Hegseth answered that Iran had not given up its nuclear ambitions even though their nuclear sites had been obliterated.

Kennedy interrupted the response with a shout: “We need straight answers!”

That lack of straight answers is hurting not only the White House but also senators' ability to meet the administration’s historic budget request.

Budgeting is very much a part of the discussion among the most loyal members of the President’s voting base. Some 37 percent of self-identified MAGA voters now say they would support the war only if it does not increase costs, according to Wednesday’s Politico poll, a number up from 29 percent in May.

Coons observed broad bipartisan support for the budget’s main pillars: $21 billion to sustain forward-deployed forces, pay increases, and other readiness items; $46 billion to replace munitions stockpiles, develop new supply lines for solid rocket motors, and new counter-drone defenses, and others. There is enthusiasm for the Defense Department’s acquisition reform and bringing in new technology players. But lawmakers had little insight into how the White House was spending funds that Congress had already given it to meet those goals.

“Mr. Secretary, your question says: Without these supplemental funds, we will face critical shortfalls that threaten our ability to pay our service members and sustain global operations without disruption. You've been asked repeatedly—there's $75 billion appropriated but unobligated—can we really not avoid critical short-term shortfalls? What does that mean about the budget management within the department in terms of unexpected and unbudgeted wars, first, Operation Southern Spear and then Operation Epic Fury?”

Hegseth answered that the funds previously allocated under the Big Beautiful Bill would be spent by September. That the U.S. military was receiving everything it required “in spades.” The $1.5 trillion budget request “and any additional funding that comes,” was related to efforts to modernize the force.

Coons observed that those were “Two quite different things. A $1.5 trillion base budget request and a now $67 billion supplemental.” The September date was “news to him.”

At various points, lawmakers turned their attention to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to make the Pentagon’s case where Hegseth could not. They lavished credit and praise on Caine for carrying out U.S. policy, however confusing they found that policy to be, and then called on him to affirm that China, Russia, and Iran were working together.

“There is no doubt that they are aligning,” Caine responded.He also compared the giant 2027 budget request to the work done by George C. Marshall to mobilize the U.S. military for World War II, then to transform the War Department into what would become the postwar Defense Department.

“I view this as a future investment to buy down risk, similar to what I said Marshall fought through in those heady days in 1940, where the need to invest capital early to deliver scale is an opportunity that I hope we don't miss.”

]]>

At Europe’s largest airshow, US lawmakers sound alarm over Pentagon-budget gridlock

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:33:55 -0400

FARNBOROUGH, UK—U.S. lawmakers sounded alarms about the fate of this year’s Pentagon budget while attending Europe’s largest airshow and said the Trump administration’s top defense priorities, including the Golden Dome missile defense program, are in peril.

A bipartisian congressional delegation at the Farnborough International Airshow told reporters on Monday that the gridlock surrounding this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, an Iran war supplemental, and additional funding measures likely portends acontinuing resolution: a stopgap funding measure to keep the government open at the current year’s spending levels.

“We're not going to get an NDAA bill done anytime soon,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said. “Anybody, no offense to anybody, anybody who thinks we're going to do an NDAA in the midterm needs to back off the crank. It's not going to happen.”

Kennedy later said, “We'll get the NDAA done” and “I hope we’ll have a CR to continue the budget, but after that, I really don't know.”

Political infighting about the defense budget comes as President Donald Trump has pushed European countries to provide for their own defense and to buy American weapons. Given the gridlock in Washington, the administration has proposed to make heavy, partisan use of an unusual budget maneuver called reconciliation.

“There's a concern that if you start doing defense and reconciliation, it can create a bad habit, and I get all of that,” Kennedy said on the sidelines of Farnborough. “But the military needs money, and the only way to get it to them in this environment is through reconciliation.”

Some $350 billion of the administration’s initial $1.5 trillion defense budget request relies on reconciliation, which allows funding legislation to be passed by a simple majority. The sum includes major defense priorities such as munitions, shipbuilding, and autonomous warfare efforts. Congress has since whittled the reconciliation amount to $60 billion, mostly to support the war in Iran.

“I'd go a little bit heavier on the defense money, but that's just me. I'll take it if that's the best we can do,” Kennedy said.

Democrats disagree.

“I think it does set a dangerous precedent, and I think the Appropriations Committee, both Democrats and Republicans, have been pretty clear with the department about that, about concern that if this is a priority, it should go in the base budget,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said in a sideline gaggle with reporters. “There isn’t going to be a third reconciliation package, so anything that's in there is not going anywhere.”

Golden Dome

Republican lawmakers are also casting doubt on using reconciliation to pass one of the Trump administration’s biggest defense priorities: the sprawling Golden Dome missile defense program.

A mere $400 million of the $17.5 billion the Pentagon is seeking for Golden Dome comes from the baseline budget, and the remainder from reconciliation funds. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., told reporters at Farnborough the secretive missile defense investment “is needed” but is concerned with the administration’s partisan funding maneuvers.

“I'm worried it's in reconciliation, because I don't know if that's going to happen or not,” Fischer said.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said there’s other avenues outside of reconciliation to get the Golden Dome funding the admin wants.

“I think this is one of the priority items in reconciliation [that] they will find a way to work into a funding bill,” Harrison said. “If not this one, then the base budget or something else.”

Kennedy, like Fischer, said the missile defense system is needed but added that there’s other more pressing priorities.

“It's going to be expensive,” Kennedy said of Golden Dome. “Will we get it done in this Congress? I wouldn't bet my house on it. And if I were betting your house on it, it'd be a maybe.”

]]>

‘Makes no sense’: Firing of Ukraine’s defense minister sparks protests, outcry among allies

Patrick Tucker — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 21:04:26 -0400

Mikhailo Federov was not the first or even the second defense minister fired by Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy—but he is the first whose dismissal has drawn protests around the country, wall-to-wall coverage in Ukrainian media, and condemnation by foreign allies who fear that sacking the politically popular Federov will undermine hard-won gains in the country's fight for survival. In any case, the move reflects central questions about the war and how to win.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy fired Fedorov over his feud with Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the much-maligned commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The president framed his decision as an obvious one.

Fedorov was “making procurements at his own discretion, rather than following the requests of the General Staff and the military,” Zelenskyy told other Ukrainian officials later on Wednesday, according to state media. “This specifically applied, for instance, to the procurement of artillery shells.”

On Thursday, Federov called a press briefing as one of his last acts in office. He said Syrskyi refused to acknowledge the new realities of war, much less present new solutions.

“War has changed completely. Drone technology and command systems change multiple times a year. We cannot rely on what worked two years ago,” he said.

He also criticized Syrskyi as “not ready to discuss problems openly face-to-face. Instead, he prefers to attend backroom meetings and weave intrigues.”

Federov then offered several suggestions for improving Ukraine’s military effort, including adding more forward drone assault forces and replacing Syrskyi.

