DefenseScoop

The nominees for the 2025 #DefenseScoop50 Awards have been announced! The DefenseScoop 50 Awards honor exceptional leaders and innovators who are leveraging modern technology to strengthen U.S. defense and national security. Now is your chance to recognize their impact! Cast your vote for the trailblazers driving game-changing advancements in defense and deterrence strategies. 📆 Voting closes at midnight EST April 18. 🔗 Vote now: https://lnkd.in/e_-hjz8H #NationalSecurity #DefenseInnovation #Modernization #Leadership

President Donald Trump has picked Joseph Jewell to be the next assistant secretary of defense for science and technology. Jewell’s nomination was sent to Capitol Hill Monday and will be considered by the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to a notice posted on Congress.gov. An experienced aerospace engineer, Jewell has spent decades in both academia and government working on hypersonics research and development. He most recently served as an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University, where he was the director of the school’s Mach 6 quiet wind tunnel that’s able to test hypersonic capabilities. Jewel also spent two years researching hypersonics technology at the Air Force Research Laboratory, according to his LinkedIn bio. https://lnkd.in/eDpb6cWW

The Defense Department will offer its deferred resignation program to eligible DOD civilian employees April 7-14, according to a new memo. Voluntary early retirement authority will also be offered. The initiatives, ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, come as the Pentagon is looking to reduce its civilian workforce and implement the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts. https://lnkd.in/ehKAbUzD

So-called hunt forward operations by U.S. Cyber Command have uncovered Chinese malware implanted in Latin American nations, according to President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hunt-forward operations involve physically sending defensively oriented cyber protection teams from the U.S. military’s Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) to foreign nations at their invitation to look for malicious activity on their networks. These operations are mutually beneficial, officials have said, because they help bolster the security of partner nations and provide Cybercom — and by extension, the United States — advance notice of adversary tactics, allowing the U.S. to harden systems at home against these observed threats. https://lnkd.in/ezJQTuVJ

The Army awarded 3dB Labs an other transaction agreement to develop and demonstrate a prototype for the Spectrum Situational Awareness System (S2AS), according to a release. S2AS is envisioned to provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the electromagnetic spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signatures, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and threat emissions. Army officials see this as an important capability for operations in a complex future environment where forces will have to adeptly maneuver within the invisible electromagnetic spectrum. https://lnkd.in/e8aR_w9G

The Defense Information Systems Agency’s Thunderdome program has reached full compliance with the Pentagon’s advanced zero-trust standards, according to Randy Resnick, director of the department’s ZT portfolio management office. The achievement is a major milestone for DISA’s Thunderdome initiative, which offers a suite of IT and cybersecurity technologies that various agencies across the Defense Department can use as their zero-trust solution. DISA’s validation of Thunderdome comes more than two years ahead of the Pentagon’s deadline to implement target levels of zero trust by the end of fiscal 2027. https://lnkd.in/eJNNpXCR

Gen. Timothy Haugh, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the NSA, was removed from those positions Thursday — another high-profile firing of a senior national security official by the Trump administration. It was not immediately clear why Haugh was fired. However, his dismissal comes amid a purge of other national security officials at the National Security Council and NSA. It happened following a visit to the Oval Office of political activist Laura Loomer, who has urged President Donald Trump to fire certain officials due to their perceived disloyalty to him and his agenda. In a social media post Thursday night, Loomer said Haugh and NSA Deputy Director Wendy Noble were fired for being “disloyal” to Trump. https://lnkd.in/eWjcmNwv

The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s new Foreign Arms Sales Task Force hosted its first closed-door meeting on Wednesday, where lawmakers, aides and industry officials from legacy vendors and startups discussed bureaucratic challenges that are hampering international partners’ speedy access to U.S.-made defense systems — including drones. A senior committee staff official involved in the meeting briefed a small group of reporters Thursday about key issues the stakeholders’ referenced. They also shared new details about the bipartisan group’s six-month plan to influence major government reforms targeting capabilities transfer and acquisition options. https://lnkd.in/eFMKbNMK

One-way attack drones and other Ukrainian weapons have destroyed thousands of Russian tanks in the past year as well as thousands of other platforms, according to the commander of U.S. European Command. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who is dual-hatted as the Eucom chief and Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO, gave lawmakers an update on the war and the current battlefield situation Thursday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “The scale of this conflict is just awe-inspiring. Thousands of tanks destroyed on both sides,” Cavoli said. https://lnkd.in/e9eE7TTv

The Defense Department’s top watchdog announced Thursday it will initiate a formal investigation into Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s participation in discussing impending military operations on unclassified networks. On March 24, Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a story revealing he was accidentally added to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted but unclassified commercial messaging app, where some of the Trump administration’s top national security officials discussed upcoming strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen — including Hegseth. “The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” Steve Stebbins, acting inspector general at the Pentagon, wrote in a memo published Thursday. “Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.” https://lnkd.in/e3QqX3ua