Pentagon

Jan. 12 (UPI) — Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., filed a lawsuit Monday against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon for trying to censure and demote him.

Kelly’s suit alleges that their efforts are “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

Last week, Hegseth announced that the Defense Department is reducing Kelly’s retirement pay over comments he made in November in a video telling service members that they have the right and duty to ignore “unlawful orders.”

Hegseth alleges that the video was “seditious.”

“Six weeks ago, Sen. Mark Kelly — and five other members of Congress — released a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline,” Hegseth said. “As a retired Navy Captain who is still receiving a military pension, Captain Kelly knows he is still accountable to military justice.”

Last week, Hegseth said the Pentagon was working to downgrade Kelly’s military retirement rank and pay for the video.

The suit says that Hegseth is violating Kelly’s First Amendment rights and the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution, which grants immunity to lawmakers for official acts.

“It appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch imposed military sanctions on a Member of Congress for engaging in disfavored political speech,” the suit said.

“Pete Hegseth is coming after what I earned through my twenty-five years of military service, in violation of my rights as an American, as a retired veteran, and as a United States Senator whose job is to hold him — and this or any administration — accountable,” Kelly said in a statement on X. “His unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: if you speak out and say something that the President or Secretary of Defense doesn’t like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted.”

Kelly said the actions of the Pentagon could affect any retired military personnel.

“Now, Pete Hegseth wants our longest-serving military veterans to live with the constant threat that they could be deprived of their rank and pay years or even decades after they leave the military just because he or another Secretary of Defense doesn’t like what they’ve said. That’s not the way things work in the United States of America, and I won’t stand for it,” he said on X.

Five other Democratic lawmakers were in the video, but none of them retired from their service. They are: Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Jason Crow of Colorado and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, along with Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

Also named as defendants in the suit are Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and the Department of the Navy.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly sued the Pentagon on Monday over attempts to punish him for his warnings about illegal orders, claiming the Trump administration trampled on his constitutional rights to free speech.

Kelly, a former U.S. Navy pilot who represents Arizona, is seeking to block his censure from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week. Hegseth announced on Jan. 5 that he censured Kelly over his participation in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders.

Hegseth said the censure — by itself simply a formal letter with little practical consequence — was “a necessary process step” to proceedings that could result in a demotion from Kelly’s retired rank of captain and subsequent reduction in retirement pay.

Kelly asked the federal court in Washington, D.C., to rule that the censure letter, the proceedings about his rank and any other punishments against him are “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“The First Amendment forbids the government and its officials from punishing disfavored expression or retaliating against protected speech,” his lawsuit says. “That prohibition applies with particular force to legislators speaking on matters of public policy.”

The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment

The censure stemmed from Kelly’s participation in a video in November with five other Democratic lawmakers — all veterans of the armed services and intelligence community — in which they called on troops to uphold the Constitution and defy “illegal orders.”

The 90-second video was first posted on a social media account belonging to Sen. Elissa Slotkin. Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan also appeared in the video.

Republican President Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later.

The Pentagon opened an investigation of Kelly in late November, citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other punishment.

Although all six lawmakers served in the military or the intelligence community, Hegseth said Kelly was the only one facing investigation because he is the only one who formally retired from the military and still falls under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.

Hegseth, the Defense Department, Navy Secretary John Phelan and the Navy are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Kelly said in a statement on Monday that he is “standing up for the rights of the very Americans who fought to defend our freedoms.” He accused Hegseth of trying to suppress dissent by threatening military veterans with depriving them of their rank and pay.

“That’s not the way things work in the United States of America, and I won’t stand for it,” Kelly said.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Dick Cheney predicted Thursday that the Soviet Union will withdraw all of its troops from Europe by 1995, a forecast that prompted key Senate Democrats to question whether President Bush’s new proposal for cutting U.S. forces should be faster and deeper.

As the Senate Armed Services Committee opened congressional debate on reshaping the nation’s military structure, Cheney and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin L. Powell, were repeatedly challenged on the Administration’s troop-reduction plans.

195,000 Force Level

Cheney, disclosing the Pentagon’s rough timetable for cuts in Europe, testified that it may take a year or two to carry out any U.S.-Soviet agreement on the issue.

Bush announced Wednesday night that he was recommending that each side cut its combat forces in Central Europe to 195,000, with the United States allowed to have an additional 30,000 elsewhere in Europe. Currently, the United States has 305,000 troops on the continent.

Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.), sharply criticizing the pace of negotiations, declared that he would push the subcommittee he heads to legislate an immediate reduction of 50,000 American troops in Europe and 10,000 in Korea.

Dixon said events are overtaking negotiations, with NATO allies West Germany and Belgium already planning their own deep cuts and Soviet forces certain to be kicked out by new governments in Eastern Europe.

“I’m not saying we should strip until we’re naked,” Dixon said. “There are reasonable, moderate, fair reductions we can make.”