After four years of largely defensive operations, Ukraine began to go on offense this year. Ukrainian forces have launched long-range strikes deep into Russia, while using robot-led ground assaults that have recaptured territory and frustrated Russian resupply while risking fewer Ukrainian lives. s.

Fedorov played a critical role in that turnaround, according to one government military analyst who asked not to be named.

For example, the analyst said, Federov was key to the effort to convince SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to ensure that the Starlink satellite communications service could be used by Ukrainian troops, but not Russian ones.

Beyond that, the analyst said, the former defense minister had a good plan to win.

“The theory of victory that Fedorov espouses has key elements that pave the most realistic path for Ukraine to achieve a qualitative military edge and render Russian superiority obsolete,” they said.

Former senior U.S. military officials, former senior Ukrainian military officials, military analysts, and most of the other sources who spoke to Defense One echoed the sentiments of the protesters and many pro-Ukraine voices on social media.

“It makes no sense,” said one former senior U.S. official who worked on Ukraine issues.

A second analyst, who works with the Ukrainian and U.S. governments, said, “The generals hate [Fedorov] the way generals hate civilians with better ideas than their own.

“A bad sign,” offered a third analyst.

“This is very bad,” said the former senior Ukrainian military official.

A former senior U.S. official said that the decision fit an unfortunate pattern in which the Ukrainian president favors loyalists over reformers.

“Sadly, while Zelenskyy is in many ways an exceptionally talented wartime leader, his Achilles heel is his preference for absolute loyalty among subordinates. This has led him to keep corrupt officials in place…for far too long after their misdeeds were common knowledge, and also to sack competent reformers who weren’t as beholden to him personally,” they said.

One prominent analyst and tech entrepreneur close to the Ukrainian government put it more colorfully: “Zelenskyy’s usual shit.”

]]>

Space Force faces budget uncertainty as leader plans exit next month

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:50:38 -0400

LONDON—The U.S. Space Force’s soon-to-be retired top officer urged support for his service’s programs, the same day as House lawmakers said they would approve only a fraction of the funds the Trump administration requested for major space efforts.

Space Force Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, told international military leaders at the Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference here on Tuesday that space is, undoubtedly, a warfighting domain. Invoking American poet Robert Frost, he said, “We must frame our choices around how to have military advantage, and for better or worse, the path we choose will make all the difference.”

Saltzman said during his speech that he will retire next month. The White House has tapped Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess to replace him, as first reported by Defense One in April. Schiess is scheduled to appear for a confirmation hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

But elsewhere on Capitol Hill, lawmakers say they will not fully comply with the Trump administration’s request to fund important priorities through reconciliation—a partisan-controlled budget maneuver rarely used for defense spending before last year. That could leave the Space Force far short of the money it wants.

The White House has asked Congress for $1.15 trillion through the normal defense-budget process plus another $350 billion through reconciliation. The latter amount would fund major Space Force programs, such as the Air Moving Target Indicator and the space data network, and the vast majority of funds for the Golden Dome missile defense program.

On Wednesday, Republican House leaders said they would support a reconciliation bill of just $60 billion.

Saltzman didn’t say whether a smaller reconciliation package would harm the service, but said during a roundtable interview on Wednesday that “I stand behind” the service’s budget request and added it was “a dramatic increase in resourcing requests for what I think are vital” space capabilities.

“I think these things are always negotiations between the executive and the legislature. That's the way the system works,” Saltzman said. “I stand behind the requirements and the resources that we requested, and now over to Congress to determine what that appropriation looks like.”

During his speech, Saltzman told the military leaders in the room that they have to be steadfast during political division.

“In the hyper-political environment we find ourselves, with partisan politics created divisions between a multitude of stakeholders, I remind myself that military institutions in our democracies, particularly military leadership, serves as the ballast in the ship. While it may feel like the ballast slows progress as the ship of state attempts to quickly move towards its goals, the ballast creates stability when the inevitable storms arise,” Saltzman said. “We, as military leaders in our democracies, must remember our roles. Think long-term, offer our military experience to decision makers, and do what we can to provide the stability and be a calming presence."

Saltzman has served as the head of the Space Force since his confirmation in September 2022. Under his tenure, the service’s budget swelled from $26 billion to a this year’s $72 billion request, while its ranks grew to roughly 11,000 guardians. The service has also seen some of its highest public recognition to date for the role its service members have played during operations in Venezuela and Iran this year.

The Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference follows a prickly NATO summit earlier this month, during which President Trump threw barbs at European allies.

Saltzman, during his final public speech, pushed a message of unity among allies.

“We are stronger as a team of nations than any one of us as an individual,” Saltzman said. “There is far too much evidence over the last 80 years or so to argue otherwise.”

]]>

Trump’s intelligence pick pressed on 2020 election, defends handling of New York Times subpoenas

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:05:00 -0400

President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence faced pointed pushback from Senate Democrats Wednesday over his answers about the 2020 election results and broader election security concerns ahead of this year’s midterms.

Jay Clayton, who currently serves as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, told lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee that former president Joe Biden was “certified” president in 2020 after the election commenced, but would not outright say Biden won when asked multiple times.

“I’m not an election denier,” Clayton contended in the hearing. But the answer was not satisfactory for multiple senators who got into back-and-forths with Clayton over his responses.

“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community?” said Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?”

Election security has become a flashpoint at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the agency has grown involved in Trump’s effort to revisit the 2020 election. Former DNI Tulsi Gabbard appeared at a February FBI search of a Georgia election facility and oversaw a review of Puerto Rico voting machines, while Trump more recently authorized acting DNI Bill Pulte to declassify 2020 election records.

The activity has fueled concerns that ODNI, which manages America’s intelligence apparatus that is meant to predominantly track and counter overseas threats, is being drawn further into Trump’s election claims. On Thursday night, the president is expected to unveil what the administration says is evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election and vulnerabilities in voting machines.

Throughout his testimony, Clayton asserted the job of ODNI is to focus on foreign intelligence threats and not domestic matters.

Days before his June 11 nomination, Clayton spoke on CNBC and appeared to criticize the nation’s election administration processes.

“On the [election] integrity side, we are doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it. How come we can have an audit trail in every other aspect of our lives that’s important?” he said at the time.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, questioned why Clayton opined on those matters.

“For the record, I wish you would share any evidence you have that asserts that there was any problem of voter fraud significant enough to change the results of an election in this country,” King said.

Asked by King whether there is a voter fraud problem in the nation, Clayton said, “I don’t think we can say definitively whether there is or is not until we have better processes.”

On cybersecurity, he said that the topic was a top-of-mind issue for him, especially on election influence matters. He said he would commit to assessing whether ODNI’s cyber and foreign influence components — which were downsized under Gabbard — should be resourced again.

In his current position, Clayton oversees one of the nation’s most prominent prosecutorial offices. He previously chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, and he spent more than two decades at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, focusing on corporate transactions and capital markets.

