Coming soon: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition reform. Three days before his scheduled address to defense CEOs and acquisition officials, Valerie Insinna of Breaking Defense obtained what she says is a six-page draft memo laying out “sweeping changes to the way [the U.S. military] buys weapons and platforms.” However, since the memo was still in draft form, “It is unknown if Hegseth intends to announce these changes from the stage,” Insinna reported Tuesday morning. 

Among the changes: Hegseth wants to rename the “defense acquisition system” to the “warfighting acquisition system,” which is in line with Hegseth’s departmental rebranding strategy that congress (as required by law) has not approved or formalized. 

According to the memo, “Speed to capability delivery is now our organizing principle: the decisive factor in maintaining deterrence and warfighting advantage.” To that end, Hegseth is seeking “fewer internal review processes and new incentives both for DoD officials and industry,” Insinna writes. 

Hegseth: “The core principle of this transformation is simple: place accountable decision makers as close as possible to program execution, eliminate non value added layers of bureaucracy, and prioritize flexible trades and timely delivery at the speed of relevance,” the memo reads. 

Expert reax: With these new plans, Hegseth is effectively saying, “I want to prioritize speed,” Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute told BD. “What he’s not saying is, ‘I’m willing to accept higher costs and lower performance.’ But that is the reality, that when you prioritize one, you’re making sacrifices in one or both of the others,” said Harrison. Continue reading, here.

ICYMI: Hegseth’s past and future acquisition changes, rolled up by Breaking Defense, here. 

General Atomics has flown a second collaborative combat aircraft, according to new images released by the company on Thursday. 

Photos show two of the company's YFQ-42A collaborative combat aircraft sitting on a runway. Another image shows one of the drone wingmen in the sky, with a different tail number than the drone wingman that took flight back in August. The reveal comes days after neoprime contractor Anduril announced it had notched its first flight, which was delayed amid software issues to make the test semi-autonomous. Both companies are competing in the Air Force's CCA competition.

General Atomics' first CCA flight this summer was not semi-autonomous. When asked by Defense One when General Atomics would reach that milestone, C. Mark Brinkley, a company spokesman, said “I can’t speak to the timelines on our flight tests on YFQ-42A, but this software isn’t holding us back” pointing to more than 300,000 push-button takeoffs and landings with no Class A mishaps across its fleet. “It’s like asking Michael Jordan if he can dunk,” Brinkley said. “We can dunk.” 

Related reading: “Rheinmetall closing in on multi-billion-euro ammunitions contract, CEO tells Reuters,” Reuters reported Tuesday from Berlin

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Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson, Tom Novelly, and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1979, the Iran hostage crisis began. 

Around the Defense Department

When it comes to resuming U.S. nuclear weapons tests, President Trump and his energy secretary are of different minds, the New York Times reported Monday after interviews with both officials aired on TV in the past 48 hours. 

Recap: Trump announced his order to resume nuclear testing “immediately” last Wednesday. It was initially unclear if he was referring to tests of nuclear-weapons delivery systems—like ballistic missiles, e.g., or actual nuclear detonations. But he seemed to clear that up when he told CBS News in an interview that other nations “test way under—underground where people don't know exactly what's happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don't test. We have to test. And Russia did make—a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were gonna do certain forms of a different level of testing. But Russia tests, China– and China does test, and we're gonna test also.” 

As we noted last week, Russia and China haven’t detonated nuclear weapons at all this century. Russia did it last in 1990, when it was the Soviet Union at the time; and China last tested weapons in 1996. France tested a nuclear weapon in 1996 as well. India and Pakistan conducted two tests each in 1998. And North Korea tested weapons in 2006, 2009, 2013, twice in 2016, and again in 2017. The Pentagon last detonated a nuclear weapon in 1992. 

Trump told CBS, “Doesn't it sorta make sense? You know, you make—you make nuclear weapons, and then you don't test. How are you gonna do that? How are you gonna know if they work?”

However, Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox on Sunday, “These will be non-nuclear explosions. These are just developing sophisticated systems so that our replacement nuclear weapons are even better than the ones they were before.”

So, what gives? David Sanger and Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the Times write, “Trump may have been referring to an ongoing, if still classified, argument within the intelligence agencies and national laboratories about whether China and Russia have conducted what amount to small tests…[But] The evidence is vague, and experts disagree on the quality of the evidence.”

Expert reax: “It makes everyone afraid when the guy in charge of America’s nuclear weapons doesn’t appear to know what he’s talking about,” Matthew Bunn, a Harvard professor focusing on nuclear weapons, told the Times. Read the rest (gift link), here. 

Brief analysis: Trump's threat to attack Nigeria this weekend amounts to “whiplash” for recent Pentagon priorities, Reuters reported Monday. “Pentagon officials broadly expected Trump's administration would prioritize border security, China's growing military might and pressuring NATO allies to do more to stand up to Russia. But Trump's announcements in the past week on everything from nuclear testing to Nigeria have caught many off guard by appearing to reshuffle Pentagon priorities,” a trio of reporters write. 

