This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Newly unsealed court documents reveal the behind-the-scenes history of Microsoft and OpenAI, including a surprise: Amazon Web Services was OpenAI’s original partner. We tell the story behind the story, explaining how it all came to light.

Plus, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella debuts a new AI catchphrase at Davos, startup CEO Dave Clark stirs controversy with his “wildly productive weekend,” Elon Musk talks aliens, and the latest on Seattle-area physical AI startups, including Overland AI and AIM Intelligent Machines.

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With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton.

AIM Intelligent Machines (AIM), a Seattle-area startup developing software that lets bulldozers and excavators operate on their own, announced $4.9 million in new contracts with the U.S. Air Force to build and repair military bases and airfields.

Founded in 2021, AIM got its start in mining and construction, and is now expanding to defense applications. AIM’s technology works with existing equipment and is designed for dangerous or hard-to-reach places, including areas where equipment might be dropped in by parachute. One person can remotely manage an entire site of working vehicles.

For airfield repairs, the company’s tech can scan the area using sensors to create a 3D map of damage. Then autonomous machines clear debris and can repair the runway — all remotely and without people on the ground. Military advisors say the approach could speed up construction, reduce risk to personnel, and make it easier to deploy equipment in tough conditions.

Founded in 2021 and led by longtime engineers, AIM raised $50 million last year from investors including Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Human Capital. The company is led by CEO Adam Sadilek, who previously spent nine years at Google working on confidential projects.

In a LinkedIn post this week, Sadilek wrote that “we’re asking the wrong questions about AI and work,” arguing that automation will enable construction companies to build more with their existing teams.

“The top line grows, but the bottom line doesn’t get ‘optimized’ into oblivion,” he wrote. “For example, each autonomous dozer we deploy uncovers, depending on the mineral type and current market price, between $3 million and $17 million in additional ore each season. Rather than replacing people, that gives them leverage. And yes, cost savings show up – fuel, maintenance, wear – but they’re not the main event.”

He added: “Instead of focusing on whether AI removes jobs, we should be focusing on whether we’ll use it to finally do more of the things we’ve always wanted but never had enough capacity to build.”

DEEP DIVE — It is one of the most lauded defense developments in recent decades, providing preeminent capability to U.S. military personnel worldwide, but that prowess evidently comes with a steep cost that military leadership allowed to grow for years.

Critics have long asserted that the military failed to adequately address a mounting series of safety issues with the V-22 Osprey aircraft, even as service members died in preventable crashes. The Naval Air Systems Command review and Government Accountability Office report paint a scathing portrait of systemic failures by the Joint Program Office overseeing V-22 variants for the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy.

The Marine Corps operates approximately 348 MV-22s, the Air Force 52 CV-22s, and the Navy 29 CMV-22s, with the program of record at around 464 total across services. Japan operates 17 MV-22s, with deliveries complete or near-complete.

The Deadly Track Record

Some 30 U.S. Marines lost their lives in three separate crashes during the testing and development phase throughout the 1990s, giving the Osprey the nickname “The Widow Maker.” Since its introduction in 2007, at least 35 servicemembers have died in 10 fatal crashes.

“Initially, the V-22 suffered from Vortex Ring State, which produced crashes during development. The problem was diagnosed and remediated, and the loss rate went down dramatically,” John Pike, a leading defense, space and intelligence policy expert and Director of GlobalSecurity.org, tells The Cipher Brief. “Subsequent losses have been ‘normal accidents’ due to the usual mechanical and human failings.”

The GAO found that serious Osprey mishaps in 2023 and 2024 exceeded the previous eight years and generally surpassed accident rates of other Navy and Air Force aircraft. In August 2023, three Marines died in Australia. In 2022, four U.S. soldiers were killed in a NATO training mission, and five Marines were killed in California.

Unresolved Problems

The NAVAIR report revealed that “the cumulative risk posture of the V-22 platform has been growing since initial fielding,” and the program office “has not promptly implemented fixes.” Of 12 Class A mishaps in the past four years, seven involved parts failures already identified as major problems but not addressed.