Clayton argued that he worked closely with intelligence and law enforcement on terrorism, espionage, cyber threats and illicit finance cases during that work history. He has no prior experience working inside the intelligence community. Clayton’s office is notably prosecuting deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife on narcoterrorism, drug-trafficking and weapons charges following their capture by U.S. forces in January.

If confirmed, he would inherit an intelligence office already undergoing significant workforce changes. Pulte, a major Trump ally who led the administration’s controversial mortgage fraud investigations last year, has initiated multiple rounds of personnel cuts and received broad permission from Trump to declassify records, prompting concerns from former officials about the exposure of sensitive intelligence capabilities.

Clayton was also questioned during the hearing about his office issuing subpoenas last Friday seeking grand jury testimony from four New York Times journalists who reported that Trump returned from a NATO summit aboard an older Air Force One after security officials raised concerns about the Qatari-gifted aircraft that was meant to replace it. The Times reported that the newer plane lacked some of the prior aircraft’s advanced security features, including antimissile capabilities. Some subpoenas were delivered to the journalists’ homes.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., criticized the subpoenas as an attack on press freedom and the First Amendment.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., also questioned how quickly they were issued, arguing that Clayton’s explanation was difficult to reconcile with the fact that security concerns about the Qatari-donated plane had been known for months.

Clayton defended his handling of the matter, saying he was “comfortable” with the process. He declined to discuss specific details because the investigation into the disclosure of classified information remains ongoing, but said he consulted other lawyers before issuing the subpoenas and respects the First Amendment and the press’s role.

“I’m not going to get into the details. But what I can tell you is that we followed the procedures,” he said.

Trump nominated Clayton last month after his decision to install Pulte as acting intelligence chief drew resistance from Democrats and some Republicans. Clayton’s first scheduled hearing was abruptly postponed after Trump said the Senate should first approve his chosen replacement at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and demanded action on unrelated election legislation.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the intelligence panel, told reporters after the hearing that he was disappointed in Clayton’s responses and has “a lot to think about.” The senator previously noted that he has known Clayton for many years and believes “he is a capable public servant.”

“I was very disappointed with a number of Mr. Clayton’s answers. It’s not in many ways reflective of the person that I’ve worked with over the years,” Warner said. “I worry that there seems to be this criteria that this administration is putting out, about no one who’s put up for any position can tell the truth about the 2020 election. That’s deeply unsettling.”

]]>

Space Development Agency resumes key satellite launches after delays, watchdog criticisms

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0400

After a nine-month pause, the Space Development Agency is finally scheduled to launch its next batch of satellites for its sprawling military-communication constellation—even as draft legislation weighs dissolving the agency.

SDA is scheduled to launch its next 21 Tranche 1 satellites on Thursday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Their payloads will be part of the data-transport layer of the agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a network of hundreds of low-earth-orbit satellites to be used for space-based military communications and threat detection. After the first two batches of those satellites were sent into orbit this past fall, SDA paused further launches as officials worked through technical problems.

“We did see software and hardware issues on the ones on orbit right now,” Gurpartap Sandhoo, the Space Development Agency’s director, told reporters on Wednesday. “That's why we kind of delayed and took a pause to make sure we fix at least the known issues. We expect this launch to be a lot smoother than the last one.”

After Thursday’s launch, Sandhoo said, the agency will have roughly half of the transport layer’s satellites on orbit. Satellites for the next layer, known as Tranche 2, are anticipated to start going up in fiscal year 2027.

Despite the delays, Sandhoo said SDA is “in a better place in terms of schedule.”

Yet his agency might not survive long as an independent entity. A draft version of the National Defense Authorization Act aims to fold the agency and authorities into the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive.

Sandhoo said SDA employees may have “some concerns” with the draft language. But workers are “here for the mission” and to get the architecture done, he said.

Government watchdogs have repeatedly questioned the technology behind the satellite constellation.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office raised concerns about its laser-communications technology, saying that it “hasn't fully demonstrated that it works in space.” The agency pushed back on the report and said it had achieved “baseline objectives” with tests.

In January, GAO reported that SDA’s program “is at risk of being unable to deliver capability as quickly as planned” and said the agency “should be more realistic and transparent on the technology it can deliver.

Sandhoo pushed back on those findings as well, telling reporters that the agency needs to take risks to bring crucial space-based technologies to the troops.

“I would want you to go back and look at the Apollo program. I mean, you did not wait until Apollo 8 landed before you start building Apollo 9, right? You just had to do it,” Sandhoo said. “That's the kind of mindset we're taking. That's what I think the nation needs right now.”

]]>

International air and space leaders will push unity at conference after prickly NATO summit

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:57:35 -0400

LONDON—Following a bumpy NATO conference, air and space military leaders from the United States, United Kingdom, and 50 other countries will gather in London this week to discuss future military strategy as President Trump continues his push for allies to spend more on defense.

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff; Gen. Chance Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force’s top uniformed leader; and top U.K. military and government leaders are the scheduled keynote speakers at the Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference in London on Wednesday and Thursday. U.K. military leaders plan to discuss strategies for its growing F-35 fleet, some of which will be nuclear-capable for the alliance’s deterrence mission, and will also examine the country’s role in NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence mission.

“The conference theme explores three key capability areas: space, nuclear, and integrated air and missile defense,” the conference's agenda reads. “These focus areas are critical to the UK and to key partner nations as we develop and deliver domination of the skies and beyond.”

The meeting follows a NATO conference in Turkey last week where President Donald Trump criticized Spain and said Denmark’s pushback of a U.S. takeover of Greenland is “a big problem for us.” But during private conversations, he reportedly urged cooperation with allies and later said there was “a lot of unity” at the summit. Now, the U.K.’s military air and space leaders are publicly pushing for solidarity ahead of this week’s conference.

“In 2026, the rate of change in the global strategic environment shows no signs of abating, if anything, the tempo is increasing,” U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smith, the Royal Air Force chief of staff, said in a statement on the conference’s website. “This is the ultimate team game; we cannot do this alone.”

The U.K. last month unveiled a new defence investment strategy that pushes for major investments in the country’s own autonomous drone wingman program—like the U.S. Air Force—and bolstering its military space capabilities.

The strategy followed the resignation of the country’s defense secretary, who protested the U.K.’s initial military spending plan and said in a public letter the country is “unwilling” to support “resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”

Shortly after the resignation, the country unveiled a new $298 billion plan where U.K. leaders are “investing in UK Space Command to enhance space control” and want to integrate autonomous systems into their army, air, and naval forces.

“We will build a Hybrid Navy with new autonomous vessels and uncrewed sub-surface vessels, an Army transformed by AI, armed autonomous vehicles and drones, and accelerate the development of a Next Generation Royal Air Force with new autonomous fighter jets capable of operating from land bases or our aircraft carriers,” the summary of the new defence investment plan reads.

Though the U.S. and U.K. have a longstanding military relationship, the pursuit of those defense investments could signal some instability, said Victoria Samson, the Secure World Foundation’s chief director of space security and stability.