Regarding possible U.S. strikes inside Nigeria, one U.S. military official told Reuters, “I think we are all learning about this at the same time.” More, here. 

Additional reading: 

• “Marines fire entire command for Osprey squadron in Hawaii,” Military Times reported Tuesday; 
• “USS Gerald R. Ford Leaves Mediterranean Bound for U.S. Southern Command,” U.S. Naval Institute News reported Tuesday; 
• “Supreme Court weighs if contractor can be sued for wartime negligence,” Military Times reported Monday;
• And “This soldier built a side hustle on TikTok and Instagram and says it's now paying better than the Army,” Business Insider reported Monday.  

Etc.

U.S. pitches UN on two-year mandate for Gaza security force. On Monday, officials sent a draft memo to several UN Security Council members proposing to send an international force into Gaza for at least two years, Axios reported Tuesday. 

Breaking: Israel shelled Gaza City on Tuesday, an apparent violation of the ceasefire, Al Jazeera reported.

Ukraine revamps military service to attract recruits. New York Times: “Until now, Ukrainian soldiers have served under open-ended contracts, leaving them with no control over their future. Enthusiasm for enlistment has waned, with Ukrainians fearful that indefinite duty amounts to a one-way ticket to the front line. Under the new system, both current service members and recruits will be able to sign fixed-term contracts lasting one to five years, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal said Monday night as he announced the plan.” Read about that and other changes, here.

Someone else is building fake islands in the South China Sea: Vietnam. The southeast-Asian country has piled dirt, sand, and concrete on nearly two dozen rocks and other features in a bid to forestall Chinese dominance of the strategic waterway, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Satellite images show that Vietnam has created new land on all 21 rocks and so-called low-tide elevations—reefs that were previously submerged at high tide—that it occupies in the Spratlys. That compares with China’s seven such artificial islands in the archipelago.”

Citing CSIS’s Island Tracker site, WSJ writes: “As of March, Vietnam had built more than 2,200 acres of artificial land in the South China Sea, compared with just under 4,000 acres constructed by China.” Read on, here.

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A combination of strains are threatening morale and even long-term capabilities at the National Security Agency, former U.S. national security officials and others with knowledge of changes there told Nextgov/FCW. Among them are leadership gaps, program cuts, buyouts, and the government shutdown that has furloughed workers.

The Pentagon's top signals-intelligence agency has been without a permanent leader since Gen. Timothy Haugh was unexpectedly fired in April, and the White House recently backed down on its plans to elevate Lt. Gen. William Hartman, who has led the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command in an acting capacity ever since, said a person with knowledge of the matter. The reversal was first reported by The Record, the news unit of cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

The NSA’s top lawyer, April Falcon Doss, was also let go on the advice of right-wing activist Laura Loomer, and other leading officials have chosen to leave the agency and the combatant command. A search to find candidates for various leadership positions at the agency continues, The Record reported last week.

“The morale inside the organization is rather depressed. It’s been depressed for a series of months at this point. That’s what happens when your boss disappears, and then some of your lead unicorns also disappear,” said a person familiar with the agency’s disposition, referring to uniquely talented leaders within the agency. 

That person, as well as most sources for this story, requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly share their knowledge and perspectives on the internal posture of a major U.S. intelligence unit.

The sprawling spy agency has employs hacking, codebreaking, and eavesdropping capabilities to gather intelligence on adversaries around the world. It’s often dubbed a combat support agency that has legal authorities to intercept foreign communications deemed valuable to U.S. interests. The agency’s collections contribute to the president’s daily security briefings.

“NSA is one of our country’s most important lines of defense, and it depends on a strong, steady leadership team and a workforce that can focus on mission without fear of political interference,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., told Nextgov/FCW in an email.

“Unfortunately, this administration’s pattern of firing seasoned intelligence leaders, leaving critical leadership posts vacant and publicly disparaging the intelligence community sends exactly the wrong message to those serving in silence to keep our nation safe,” added Warner. “That kind of instability is not just bad for morale, it’s bad for national security.”

Nextgov/FCW has reached out to the NSA and the Defense Department requesting comment.

Long-term capabilities

Agency staff deemed non-essential have been furloughed during the shutdown. One person with knowledge of NSA work said that although the shutdown hasn't much affected the agency’s short-term capabilities, long-term planning is degrading, putting many analysts into a “reactive mode.”

That person could not add more details, but the NSA possesses a suite of pristine hacking tools, and is constantly storing or developing new exploits to breach targets’ systems.

As the shutdown persists, routine spying activities conducted by NSA and other DOD elements are continuing, but some forward-looking planning has been halted, according to a public Pentagon document that dictates shutdown plans. Paused longer-term activities include political and economic analysis work unrelated to current crises and intelligence support for weapons acquisition, though it’s not clear how much of that work directly falls on NSA analysts’ desks.