Later, Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) applauded Bush for going beyond his proposal of last May and advocating the withdrawal of 80,000 U.S. troops, not just the 30,000 he called for then. He called it “much more relevant to the changes in Europe and to the budget realities here at home.”

But Nunn voiced strong concern when Cheney seemed to advocate keeping 225,000 U.S. troops in Europe indefinitely, despite his prediction that the Soviets would pull all of its forces out of Eastern Europe and the two Germanys would be reunited.

Nunn warned that unless the United States had plans to make substantial withdrawals in such a case, it could wind up supplying most of the ground forces for NATO as other allies disbanded their units.

The influential senator got Cheney to concede that the Administration would “take another look” at U.S. troop levels in the event of a sweeping Soviet pullback and German reunification.

Despite Cheney’s expression of flexibility, the defense secretary firmly defended Bush’s new plan. He asserted that any effort by Congress to make unilateral troop cuts before the conclusion of U.S.-Soviet arms control talks would undermine the NATO alliance and encourage greater instability in Europe.

“We are on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot being fired,” Cheney said. “We should not unilaterally bring them (U.S. troops) home before we get an agreement.”

Republicans Cautious

Several Republicans on the committee strongly backed that position.

“We cannot let the euphoria sweeping this nation drive us to unilateral and hasty reductions in these forces,” Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S. C.) said.

Although members of both parties warmly pledged to work cooperatively with Cheney and Powell in the battles ahead, several Democrats served notice that they would press for deep cuts in the Administration’s proposals for increased spending on strategic weapons programs.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) proposed a “Democratic alternative” that he said would carve a $169-billion “peace dividend” out of the defense budget over the next five years, more than quadrupling the savings proposed by Bush for the same period.

Kennedy singled out the B-2 Stealth bomber, the “Star Wars” anti-missile program and other major programs for deep slashes. He argued that Bush’s budget fails to reflect a dramatically diminished Soviet military threat and a massive upgrading of U.S. strategic weapons in the last decade.

“We have to have a modernization program,” he said, “but does it have to be at the madcap pace of the 1980s?”

Cheney, while acknowledging major changes in the world, said that the Soviets continue to modernize their own strategic arsenal. “The Soviet Union remains the only nation on earth capable of destroying the United States,” he said.

Powell likewise contended that this was no time for the nation to let down its guard.

“I never want to return to that leisurely, comfortable ‘From Here to Eternity’ attitude of the 1930s that helped invite global conflict to an unsuspecting world,” he said.

Dec. 27 (Asia Today) — China’s push to become a major aircraft carrier power, which gained momentum after it commissioned its first carrier in 2012, could expand into a fleet of nine carriers by 2035, according to a new U.S. Defense Department report.

China had no aircraft carriers before it commissioned the Liaoning in September 2012 after purchasing the unfinished former Soviet carrier Varyag from Ukraine in 1998 and refitting it for 14 years, according to Beijing-based sources familiar with military developments.

China later commissioned the Shandong in December 2019, its first domestically built carrier, and recently added a third carrier, the Fujian, which U.S. officials described as China’s first indigenously designed flat-deck carrier.

Foreign media reports have said China plans to operate six aircraft carriers by 2035, including two nuclear-powered ships, a target that some analysts consider plausible given the pace of its buildup since 2012.

However, the U.S. Defense Department’s annual report on China’s military power, released Tuesday, said “the PLAN aims to produce six aircraft carriers by 2035 for a total of nine,” raising the possibility that China’s carrier force could approach U.S. levels within a decade.

Chinese media have reported that China’s fourth aircraft carrier could enter service in 2027 and may be nuclear-powered with a displacement of about 120,000 tons, as Beijing continues to expand its blue-water capabilities.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

When a near-final draft of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) dropped over two weeks ago, one of the oddest things that grabbed our attention was a pilot program for contractor-operated amphibious aircraft in the Pacific. The NDAA that was subsequently passed into law had some tweaks to the language, but it was no less intriguing.

The provision reads:

EC. 381. PILOT PROGRAM FOR CONTRACTED AMPHIBIOUS AIR RESOURCES FOR THE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY OF THE UNITED STATES INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND.

(a) AUTHORITY .—The Secretary of Defense, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Navy and the Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, may carry out a pilot program for the contracted operation of a fleet of commercial amphibious aviation resources to be made available to the commanders of the combatant commands and the commanders of other components of the Department of Defense for mission tasking within the area of responsibility of the United States Indo-Pacific Command.

(b) FIELDING AND ADJUDICATING MISSION REQUESTS

The Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command shall establish a process to field and adjudicate mission requests pursuant to the pilot program under subsection (a) in a timely manner.

(c) TERMINATION .—The authority to carry out the pilot program under subsection (a) shall terminate on the date that is three years after the date of the enactment of this Act.

We reached out to INDOPACOM for more details about the scope and scale of this initiative almost immediately after the draft NDAA was released earlier this month, but they told us they would not comment as it was still not law. After it was passed into law, they still would not comment and as of last Friday, they sent us to the Pentagon in search of answers. We have not gotten anything back yet, but we hope to at some point. Still, this lack of information seems a bit odd for what appears outright to be a provision that is not overtly sensitive in nature and relatively straight forward.