“I think we've seen, on the continent of Europe, that their concern is that the U.S. is no longer seen as a reliable partner, and that perhaps they need to build their own indigenous capabilities or domestically-built capabilities, And I kind of get the sense from the U.K. there is starting to be some thinking about that. Now, they're much more tightly interwoven into the U.S. military structures,” Samson said. “But I think they're trying to shift to maybe looking for more niche capabilities that they could provide as opposed to being a partner that provides land, and people, and funding, but not actual military hardware.”

Saltzman and Wilsbach have been meeting with airmen and allies in Europe ahead of the conference.

The U.S. chief of space operations visited Poland’s Geospatial Intelligence and Satellite Services Agency headquarters in Warsaw and signed a statement of intent that reinforced the two countries “shared commitment to collaboration in the space domain,” he said in a social media post.

During Saltzman’s remarks in Poland last week, he underscored “that the United States, particularly in the space domain, recognizes that it cannot go alone, it cannot perform the space missions by itself. It needs capable partners in order to accomplish our missions.”

Prior to the Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference, Wilsbach visited troops at Aviano Air Base in Italy, and Royal Air Force Mildenhall and Fairford in the United Kingdom. Wilsbach, in a statement to Defense One, said he’s “really looking forward” to the event.

“Gatherings like this are important because they give us the opportunity to learn from one another, challenge each other, and strengthen the relationships that bolster our collective security,” he said.

]]>

Sen. Lindsey Graham dies, leaving Senate seat vacant

Jane Norman, States Newsroom — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 12:37:23 -0400

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., died on Saturday night of a “brief and sudden illness,” his office announced early Sunday.

“Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” the statement added.

Graham, who had just turned 71 on Thursday, was a close ally of President Donald Trump and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. In June, he defeated five Republican challengers in the Senate primary in South Carolina and was to face Democrat Annie Andrews in the general election.

Trump, on social media, called Graham “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known.”

“He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!! DETAILS AND ARRANGEMENTS TO FOLLOW. So sad!”

Graham, who had just returned from a visit to Ukraine, had been scheduled to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday morning. Instead, Trump appeared as a guest and told host Kristen Welker he spoke with Graham on Saturday night, “sometime in the sevens,” apparently not long before Graham died.

“He was really a worker but he sounded great, actually,” Trump said, adding that Graham said he was “a little tired” after the trip overseas.

“I got a message about 1 o'clock in the morning from one of the people in his office that he had passed away,” Trump said.

“He was a great politician actually,” said Trump, who had endorsed Graham. “There was nobody like him. He loved being a politician, and he was going to win his election, he was going to win it big.”

Trump said if he “had a problem with a Democrat, he could work it out,” and added that Graham in their final conversation underlined his advocacy for the SAVE America Act, an elections bill stalled in the Senate.

Asked by Welker if he had anyone in mind who should be appointed to the seat, Trump said, “I have somebody that I think would be great, but I don't want to say it now because ... it's too soon.”

Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, also on "Meet the Press," said, “The entire state has lost a statesman. I have lost a friend.” He said he expected at least one or two U.S. House members from South Carolina would be considered for the appointment to Graham's seat.

Former President Joe Biden, a Democratic member of the Senate from Delaware before his election to the presidency, said on social media he and Graham served together for more than a decade and worked closely on many issues as members of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“We disagreed often, and sometimes loudly,” Biden said. “Lindsey and I did agree on the profound importance of public service. Like me, he loved the Senate as an institution, even with all its flaws and complexities.”

Return from Ukraine

Graham, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while in Ukraine. Zelenskyy posted photos of the two on X on Friday.

“This is already his 10th visit to our country, and we appreciate this support,” Zelenskyy said.

Early Sunday, Zelenskyy posted on social media: “Deeply saddened by the news of the passing of United States Senator Lindsey Graham. Lindsey was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer.”

He said they had met twice during Graham's most recent visit.

Graham's office did not provide additional details on the circumstances of his death.

The Washington Post, citing police scanner audio, reported that emergency responders at Graham's Washington, D.C., home worked to stabilize a man Saturday night and transported him to a hospital.

NBC News reported the response, according to emergency responders' audio, was to a call for “cardiac arrest” and CPR was in progress.

“Photographs from the scene reviewed by NBC News show paramedics carrying a person on a stretcher from Graham's home to an awaiting ambulance. Police cars and fire trucks were also on site,” NBC reported.

'My heart is heavy'

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a statement “my heart is heavy” to learn of Graham's death.

“Lindsey's long and dedicated service in the Air Force and in Congress carried him to far-flung regions of the world,” Thune said. “He was a strong advocate for the United States and a strong ally to freedom-loving countries across the globe. He believed in the might of America to achieve good in the world and dedicated his life to advancing that cause.”

Graham, who was born in Central, South Carolina, first joined Congress in 1994 when he was elected to the U.S. House from the state's 3rd Congressional District. He was elected to the Senate in 2002 and reelected in 2008, 2014 and 2020.

He earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Carolina and spent six and a half years on active duty as an Air Force lawyer. He then served in the South Carolina Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, according to his official biography, retiring as a colonel in 2015.

Under the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the governor must schedule an election to fill an empty Senate seat. South Carolina law allows the governor to appoint someone to fill the seat for the remainder of Graham's term, which expires in January.

South Carolina law also requires a special primary election to select the next Republican nominee for the seat Graham held. The special primary is set for Aug. 11, with a runoff, if needed, on Aug. 25.

Andrews, the Democratic Senate nominee, expressed her condolences on X.

“From his small-town South Carolina roots to the halls of the U.S. Senate, he was a man of great faith who proudly served our nation as a JAG officer and Air Force colonel,” she said. “I hope that South Carolinians will join me in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude to Senator Lindsey Graham for his service to the great state of South Carolina.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said on social media he and his family were “devastated” by Graham's death.

“Lindsey Graham is irreplaceable,” he said. “The fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America - and a loyal and steadfast friend.”

Narrow margin in Senate

Republicans control the Senate with 53 seats.

Graham's death came as concerns have mounted about the continuing absence of 84-year-old Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, whose office has said he has been hospitalized since June 14 for an undisclosed condition.

Senators expressed their condolences after awakening Sunday to the unexpected news.

“I'm shocked and saddened by the passing of my friend and colleague Senator Lindsey Graham,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “Lindsey was a lifelong public servant, a tireless champion for South Carolina, and an outspoken advocate for America's role in protecting freedom throughout the world.”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Graham represented South Carolina and America “with pride and determination. He guided the Senate through our toughest battles while chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the Budget Committee. He carried the day with his mission clarity and steadfast leadership.”

Vice President JD Vance, a former Republican senator from Ohio, said on social media that Graham “came from humble beginnings and became one of the most powerful lawmakers in the most powerful nation on Earth.” Vance also recalled a shouting match they had during a Senate lunch over a Ukraine funding bill, saying he later learned Graham was quietly pushing rail legislation that Vance wanted.