Issues with hard-clutch engagement (HCE) caused the July 2022 California crash that killed five. The problem occurs when the clutch connecting the engine to the propeller gearbox slips and reengages abruptly, causing a power spike that can throw the aircraft into an uncontrolled roll.

There were eight Air Force servicemembers killed in the November 2023 crash off Yakushima Island when a catastrophic propeller gearbox failed due to cracks in the metal pinion gear, and the pilot continued flying despite multiple warnings, contributing to the crash.

This manufacturing issue dates to 2006, but the Joint Program Office didn’t formally assess the risk until March 2024 – nearly two decades later. A NAVAIR logbook review found that over 40 safety-critical components were operating beyond their airworthiness limits, and that 81 percent of ground accidents were due to human error.

A Broken System: Poor Communication Between Services

The GAO also found that the three services don’t routinely share critical safety information. Aircrews haven’t met regularly to review aircraft knowledge and emergency procedures. The services operate with significantly different maintenance standards, with three parallel review processes and no common source of material.

The GAO identified 34 unresolved safety risks, including eight potentially catastrophic risks that have remained open for a median of 10 years. The V-22 has the oldest average age of unresolved catastrophic safety risks across the Navy’s aircraft inventory.

Fixes May Take a Decade

The Navy report indicated fixes won’t be complete until 2033-2034. Officials now say the fleet won’t return to unrestricted operations until 2026 – a year later than planned. The V-22 program plans to upgrade gearboxes with triple-melted steel, reducing inclusions by 90 percent.

Under current restrictions, overwater flights are prohibited unless within 30 minutes of a safe landing spot, severely limiting their use by the Navy and Marine Corps.

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Osprey's Unmatched Capabilities

The Osprey still offers a game-changing advantage for U.S. troops, despite its troubled past, according to its supporters.

As it currently stands, the entire fleet operates under restrictions that prevent overwater flights unless within 30 minutes of a safe landing spot, significantly limiting its utility for Navy and Marine Corps missions.

In 1979 to 1980, American hostages were taken in Iran during Operation Eagle Claw, which gave rise to the Osprey. As five of the eight Navy helicopters that arrived at Desert One were inoperable, it was clear that rapid troop movement in harsh environmental conditions was urgently needed.

After development began in 1985, the Osprey entered service in 2007, replacing the Vietnam-era CH-46 Sea Knight.

Compared to fixed-wing transports, the Osprey can land troops just where they are needed. Airdrops with parachutes tend to scatter paratroops all over the place; see ‘Saving Private Ryan,’” Pike explained. “And compared with other rotary wing aircraft, the Osprey is much faster and has a much longer range.”

The Osprey shifts from helicopter to airplane mode in under 12 seconds, reaches speeds of 315 mph, has an operational range of 580 miles, and carries 10,000 pounds – or 24 troops. It’s used for missions ranging from combat operations to the occasional transport of White House staff. During a dust storm in Afghanistan in 2010, two CV-22 helicopters rescued 32 soldiers in under four hours from a distance of 800 miles.

Chronic Readiness Problems

Yet these performance advantages have been undercut by persistent readiness shortfalls.

The NAVAIR report noted that mission-capable rates between 2020 and 2024 averaged just 50 percent for the Navy and Air Force, and 60 percent for Marines. The Osprey requires 100 percent more unscheduled maintenance than the Navy averages and 22 maintenance man-hours per flight hour versus 12 for other aircraft.

In addition, Boeing settled a whistleblower lawsuit in 2023 for $8.1 million after employees accused the company of falsifying records for composite part testing. Boeing, in its defense, claimed that the parts were “non-critical” and did not impact flight safety.

Conflicting Views on Safety

“The Osprey does not have a troubled safety record. Per a recent press release, the V-22 mishap rate per 100,000 flight hours is 3.28, which is in line with helicopters with similar missions.” a government source who works closely with the Osprey fleet but is not authorized to speak on the record contended to The Cipher Brief. “Like anything measured statistically, there are periods above and below the mean. Just because humans tend to conclude because of apparent clusters doesn’t necessarily mean there is a pattern or connection – think of how some people say that ‘celebrities die in threes.’”