But NSA staff and people working in numerous other intelligence agencies have also been extended offers to leave federal service early, and NSA has set goals to shed some 2,000 civilian workers by the end of the year. 

The combination of deferred resignations and furloughs has left unclear how many of the agency’s core specialists remain to shoulder its hacking and codebreaking missions.

As part of their day-to-day work, some agency analysts may be cultivating long-term relationships on dark web forums, fusing together a mix of human intelligence and computer-access skills that require months of frequent attention and communications with targets of interest, one former senior official said.

“It's not as easy as in the movies where they say, ‘Get me on so-and-so’s system ASAP’ and then you just break into it,” said the ex-official. “You have to have that person on your radar … and you have to be in the right place at the right time to understand when that bad guy screws up so you can exploit that to conduct a cyber operation against them.”

If those analysts are away from their workstations because they’ve been deemed non-essential, or have left their roles altogether, those access opportunities ebb. 

“In order to have more of those opportunities available, you really need to have undercovers and sources established ahead of time, and as those wind down, you lose the ability to start.” that former official said.

A diminished workforce also creates a perilous trickle-down effect on other units of the U.S. military. The dual-hatted nature of NSA and Cyber Command means that civilian analysts are constantly developing hacking toolkits and other capabilities alongside DOD cyber warriors, another former intelligence official said. If Pentagon cyber operatives are deployed overseas and face any technical difficulties, they could have trouble remediating them.

That concern, this former intelligence official said, especially applies to hunt forward operations, where U.S. cyber warriors from the Cyber National Mission Force physically deploy to allied host nations to observe and detect malicious cyber activity on their networks.

“We very likely have teams that are deployed right now. Those hunt forward teams are reliant on supporting elements from their home service right now,” they said. “If you’ve got a team deployed in Ukraine, they’re calling back to their home service if their kit doesn’t work, or if there’s some issue and they need to troubleshoot … and they also provide that on-call support for anything that goes wrong. Well, right now, those teams are depleted.”

Hunt forward missions helped the U.S. uncover Chinese malware activity in Latin American nations, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine told Congress earlier this year. While still in service, Haugh told Congress that hunt forward missions were deployed 22 times to 17 countries in 2023.

“[NSA] is a highly functional federal agency, and therefore it needs its people. It has its technology, it has its policies and processes,” said Mark Montgomery, a former Navy rear admiral who is now senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank in Washington. 

“Other federal agencies can gain and lose people, and you may or may not see the change in output,” he said. That doesn’t apply to NSA, which “relies on and benefits from an extremely purpose-built workforce, and so any perturbations will have an impact,” Montgomery added. “Morale is probably damaged by everything that’s happened over the last eight months,” he said, though it’s not necessarily “unrecoverable.”

The degree of turnover observed within the agency makes it difficult to adapt and evolve, especially for mid-level agency leadership, another person familiar with changes in NSA said. “The intelligence community needs to be taking risks,” said the person. “What keeps people working is a sense of mission. But when you get to higher-ups, the turnover makes them feel like they don’t have the ability or the buy-in to innovate.”

Attorney recruitment 

There are also legal policy implications for the signals intelligence titan. This year, the NSA has paused recruiting young attorneys fresh out of law schools for its Legal Honors Program, according to another former senior national security official and the former intelligence official. 

That has a “pronounced effect” with long-term implications, one of them said. “You certainly want those kinds of people there, because the kind of problems … NSA is facing are cutting-edge legal problems.”

Much of the NSA’s mission sits where intelligence work and privacy concerns meet. Its lawyers regularly prepare filings for the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, using precise legal and technical language to request permission to monitor and collect communications tied to specific targets.

There’s a ripple effect within law schools too, the former official added. “It affects the second- and first-year law students who think, ‘I’m not going to even apply to that, because I heard some third-year guys got turned down.’ Even if you reinstate the program, it’ll take two, three, four or even five years to rebuild.”

A similar dynamic has played out among recipients of the CyberCorps scholarship on college campuses, which for years has placed talented students into government cybersecurity roles.

One major open question is how NSA staff affected by deferred resignation offers are handling their transition out of government. The Trump administration has made it a point to say that, in initiating sweeping cuts to the federal enterprise, they would want more people in private sector jobs.

But when affected staff are unexpectedly forced to look for jobs in industry, they’ve found the market is too saturated, and that their pristine, tailored skill sets built up inside Fort Meade don’t align directly with industry demands. 

“As an employee of those agencies, you are told you are the cream of the crop,” said the person who spoke about the depressed morale in the agency. “You’re told that you’re the best of the best, that you work in the most exquisite intel agency on the planet, that you are awesome.”

The person, recounting a recent retirement event for one senior officer who left NSA, put it bluntly: “They’re struggling to find work, and it was very depressing to be there.”

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