“That was Lindsey Graham. He fought like hell for the things he believed in, and he was just as willing to go to bat for you when it counted,” Vance said. “Lindsey had the best sense of humor in the Senate. He loved the game of politics. He was constantly asking which races were up and down, and how he could help. As he liked to say, 'I don't care if you're an isolationist or a religious fanatic, so long as you have an R next to your name, I want you to win.'”

]]>

Unions sue to restore Pentagon workers' collective-bargaining rights

Erich Wagner — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0400

A pair of federal employee unions last week sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his April directive that the department terminate most of its collective bargaining agreements, alleging he violated the Administrative Procedure Act and exceeded his statutory authority when he sought to implement President Trump’s anti-union executive order.

In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order citing a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to strip roughly two-thirds of the federal workforce of their collective bargaining rights on national-security grounds. Unions and the Justice Department have engaged in pitched legal battle ever since, across more than half a dozen court cases.

Agencies have since moved to implement the order, along with an August 2025 sequel banning unions at more agencies, in fits and starts, in part due to the litigation. While many agencies took informal steps to comply, such as cancelling the automatic collection of union dues, they largely refrained from terminating their contracts with labor groups until last August.

At that point, the Office of Personnel Management changed its guidance regarding the executive orders and suggested agencies could “choose” to terminate their CBAs. OPM again changed course in February, recommending that agencies “should” take that that step.

A new lawsuit filed by the American Federation for Government Employees and the National Federation of Federal Employees in the U.S. District Court for Maryland accuses Hegseth of violating the Administrative Procedure Act for ordering the department to cancel its union contracts with just 24 hours’ notice and no plan to carry it out in an orderly fashion. The result, the unions say, was “chaos.”

“DOD did not have any uniform process for implementing the termination of CBAs, and in many cases there were virtually no notification or communication at all about what actions were being taken, if any,” the lawsuit states. “Some local union leaders were informed by phone that their unions’ CBAs were being terminated; others were informed by email, or by letter; others received no communications at all—their agency counterparts just went ‘radio silent,’ or started refusing to answer routine questions. Beyond these ‘official’ notifications (or lack thereof), Secretary Hegseth’s memorandum begat a firestorm of confusion and misinformation at facilities nationwide—about who still did or did not have collective bargaining agreements, and why, and since when.”

The unions argued that the slapdash rollout also resulted in employees losing their union rights despite being ostensibly exempt from Trump’s executive order. While the order states that the “local employing offices” of police officers, security guards and firefighters will continue to be covered by federal sector labor law, in practice the Pentagon has continued to recognize the union rights only of first responders, not the dispatchers, IT workers and other staff they work alongside.

“Yet DOD failed to prepare any list of subdivisions that are not covered by the EO because they employ police officers, firefighters or security guards before issuance of the Hegseth memorandum, nor did the Hegseth memorandum provide for such a list to be created before implementation of the memorandum,” the unions wrote. “[Thus], across DOD, subdivisions have declared that employees who work alongside police officers, firefighters and security guards—workers in the same ‘local employing office’ within the meaning of the EO—no longer have the protections of their CBAs or any rights under the [federal labor statute], in direct contradiction of the EO.”

AFGE and NFFE’s lawsuit mirrors a similar legal challenge filed last year by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees, which successfully resulted in a court order blocking the Defense Department from terminating their contracts. It sets aside the broader question of whether Trump’s executive orders are lawful and focuses on how the Defense Department sought to implement them.

The unions argued that since Hegseth neither moved to terminate CBAs either last August when OPM first said agencies could elect to do so, nor in February when OPM said they “should” take that step, he was required by the Administrative Procedure Act to explain the change in policy.

“For nearly a year after the issuance of EO 14251, DOD continued its longstanding policy of honoring the CBAs into which it has entered,” they wrote. “The DOD’s April 9, 2026 decision to terminate those CBAs within 24 hours irrationally and improperly failed to explain why the DOD would no longer honor existing CBAs, or why termination was necessary within 24 hours notwithstanding the agency’s prior honoring of CBAs and the predictable chaos that would result from DOD’s abrupt reversal.”

They also asserted that by stripping employees who work alongside departmental policy officers, firefighters and security guards of their collective bargaining rights, Hegseth exceeded the authority granted him by the executive order, since the edict exempted those employees’ entire offices from its coverage.

]]>

'Shifting gears away from being just a policy shop': Q&A with the Pentagon CIO

Edward Graham — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:24:00 -0400

Pentagon CIO Kirsten Davies recently spoke with Nextgov/FCW about her efforts to update IT acquisition and move beyond policy to operational effectiveness, warfighter readiness, and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Nextgov/FCW: What are some of your office’s priorities under the current administration?

Kirsten Davies: President Donald Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth have given us a tremendous opportunity with a mandate for change. What you're seeing out of the Department of War now is enormous enthusiasm and momentum around that.

For example, the secretary has been very clear that we will take acquisition risk today in order to reduce operational risk tomorrow. Operational risk, in this case, means that at the core of everything we do is our work to enable and empower our warfighters. When I came into this role, I really wanted to bring the cause of the warfighter straight into the DNA of the Office of the CIO.

We're shifting gears tremendously away from being just a policy shop. Policy work is extraordinarily important, but operational effectiveness, warfighter readiness, and empowerment from a digital perspective are critical. Through the work of the Office of the CIO, what we're able to do is really shift gears and transform how we think about that.

It's not IT for the sake of that “T.” It's developing a technology footprint that enables and empowers our warfighters from the core all the way to the edge.

Nextgov/FCW: How are you changing your office to do that?

Davies: We have four pillars for the transformation we are undertaking. The first is establishing an enduring digital foundation, so thinking of all the things we do when it comes to network transport and data centers. We are modernizing our data transport ability across this space and transforming the way we think about it from undersea to celestial, so satellites and everything in between. We obviously have a lot of work we're doing to build out the infrastructure for artificial intelligence and modernize the way in which we think about that.

Pillar two is the agile digital capabilities. I say agile very specifically because we are not going to do "fast waterfall." We are going to get after agile delivery and agile development, so truly get into industry best practices when it comes to the software development life cycle and when it comes to the totality of the agility we need to get digital capabilities to the warfighters faster, more securely and more resiliently.

The third pillar is cybersecurity of the warfighting ecosystem. What you will be seeing out of my office is a much more holistic and transformative approach to cybersecurity, and that includes operational technology and the internet of things. When it comes to OT, we can’t treat it like IT, and we can’t neglect it as if it doesn't exist. So you're going to see a lot more focus on OT out of my shop as well.

And then pillar four is upskilling, cross-skilling, and partnering. We can talk about people all day long, and we can talk about the fact that everyone owns security. We need to embrace that as an ethos for us and work across our defense industrial base and across our allies and our partners internationally as well. And then also work with our interagency partners at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI and the National Security Agency.

Nextgov/FCW: What are you doing about operational technology?