The source vowed that “the design issues, such as certain electrical wiring rubbing against hydraulic and oil lines, were fixed before fleet introduction.”

“The problems with the test plan were a product of pressure applied to accelerate a delayed and overbudget program and were not repeated when the aircraft was reintroduced,” the insider pointed out. “Those mishaps, combined with the distinctive nature of the V-22, mean that any subsequent incident, major or minor, is always viewed as part of the ‘dangerous V-22’ narrative. A U.S. Army Blackhawk crash in November killed five but barely made the news. A Japanese Blackhawk crash killed ten soldiers in April, but the Japanese didn’t ground their Blackhawks.”

That perception, however, has done little to quiet families who argue that known risks went unaddressed.

Amber Sax’s husband, Marine Corps Capt. John J. Sax died in the 2022 California crash caused by hard clutch engagement, a problem the Marine Corps had known about for over a decade. “Their findings confirm what we already know: More needs to be done, and more needs to be done,” Sax said. “It’s clear in the report that these risks were not properly assessed, and that failure cost my husband his life.”

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An Uncertain Future

As the military confronts those findings, the future of the Osprey fleet is not completely clear. In 2018, the Marine Corps Aviation proposal outlined a sustainability plan for the Osprey to at least 2060.

“The quality of maintenance training curricula, maturation, and standardization has not kept pace with readiness requirements,” the report stated. “Current maintenance manning levels are unable to support demands for labor. The current V-22 sustainment system cannot realize improved and sustained aircraft readiness and availability without significant change. Depot-level maintenance cannot keep up with demand.”

Despite extensive recommendations – NAVAIR underscored 32 actions to improve safety – Vice Adm. John Dougherty reaffirmed commitment to the aircraft. Pike believes it’s a matter of when, not if, the Osprey returns to full operations.

“Once the issues are fixed, everyone will resume their regular programming,” he asserted.

Officials and insiders alike expect that process to translate into tangible fixes.

“I would expect that to lead to some type of corrective action, whether it’s a new procedure or replacing a defective part,” the insider added. “After that, I would expect a long career for the aircraft in the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force, as it’s an irreplaceable part of all three services now and gives a unique capability to the American military.”

Whether that optimism proves warranted depends on whether military leadership finally addresses the systemic failures the latest reports have laid bare – failures that cost 20 service members their lives in just the past five years.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

The nation’s newest military service still has a lot of work to do to chart its future. The Space Force had been planning to use a new “Futures Command” to handle that work, and it was supposed to be up and running by last year. That didn’t happen as scheduled, but the idea’s not dead either.

Leaders say they’re still planning a new organization to help shape the service’s future, but they also needed to make sure it aligns with the new administration’s priorities.

The Space Force first unveiled its plans for a new Futures Command almost two years ago. The idea at the time was to combine the existing Space Warfighting Analysis Center and the Concepts and Technologies Center with a new Wargaming Center. Those plans were put on pause late in 2024 when it became apparent new political leadership was on the way.

But Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, said Air Force Secretary Troy Meink is on board with the overall idea.

“Secretary Meink 100% understands what we were trying to accomplish with Futures Command and the importance of it,” he said during the annual Spacepower conference in Orlando, Florida, last month. “How are we looking at the future? How are we categorizing and characterizing the threats we’re going to face, the missions we’re going to be asked to do, and how are we going to respond so that we can put the force in place to meet those challenges? We will look at concepts, we will do the war gaming, we will do the simulations, we will do all the manpower assessment, we will do the military construction surveys to figure out what facilities are needed, and then document that so that everybody can see what we’re progressing towards. It is this idea of establishing a command that’s focused on what is it we’re going to need in the future and making sure all the planning is done, synchronized with the resources so we get that right.”

And while the Space Force certainly isn’t the first military service in recent years to contemplate a new command as part of big organizational changes, it is the first time in modern history that a service is having to do that from scratch.

