“I don’t trust the Air Force, on its own, given its existing structure to properly prioritize space,” Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith says.

House Democrats release a 2020 defense policy bill that requires the Pentagon to write plenty of reports, but eases away from the HASC Chairman’s earlier remarks on nuclear modernization.

The HASC wants an independent cost estimate on the F-35 and some detail — any detail — on the plan to replace AWACS. It’s also a little curious about robot tanks.

Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy says the service’s new five-year budget plan will be finished within weeks.

One of Washington’s leading budget experts explains how bipartisan supporters of Pentagon funding will steamroll the Budget Control Act.

The senators’ draft of the annual defense bill puts a new emphasis on technological competition, including industrial policy moves to strengthen US companies.

House Appropriators add millions of dollars to the National Institute of Standards & Technology’s work on AI, cybersecurity, quantum computing, 3D printing, and 5G telecommunications.

House appropriators rejected Trump’s plan to put satellite regulation under the Commerce Department and chide Secretary Wilbur Ross for his refusal to testify on the 2020 budget request.

CSIS’s Todd Harrison, who supports the proposal, says his odds on the Space Force being fully approved by Congress this year are currently “slightly less than 50 percent.”

The House Dems launch the first salvo in what promises to be a long defense budget saga, and they are drawing lines that will be hard to cross.