Davies: Everything is connected, so the digitization of our industrial base is critical for us. The secretary has talked about reinvigorating our industrial base. From a cybersecurity perspective and from a technology perspective, all these devices are connected. There's more than automation involved. Now it's machine learning and also AI that are being more and more deliberately rolled out and leveraged in industry and in government.

When we talk about the OT aspect of these things, that's everything from building management systems to the critical infrastructure that supports our installations here in America and abroad. It is working with our defense industrial base partners.

All of this is foundational operational technology. We must have appropriate availability, resiliency and security in order to ensure our warfighters have what they need when they need it. And this is underpinned by our technology footprint that goes from the core all the way to the edge.

What we're working through now is setting up an OT council. The notion of this is to have industry expertise, department use cases and defense industrial base partners come to the table and say, “How do we get after this better?”

Nextgov/FCW: How do you want to increase private-sector engagement and technology modernization?

Davies: We are transforming from what has been a back-office IT function into a forward-leaning strategic department function that includes, by necessity, very strong collaboration across the building.

I’ve got great partnerships with Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, where the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office is, and with Undersecretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment Mike Duffey’s shop, where he is radically transforming the way in which we approach acquisition and procurement.

You'll see there’s no daylight among us as a leadership team as we move forward with the secretary's vision to enable and empower our warfighters and to ensure the lethality, resilience and readiness of our warfighters from a very specific perspective.

Acquisition at the department has historically been a very long process and was often focused on massive capital investments like ships. We have to shift gears when it comes to technology, when it comes to software, when it comes to cloud, when it comes to infrastructure buildout. Technology changes at a much more rapid cycle than planes and ships and all those things.

What we're working on inside the building and across the leadership is how do we drive not only a more agile approach to developing and delivering capabilities, but how do we drive a more agile approach to acquisition for things that can shift every six months? Infusing that kind of methodology into our thinking is what we're getting after.

Nextgov/FCW: How are you trying to speed up acquisition and procurement?

Davies: We're underway right now on a refinement of our risk-management framework. The RMF and the authority to operate are legal frameworks for the ways in which industry partners can work with us. Right now, if we are testing software in one part of the department, that approval, we’ll call it, doesn't necessarily transfer over to another part of the department. And that doesn't make common sense.

We’re not just going to digitize a piece of paper to a PDF; we are actually going to refine the totality of the process itself, including moving to more automation and moving to inheritance of one [Authorization to Operate] to another ATO. We want to actually overhaul the whole ATO process in and of itself.

I think that's a very specific example of how we are getting after what the secretary's vision is, which is to reduce barriers to entry. It's to reignite our defense industrial base and really reduce these compliancy and check-the-box exercises to get at meaningful outcomes.

Nextgov/FCW: How is GenAI.mil helping?

Davies: GenAI.mil is such a brilliant example of the first of many initiatives that are to come out of the department. The adoption and usage rates have been extraordinary. We have 1.3 million users right now, which is amazing. We have over 100,000 agents that have been built by users to support their tasks and their work cycles. In some cases, they have been able to take a two-week task and complete it in two hours.

This is such a beneficial and helpful tool when it comes to day-to-day tasks that our employees and our warfighters can do much more rapidly now. What I love seeing about this is it saves our people for meaningful work. When we can leverage automation, machine learning, supervised machine learning and AI, that frees up time for people to apply their critical thinking, their analytical thinking, their skill sets, their experience and their expertise. From the warfighters to the civilians to the contractors, it frees them up to focus on work that really adds tremendous strategic value to the department, ultimately enabling our warfighters to have greater capabilities at their fingertips.

We recently announced partnerships with eight AI companies to deploy their tools on our classified networks. What you're seeing is this acquisition reform in motion.

The other thing you're seeing is the tremendous leadership from President Trump when he said he wants America to be tops in technology, in AI and in cybersecurity, and you are seeing that worked out at the Department of War. We are implementing that vision.

Nextgov/FCW: How does all this fit into DOD’s modernization strategy?

Davies: Traditional modernization can be like evolution. It can be an incremental change and take a really, really long time. True transformation goes at speed, and we are working at the speed of warfighters. We need data supremacy for decision dominance.

We have modernized the architecture to be deployed. We are getting after the defense business systems rationalization. In the midst of all that, in parallel, we’re seeing great advancements not only in the core enterprise technology aspects that I oversee, but also the edge use cases that are worked out by our service members and our joint forces and supported by our Office of Research and Engineering and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

You're seeing that change at pace. And one of the things I’ve been really vocal about across the department and especially with our defense industrial base is that their innovation is our warfighter innovation. Their strength is our warfighter strength. Their security is our warfighter security. So we are really getting after these things in a partnership way that is with speed. It is with agility. When we find barriers, we are breaking them down. When we find unnecessary burdensome check-the-box exercises, we're tackling them at pace.

Nextgov/FCW: How are you expanding the department’s IT and cyber workforce?

Davies: We are working on an extended plan rollout to build on the great work this office has already done. The president and the secretary have given us a mandate to really get after skills-based training, which is what we’re pursuing.

Throughout my entire career, I have been trying to eliminate the requirement for degrees before people can get a job because if threat actors can be script kiddies and teenagers, then we need to be employing great skills where the skills are and figuring out how to incorporate them. You’re going to see a full life-cycle approach out of my office, which is also working with Katie Sutton, who is the assistant secretary of war for cyber policy.

We are working on a full life-cycle approach to skills-based hiring, cross-skilling and upskilling. We're looking at how we can develop a much more fulsome model for our warfighters who go into veteran status to ensure they are well trained to continue to support the national-security mission wherever they go next. You're going to see a lot more of that coming out of my office.

]]>

Trump wants to scrap a key framework for federal-employee discipline

Erich Wagner — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:46:02 -0400

The Trump administration last week proposed new regulations that would nullify a decades-old legal framework agencies use to mete out and justify federal employee discipline in favor of what critics say will be a vaguer and less fair standard.

In a proposed rule published in the Federal Register, the Office of Personnel Management and Merit Systems Protection Board jointly called for “retiring” the Douglas factors, a list of 12 criteria agencies are expected to employ when they consider disciplinary measures, developed in a 1981 MSPB case shortly after the implementation of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. They include, among other things, the severity of the offense, an employee’s past performance and conduct and their potential for rehabilitation.

But OPM and MSPB argued that rubric had grown too restrictive, and that agencies had taken a “mechanical” approach to apply each factor to a given disciplinary case, disincentivizing managers from pursuing adverse actions against their employees.

“In proposing this departure from the 12-factor Douglas test, MSPB acknowledges that Douglas has long been a cornerstone of federal employment law,” the agencies wrote. “However, over the ensuing decades, agencies and, occasionally, MSPB, have applied Douglas in a rigid, mechanistic way that the original decision never contemplated or prescribed. For the reasons set forth in this proposed rule, and in conjunction with OPM’s streamlining of performance management policy, the board proposes to correct this rigid application and reaffirm the board’s commitment to adjudicating disciplinary action appeals under a more flexible standard in conformance with its statutory authority.”