“In December of 2019, the law said, ‘There is a Space Force,’ and nothing could have been further from the truth,” Saltzman said. “It legally made there be a Space Force, but it was still in work. It was a thought process, it was pulling things together as rapidly as possible. So I think the hardest thing is overcoming this mentality that there’s been a Space Force for decades, that we’ve got all this figured out. These are hard things to do on a government scale with government oversight and government resources. And so convincing people that we had to start from scratch on almost every process we had, on every decision we make, that was unprecedented. Convincing people that we don’t really have anything to fall back on. If I don’t deliver a service dress [uniform], then we’re using an Air Force service dress — there wasn’t something else. We had plenty of uniform changes when we were growing up, but there was always an Air Force uniform before those changes that we were in until we transitioned. Not the case for the Space Force. We had to start from scratch. We’re not just enhancing the Space Force, we’re actually creating one. And that’s been a real challenge.”

New leadership education initiatives

The Space Force traces most of its roots to the Air Force, and until now, it’s leaned heavily on its sister service within the Department of the Air Force for combat support and other functions. But it’s increasingly working to build infrastructure, doctrine and culture of its own.

As one example, Saltzman said just last month, the Space Force launched its own Captains Leadership Course. That initiative is a partnership with Texas A&M University and led by the Space Force’s Space Training and Readiness Command.

“The bottom line is each service brings something unique in terms of what it focuses on for professional military education. I remember General [Jay] Raymond, when he stood up the service, talked about some of the things that services have to do. You have to have your own budget, you have to have your own doctrine, you have to develop your own people. And that’s kind of stuck with me,” he said. “We have to develop our Guardians for the specifics of the Space Force. And this basic understanding at the captain’s level is going to be foundational to what follows in the rest of their career. And so while we need to find ways to give them experience with other services, I wanted to make sure that the service had a core offering at that grade to educate our officers on the Space Force. Now we’re going to include joint doctrine, will include communications and leadership. But they need that foundational understanding of the service first before they start to branch out and figure out how they integrate with the other services.”

First Space Force OTS graduates

And in 2025, the service graduated its first group of newly-minted officers from officer training school. Those first 80 officers, Saltzman said, represent a mentality within the service that seeks to build “multidisciplinary” leaders. The enlisted force, he says, will be tactical experts, while officers will need expertise in “joint integration.”

“Do we need deep expertise? Absolutely. Do we need people that broadly understand how to integrate with a joint force? Absolutely. How do you do both? This is the tough part of the job, you have to get that balance just right,” he said. “If you go down to kind of the micro management side of this and ask how you develop a single Guardian to best perform, then you get caught in that conundrum. I have to think about what I need the entire service to be able to do. Do I need deep experts? Yes. Do I need broad integrators? Yes. So we have to find a way to, across the entire service, create opportunities to maximize what people can do, what they do best, and fill the jobs that are required based on those skills and those competencies. You have to make sure you think about it from an enterprise perspective, and what might apply to any one Guardian doesn’t necessarily have to apply to all Guardians.”

The post Despite delay, Space Force still plans futures command to guide force design first appeared on Federal News Network.

Interview transcript:

 

Carlos Colon The C-124 mishap found on Colony Glacier was a plane that crashed into Mount Gannett in 1952, carrying 52 service members on board that were PCS-ing from McChord Air Force Base to Elmendorf. They encountered weather that they couldn’t navigate and ended up crashing into Mount Gannett. The Department of Defense at the time initiated search and recovery efforts, which they continued for several weeks, but eventually had to abandon because they were not finding any remains. They made it to where they believed the crash happened, but they did not encounter any remains. Then fast-forward to 2012, the Alaska Army National Guard was flying some training missions in their Black Hawks when they encountered what they thought looked like aircraft debris on Colony Glacier. They were able to identify some of the aircraft debris to the missing C-124, and that is when Operation Colony Glacier started. It was originally started by the DPAA, then the authority was transferred to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner in 2015. So AFMES has been involved in the DNA identification of remains since the beginning of the mission. And then in 2017, we started conversations about integrating medical-legal death investigators onto the search-and-recovery teams to help with identification of remains versus debris and helping streamline the search-and-recovery process to support the way we are doing DNA testing here at AFMES.

