Gates Directs "Strategic Reshaping" of Weapons Portfolio - 10 Feb 2009

Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to shake up the Pentagon’s weapon system roster and retool the military’s trillion-dollar plus modernization effort into a "coherent" package flexible enough to meet current and future threats—and strong enough to overcome the objections of lawmakers upset with expected program terminations in the fiscal year 2010 budget request, he told reporters Feb. 10^th.

Gates said weapon system programs with "serious execution issues" would receive increased scrutiny as the Department of Defense (DoD) determines how to remove roughly $60 billion from a draft fiscal year 2010 budget prepared last year, nearly $20 billion of which was for new weapons, according to government officials.

Following this announcement, Gates convened the first high-level meeting between newly installed Pentagon leaders from President Barack Obama’s administration and top uniformed commanders to discuss immediate plans for the "strategic reshaping" of the DoD’s weapons portfolio.

For more information, please read the articles that appeared in numerous publications, including the February 13^th and 20^th issues of The Integrator, a collection of news and information specifically for the C4ISR community.