Raymond Limon, who served as a Democratically appointed member of MSPB from 2021 until February 2025, said that while he agrees that the Douglas factors are designed to be “illustrative” rather than rigid, the administration’s description of how they are applied doesn’t jibe with his experience adjudicating employees’ appeals, particularly given agencies better than 80% success rate before the board.

“It’s possible that some agencies on their own have created a more formalistic approach requiring supervisors to complete it like a checklist and address every issue,” he said. “But to me, if they’re doing that, that’s because they’ve developed a poor policy or don’t understand the law correctly . . . I feel like the proposed regulation assumes that Douglas is the disease, but it may simply be the stethoscope.”

OPM and MSPB’s new standard—to simply consider the “totality of circumstances” when considering a disciplinary measure—is vaguer and ripe for abuse, said Michael Fallings, managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, a firm specializing in federal employment law.

“’Totality’ is just a vague way of saying that we’re going to consider factors, but what they’re trying to say is, ‘We don’t have to consider certain factors that may some times be in favor of the employee,’” Fallings said. “What we’ve seen [in my practice] over the past year are employees proposed for removal for one instance of misconduct and no prior discipline. We’ve seen some where the alleged event occurred years ago, with no prior discipline and good performance since then. It’s a way to say, ‘We’ll consider the circumstances, but we don’t have to.’”

The regulations would require additional training for managers and supervisors on performance and misconduct issues, something long requested by good government groups. And it formally reintroduce a number of policies from Trump’s first term aimed at making it easier to fire poor performers, including reducing the length of performance improvement plans to 30 days, banning settlement agreements that remove documentation of poor performance or misconduct from an employee’s record, and barring the use of union official time to help an employee pursue adverse action appeals.

The that the administration’s latest proposal was jointly offered by OPM and MSPB undermines a key tenet of the Civil Service Reform Act, Limon argued.

“The MSPB was designed by Congress to be an oversight body over OPM and that also to be an independent institution,” he said. “That’s why the Civil Service Reform Act was created: to split up the Civil Service Commission. The policy wing became OPM, and MSPB would do the commission’s adjudication work. Good fences make good neighbors, but they’re collapsing that.”

]]>

Trump says Pulte can declassify ‘whatever’ he wants, sparking fears of exposing intelligence secrets

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that acting spy chief Bill Pulte can declassify “whatever” records he wants and can declassify “almost everything,” a sweeping green light that has alarmed former intelligence officials, who warn that careless releases could expose sensitive intelligence capabilities and sidestep standard review processes with other spy agencies.

Trump said Wednesday that acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte would only serve in the job for “a month or two months or something,” but has his permission in the interim to release classified records.

“Bill is there just for a fairly short period of time,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “But while he’s there, I said you can declassify whatever you want.”

Under U.S. law, records declassification is usually handled through a structured review process meant to identify national security risks before materials are released. Trump’s comments appear to give Pulte political backing to move aggressively, but they don’t necessarily address how agencies with involvement in any records would be consulted first.

“My guess is that NSA and CIA are losing their minds at the idea of Pulte declassifying a lot of stuff,” said a former official, who, like others for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid and for fear of retribution.

“If Pulte actually runs the traps and considers damage and balances, he won’t declassify much. If he doesn’t care about blowing up cyber exploits, putting foreign relationships at risk, or getting people killed, he could declassify a lot,” the former official added.

Intelligence records are typically reviewed by the agency that produced them before release, particularly if disclosure could expose that agency’s operations, but that consultation might be skipped entirely under Pulte, a second former official said.

An ODNI spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump has placed Pulte at the center of a wider declassification push that began under former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who used her role atop ODNI to release records tied to Trump-era grievances over alleged weaponization inside the intelligence community. ODNI’s own public releases under Gabbard included documents the office claimed exposed efforts by intelligence officials to undermine Trump’s 2016 victory and material it said showed a conspiracy used during his 2019 impeachment proceedings.

The declassification push is part of a broader campaign to challenge an intelligence community the president has long accused of working against him. Since the 2016 Russia investigation, Trump and his allies have argued that intelligence and law enforcement shops have used their powers to damage his presidency.

“Trump’s statement alone saying that Pulte has this authority is damaging to national security because any person thinking about volunteering or working with the United States might think twice now, and is more likely to go to the Brits or another service,” a third former official said, adding that if Pulte moves to declassify intelligence involving other agencies, he would be in violation of the law.

The president “just signaled to any person providing intelligence to the United States that their intelligence can be released at Pulte’s whim, thus putting their entire security and safety in jeopardy,” the third former official added.

The White House has assembled a task force collecting thousands of pages of intelligence and law enforcement documents, mostly related to the 2020 election, with plans to declassify some of them in ways that could support Trump’s claims about election irregularities and fraud, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Trump’s declassification plans land against a long-running backdrop of concerns over his administration’s handling of sensitive intelligence. During his first term, officials said he shared highly classified information provided by the Israelis with Russian officials in the Oval Office. Separately, Russian and U.S. news reports later identified Oleg Smolenkov, a former Russian government official living near Washington, as a possible CIA source who had disappeared from Russia in 2017 after allegedly providing information on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s role in the Kremlin’s 2016 election interference efforts.

Trump was later indicted in June 2023 over classified records kept at Mar-a-Lago, including documents prosecutors said involved highly sensitive national defense information, though the case was dismissed and later dropped after he returned to office. Former President Joe Biden also faced a classified documents investigation, but a special counsel declined to charge him on grounds that there was not enough evidence to convict him of “willfully” retaining the sensitive materials.

Pulte’s short tenure has already produced early staffing changes at ODNI that have removed around 50 career and political staff from their roles in the office. The moves follow a broader downsizing campaign started under Gabbard.

The personnel churn included the sidelining of Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration. Pulte also brought in a new chief of staff, Christina Norton, who served as Pulte’s chief of staff at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and as the RNC’s election integrity director, helping oversee its 2024 poll-watching operation. Her move into ODNI has sharpened concerns that the office could be drawn further into Trump’s push to revisit election-related claims.

Trump’s comments come after he slowed a Senate push last month to quickly confirm Jay Clayton as permanent intelligence chief, allowing Pulte to take over the office on a temporary basis. Trump said Wednesday that Clayton would get his Senate hearing in two weeks.

Clayton’s nomination has drawn a generally positive response from senators. But Democrats have reacted furiously to Pulte’s elevation, and even some Republicans have expressed concern about installing someone with no prior intelligence community experience as acting DNI. The fight has already affected Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a key spying authority that had appeared headed for reauthorization in early June before Democrats balked in protest of moving forward with Pulte at the head of ODNI.