Terry Gerton Kate, Carlos mentioned that the crash happened 73 years ago. It’s a tough environment there on the glacier, but I imagine there have been advances in identification technology and processes since then. What are you using today to identify the remains?

Kate Grosso Since the recovery operation began, we’ve relied very heavily on DNA identification for the remains that have been recovered. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory was established in 1991, and they support our current-day operations in addition to the Defense POW Accounting Agency’s past accounting. So they have a tremendous amount of experience in working with remote recovery environments in which we may have remains that may be difficult to identify. We’ve also utilized fingerprint technology, bridge comparisons, in order to do a number of the identifications. Colony Glacier is a very unique preservation environment, and so we are able to get positive DNA and fingerprint identifications on the remains that we’ve been able to recover. So obviously, very different than the environment that we were dealing with in 1952. The advent of these technologies have made it possible for us to be able to do these identifications by DNA and fingerprint.

Terry Gerton Carlos, you’ve been on the glacier. Tell us a little bit about what it’s like there and what’s happening now that has driven acceleration of the mission.

Carlos Colon So the glacier — it’s cold and icy. It’s one of the more challenging and remote areas I’ve had to work in. We get dropped off in the morning, conduct recovery operations all day and then get picked up in the afternoon. It can be pretty dangerous. There’s a lot of crevasses, a lot running water. A glacier makes its own sounds; some are scarier than others. I’ve noticed that it’s been changing a lot throughout the years. At the beginning when I started going, which my first time on the glacier was 2017, there was a large flat area that led to the toe of the glacier. And as time has gone on, it’s slowly receded. And in the past two years, I’ve noticed that it’s no longer there. So it’s a pretty challenging environment to work in. It’s also very beautiful, very peaceful. It is that dichotomy of it being a dangerous place to work and also one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to.

Terry Gerton I would imagine that the constantly changing nature of the glacier and the fact that, as you just said, some of it is disappearing adds a sense of urgency to this recovery mission.

Carlos Colon Yes, we’ve definitely seen the glacier has been changing at a rapid rate, which has led to us taking this on with a little bit more expediency. We’ve really focused on streamlining the way we’re conducting search and recovery, what we prioritize, how things are collected and bagged in order to really take advantage of the time we have on the glacier for for that recovery period. But also, we don’t know how much time we would have left to recover on the glacier. So we’ve really focused on expediting the recovery efforts, which has led to expedited DNA sampling and testing.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Kate Grosso and Carlos Colon. They are medicolegal investigators with the Department of Defense. Kate, let me come back to you. I think we’ve laid a picture here of how complicated this operation is, but it also involves multiple agencies. What does coordination look like between the medical examiner system and recovery teams and other DoD components? How do you keep everybody on the same sheet of music in this really challenging environment?

Kate Grosso Well, to be frank, it’s collaborative. There are a number of players involved in these recovery operations. We work very closely with our partners at Air Force Mortuary Affairs operations, with the Alaska Air National Guard, and with the folks that are provided for us who provide force multiplication for our recovery operations on the glacier. It requires a tremendous amount of communication, education and training. And we’ve been very grateful to have excellent support partners, because you’re right, this is a very complicated recovery mission and it requires a very complex and multidisciplinary approach.

Terry Gerton And Carlos, let me come back to you because you mentioned being on the glacier, being on the scene in terms of recovery operations. What about the human dimension? How important is this for the families of the service members that were lost in the crash?