]]>

House, mostly, backs $1.5B White House moves to fund E-7 Wedgetail

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:06:49 -0400

House appropriators supported a $1.5 billion White House budget request to back E-7 Wedgetail development, but pushed back on an attempt to raid the Navy’s airborne early warning account to partially fund the Air Force’s next-generation radar plane.

In a letter last week, Russell Vought, the Office of Management and Budget director, detailed the E-7 shuffle to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. The Pentagon suggested pulling $651 million from the Navy’s E-2 procurement account and $899 million from the Air Force’s classified special update programs. While House appropriators backed the full E-7 funding in their version of the annual defense spending bill on Wednesday, they also restored the money to the Navy’s coffers.

“While the [Appropriations] Committee wholly supports the E–7 program and funding realignment, the Committee also restored the E–2D program to six aircraft for fiscal year 2027,” lawmakers wrote in their report. “The Committee understands the operational necessity of the E–2D platform; the complementary nature of the E–2D and E–7; and believes that more aircraft, not fewer, are necessary to support our warfighters now and in the future.”

An Air Force spokesperson declined to comment on the programs affected by the shuffle.

Airpower advocates have intensified their push for E-7 funding and battlespace awareness upgrades since an Air Force E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control aircraft was damaged in March during the war in Iran. While the Pentagon omitted the Wedgetail its 2027 budget requests, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reversed course and told lawmakers last month that the next-generation replacement is needed for future conflicts.

Given the dwindling E-3 fleet, appropriators said the military’s reliance on airborne battle management aircraft means more investment is needed in a next-generation replacement.

“The conflict in Iran has reinforced the need for the Air Force to maintain a credible airborne battle management capability, currently being met with the Air Force’s E–3 Airborne Warning and Control System and the Navy’s E–2D Hawkeye programs,” lawmakers wrote. “As the E–3 is set to retire, the E–7 Wedgetail will serve as [a] modern replacement for lost battle management capability, commensurate and interoperable with assets already being utilized by key allies.”

Lawmakers also ordered Air Force Secretary Troy Meink to brief the House and Senate defense appropriation subcommittees “on the full E–7 acquisition strategy, to include required quantity; funding requirements across the future years defense program; and schedules for development and production” by the time the 2028 budget request is submitted.

One expert said having the White House, Pentagon, and Congress on the same page, bodes well for the program.

“I believe the likelihood of the program getting off to a great start is very, very high,” said Mark Gunzinger, the Mitchell Institute’s director of future concepts and capability assessments. He added that any shuffling of funds within the service’s accounts “will hurt programs.”

]]>

ODNI deputy director pushed out amid Pulte shakeup

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 22:00:00 -0400

Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, was placed on administrative leave as part of a broader personnel shakeup at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that has removed roughly 50 career and political staffers from their roles since Bill Pulte became acting director Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Around 15 to 20 mission integration personnel detailed to ODNI from other U.S. intelligence units are believed to have been sent back to their home agencies, added the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to communicate the personnel shifts.

The removals could have practical consequences because mission integration is one of the main offices ODNI uses to link work across the intelligence landscape. The directorate is responsible for coordinating the 18 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community and helping ensure they perform as a unified enterprise. The unit also advises the director of national intelligence on how findings are collected, analyzed and used to inform policy and operational decisions.

CBS News first reported details of Ruger’s dismissal. The estimated number of mission integration staff moved back to their home agencies has not been previously reported.

The moves have occurred under the broader shakeup at ODNI since Pulte took over as acting director after former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard left the role. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Wednesday that Pulte had told him roughly 45 to 50 career officers were being sent back to their home agencies, while a smaller number of front-office personnel were leaving federal service altogether.

Many ODNI employees serve on joint duty assignments, temporary postings that bring personnel from other intelligence agencies into the director’s office.

ODNI has not returned requests for comment about the downsizing plans.

Pulte’s early moves come as Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee to serve as the Senate-confirmed intelligence chief, awaits Senate consideration, though the president ordered the cancellation of Clayton’s hearing last week until the Senate could confirm the new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who would be Clayton’s replacement.

Democrats warned that Pulte’s role in the president’s mortgage fraud reviews last year could foreshadow an abuse of intelligence tools to target the president’s political opponents, leading to the historic lapse of a key surveillance authority earlier this month.

Confirming Clayton would have helped reshore support from key Democrats for the surveillance power. But Trump also asserted that the spying authority — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — should not pass without the concurrent passage of a controversial voter identification bill that doesn’t have enough support in Congress.

Cotton said Wednesday that Pulte broadly agrees with returning ODNI to its “original size, scope and mission,” including by spinning off some functional centers and sending detailed officers back to their home agencies.

The downsizing push began under Gabbard, whose office had announced plans to cut roughly 40% of ODNI’s workforce and said the effort was a streamlining measure that would save more than $700 million annually.

Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees warned Pulte this week against making major changes while serving in an acting capacity, arguing that large-scale personnel moves and other consequential decisions should be left to a Senate-confirmed director.

]]>

Pentagon's quantum strategy ‘a first step’ in preparing for the future, CIO says

Edward Graham — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:30:00 -0400

The Pentagon’s new strategy for defending against quantum computers will ensure “the integrity of our systems for decades to come,” its IT lead said Wednesday, but network modernization “is only a first step” in readying the U.S. military for the threat.

Speaking at the SAP NOW summit in Washington, D.C., Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies said the Defense Department's new guidance for “accelerating our adoption of post-quantum cryptography” will mitigate the danger.

The strategy was released on Tuesday, one day after President Donald Trump signed two executive orders meant to hasten domestic development of quantum capabilities and ward off threats to federal agencies’ cryptographic security systems.

The strategy outlines five “major lines-of-effort”: centralize department governance, scan for vulnerabilities and develop a migration framework, develop post-quantum cryptographic algorithms and protocols, integrate secure commercial products into department operations, and deploy quantum-resistant devices.

It also sets deadlines: all Pentagon systems must support post-quantum cryptography “or be phased out” by the end of 2030, with all systems supporting new standards by the end of 2031 “unless otherwise noted.”

Davies said these steps are just part of the department’s need to “ensure the national security infrastructure and the complex supply chains that underpin every mission are robust and ready in an increasingly unpredictable world.”

Other steps include better adoption of new technologies. Davies said the department is “unlocking the full potential of data and artificial intelligence” to improve its operations.

‘We're transforming information into decision dominance, automating complex logistical challenges, predicting supply chain bottlenecks before they happen and ensuring our commanders and the warfighters have the intelligence they need at the speed of relevance,” she said.

The Pentagon has also been trying to attract skilled cyber-defense workers. In April, the department announced a Cyber Registered Apprenticeship Program that emphasizes skills-based hiring over educational backgrounds, something the Trump administration has pushed for. The pilot is set to launch in July. Davies said the program “has already generated more than 70,000 inquiries.”

“By breaking down silos across industry and the federal enterprise, by reinvigorating our vital supply chains, by harnessing the power of innovation and unleashing the unmatched talents of the American workforce, we will dominate the digital frontier,” she said.

]]>