Carlos Colon These family members have been waiting for their loved ones for 73 years. So it’s very important. A lot of them are very active on social media. They communicate with each other. They follow up with AFMAO and with AFME. So we know the importance this has to family members. Another thing about this mission that I’ve noticed is how important it is to the service members that are on the recovery teams. For them, a lot of these team members, or most of them, have not seen human remains or done anything in the mortuary affairs field. They’re selected for the team because of their mountaineering experience. It’s been kind of gratifying to see how involved they get with the mission and how proud they are. We talk a lot about it when we’re out there. It’s kind of a living reminder of, we never leave any of our fallen behind, and them being young service members, it’s been really nice to see them see that in action.

Terry Gerton Carls, I really appreciate that perspective and the impact that this operation has had. How close are you to completing the operation?

Carlos Colon We are currently at 50 out of the 52.

Terry Gerton Wow. And with the urgency that you mentioned earlier, because of the environmental change, those last two must be pretty tough to find. Along those lines, Kate, let me come over to you. We’ve talked about how complex this operation is, how unusual, how technology has advanced. What lessons does the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System take from this to apply to other sorts of recovery operations?

Kate Grosso It’s a really good question. AFMES and the medicolegal investigators at work here, we have a worldwide area of responsibility. So we’re looking at various different environments with lots of different airframes in different circumstances. Working in a glaciated environment has really helped us hone our cold weather response for aviation mishaps. Carlos and I specifically have been all over the world responding to mishap investigations and recoveries, from Norway to Australia. And using the lessons that we’ve learned in a glaciated environment has really given us new perspectives on our current-day operational recoveries.

The post On a remote Alaskan glacier, a 73-year mission of recovery and respect first appeared on Federal News Network.

The year 2025 has been transformational for the Defense Department. The Air Force scrapped most of its sweeping reoptimization initiative announced under previous leadership, while the Army undertook one of its most significant acquisition and organizational reform efforts in decades. 

Air force drops Biden-era reoptimization efforts 

Months after pausing its sweeping reoptimization initiative launched under former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the service announced earlier this month that it would abandon more than half of its sweeping efforts. The proposed changes under the previous leadership were enormous in scope, spanning acquisition, recruiting, training and the management processes that deliver support services.

When Kendall announced the changes in 2023, he said it had “become clear to the entire senior leadership team” that the service was not well positioned for great power competition after spending more than two decades supporting post-9/11 conflicts and demands.

Meanwhile, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said some of the most sweeping reorganization efforts would be too disruptive.

For example, the Air Force announced it would create a new Air Base Wing organizational model under the sweeping reoptimization effort. The idea was to establish separate Air Base Wings with their own command structures to allow Combat Wings to focus solely on training and warfighting. 

Meink said the decision to abandon these plans was made to “minimize change-fatigue to Airmen and enable commanders to concentrate on readiness, lethality, and mission accomplishment.”

Perhaps most notably, the Air Force scrapped plans to stand up a new Integrated Capabilities Command that would have overseen the service’s requirements process. A provisional version of the command was stood up a year ago, and functioned as the primary organization overseeing requirements for purchasing weapons. Instead, the leadership will fold its functions into the Air Force Futures, known as A5/7 by April 1, 2026.

One of the most popular changes, to bring back warrant officers within the cyber and information technology professions, will remain. For decades, the Air Force was the only service without warrant officers. 

Meanwhile, the Space Force will continue implementing key elements of  re-optimization efforts that were specific to the service.

Marine Corps Force Design update 

The service kicked off its major “Force Design 2030” initiative in 2020 to better align itself with the National Defense Strategy and redesign its force for naval expeditionary warfare. The 10-year initiative is now simply known as “Force Design,” and while the service is still on track with the effort, budget uncertainty could affect the service’s ability to meet the initiative’s critical milestones, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said earlier this year. 

In its 2025 Force Design update, released in October after the service skipped a public update in 2024, the Marine Corps said it continues to stand up Marine Littoral Regiments — specialized units within the Marine Corps that are designed to operate in contested coastal areas.

The Corps is extending many of the advanced capabilities fielded in those regiments — including the air defense system, resilient command-and-control systems, unmanned platforms and advanced sensors — across Marine Expeditionary Units.

“This modernization strengthens the MEU’s role as a versatile, multi-domain naval expeditionary force from the sea, able to project power, seize and hold key maritime terrain, sense and make sense of the operating environment, integrate with the fleet, and directly contribute to joint kill webs,” the Force Design update reads.

In addition, the service is undertaking what it calls the most significant modernization of its Marine Air Command and Control System in a generation, merging legacy air support and air defense functions and reorganizing Marine Air Control Groups so Marines can be trained and employed in multiple roles within Marine Air Operations Centers.

The Corps is also embracing the idea of managing the acquisition system as portfolios of capabilities rather than individual programs. One example is the new capability portfolio approach in Program Executive Officer Land Systems, which will give a program responsibility for a suite of programs under a common capability area. Marine leaders say the shift will allow multiple systems to be developed and fielded together, with continuous input from the Fleet Marine Force, instead of advancing programs in isolation with a primary focus on cost.

The service’s Force Design sparked a great deal of debate, with critics arguing that the changes would weaken the Marine Corps as a combined arms force due to its divestments in armor, artillery, and aviation capabilities, limit its ground mobility and that the Marines would be less capable fighting in urban environments.

Army Transformation Initiative 

Shifting away from managing individual programs to a portfolio-based structure is a big part of the Army’s transformation initiative announced in May. Stan Soloway, president and CEO of Celero Strategies and federal acquisition expert, said the move is a continuation of what the service has already been doing and “maybe somewhat of an acceleration.”

“There’s nothing radical about it,” Soloway told Federal News Network.

But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s move to require the Army to include right-to-repair provisions in all new and existing contracts to cut costs and reduce delays caused by relying on original manufacturers for maintenance and support “might be one of the most important lines on the whole memo,” he said.

“In many ways, it is one of the huge issues they have to deal with,” Soloway said. 

Modifying existing contracts to fix intellectual property issues is not ideal, but the government also has no choice — there are too many existing contracts, some of which may have been created years ago, with flawed IP clauses. It remains to be seen whether the Army’s acquisition workforce is equipped to negotiate these kinds of provisions effectively.

Meanwhile, right-to-repair provisions that had broad bipartisan support in the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill, were stripped from the final version of the legislation after industry pushback. 

Greg Williams, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, said while this is the opportunity for the Pentagon to exercise its existing authorities, without legislation that enforces consistency, it’s very unlikely that contracting officers will be able to effectively implement right to repair across thousands of contracts. 

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.

The post Air Force abandons sweeping reoptimization as Army, Marines push forward with transformation efforts first appeared on Federal News Network.

Cyberthreats aren’t slowing down. Federal agencies face a pivotal moment: How can they modernize fast enough to stay ahead of adversaries while managing legacy systems, tight budgets and workforce challenges?

Our new e-book dives into the strategies shaping the next era of cybersecurity and shared on Day 2 of our Cyber Leaders Exchange 2025, presented by Carahsoft and Palo Alto Networks. From preparing for quantum computing risks to implementing zero trust, securing DNS and building AI expertise, these insights from federal and industry innovators will help chart a path forward.

Featured voices include:

• Kelvin Brewer, director of public sector sales engineering, Ping Identity
• Garfield Jones, associate chief of strategic technology, CISA
• Bill Newhouse, cybersecurity engineer, National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, NIST
• Christopher Paul, U.S. Marine Corps chair for information, Naval Postgraduate School
• Egon Rinderer, senior vice president, federal and enterprise growth, NinjaOne
• Jim Smid, principal architect for DoD and the IC, Palo Alto Networks
• Chris Usserman, chief technologist for public sector, Infoblox
• Merrick Watchorn, chief cyber, quantum and cognitive information services architect, Air Force

As Brian O’Donnell of Carahsoft said, “Cybersecurity remains a top priority for CIOs and senior leaders across every sector. It’s not just a technical concern — it’s a strategic imperative.”

Don’t wait for tomorrow’s threats to become today’s crisis. Download the full e-book now and discover how agencies are turning complexity into resilience.

The post Expert Edition: How to build cyber resilience for the quantum era first appeared on Federal News Network.