Regardless, based on the limited information we have at this time, this looks to be a program to test the use of contractor air services to fill what has become something of a glaring gap for operations in the Pacific. This has both to do with logistics and search and rescue, during peacetime and potentially (and even more pressing) during a time of war.

The lack of being able to use seaplanes to access pretty much anywhere in the vast Pacific is a missing component of the Pentagon’s growing book of capabilities to confront China. For some time, a float-equipped special operations MC-130J was seen as the Pentagon’s solution to this problem, or at least a possible solution. Eventually, after years of development and promise of near-term flight testing, that program was shuttered in 2024. Other initiatives that have looked to use waterborne flying machines to support its needs in the Pacific have also faced the axe in recent years.

Meanwhile, China is investing in advanced amphibious aircraft capabilities, and America’s tightest ally in the region, Japan, has also maintained a small fleet of highly-impressive amphibious aircraft — the ShinMaywa US-2 — for the purposes of search and rescue, with a secondary capability of accessing far flung maritime locales. Keep in mind, both of these major regional players would be fighting in their own backyard during a conflict. The United States would be mired in the most challenging expeditionary warfare it has faced in the better part of a century.

China launches AG600, the world’s biggest amphibious aircraft

The combat search and rescue requirement is the most pressing concern when it comes to lack of amphibious flying boats or other seaplane concept. During a sustained conflict across the Pacific, aircraft will be lost, not just due to enemy action, but also due to technical failure and human error. The distances can be so far from land where this can happen that responding to such a contingency can take a long time, and that’s true even in peacetime, let alone during a time where threats will emanate thousands of miles out into the Pacific. While fixed-wing aircraft can drop additional aid to those stranded at sea, they cannot extract them. In order to do that, you need to get a ship to the survivors or get a helicopter/tiltrotor within range. The latter is already a huge problem for a major fight with China, which you can read about here. And once again, all this can take a lot of time, and that is after the crew has actually been located.

A flying boat can respond quickly and, if the sea conditons allow, it can land and recover the personnel. It can also fly low, staying under the radar horizon, for long distances. It’s in many ways an end-to-end solution, and one that can be put into action and deliver success fast when every minute counts. This was a proven capability that saved many lives during World War II when seaplanes worked to find and rescue downed aircrew and sailors. U.S. military seaplanes continued to serve in this role through the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The HU-16 Albatross amphibian aircraft also remained in U.S. Coast Guard service in the 1980s.

A pilot comes aboard PBM Mariner during air sea rescue work in the Pacific Ocean …HD Stock Footage

The other part of this, as mentioned earlier, is just providing light logistical support to very remote locales — islands in particular — that can only be accessed by certain types of aircraft. In some cases, fixed-wing aircraft can’t reach them at all. Here is where amphibians can come into play to enable small forces to operate on tiny pieces of land in the middle of nowhere, something that is firmly in the center of the Pentagon’s current Pacific strategy.

Even for airfields with runways, you don’t need a C-17 or even a C-130 to do many logical tasks. A 15-pound part, such as a component for a fighter aircraft or other system, can be the primary “need it yesterday” cargo aboard a USAF airlifter. Using smaller amphibians could free up the U.S. military’s traditional airlifter fleet for missions that demand their unique capabilities, and by all indications, they will be tasked to the absolute max during even a limited conflict in the Pacific theater. China is developing uncrewed aircraft for these kind of tasks, with many types in testing, while the U.S. lags behind.

So, with all this in mind, it would seem INDOPACOM wants to experiment with the amphibian concept by using a far more elastic model than procuring aircraft and standing up a unit to fly them itself by going with the contractor model at first. Such a pilot program could reduce risk and provide some level of capability in the shorter term. At the same time, some will argue that the U.S. has no time to toy with the concept and needs its own aircraft now for a potential looming fight with China.

The big question then becomes what aircraft could be used or are even available for such a contractor-operated requirement? The answer to that isn’t really clear at this time. The options are very limited, and while the US-2 seems near perfectly fit for the mission, these expensive aircraft exist in very limited numbers and are not available for rapid transfer, though more could be made.

Japan’s US-2 – The World’s Most Advanced Amphibious Aircraft That Knows No Limits

The CL-415 Super Scooper is a less capable, but proven solution, though it is primarily used for firefighting today. On one hand, this is a positive as contractor operators of the type already exist. On the other hand, these aircraft are in high demand for their primary role.

How The $30 Million ‘Super Scooper’ Plane Was Built To Fight Wildfires

There is also the possibility that a floatplane could be used, such as a Cessna Caravan, but that would be far less capable and more limited in its use cases than the other two aircraft listed above.

Regardless, we will have to watch to see how this plays out, and hopefully the Pentagon will give us some clarity on the intent behind this provision. As it sits now, it looks like INDOPACOM has the chance to get some amphibious planes into action, at some point, at least to find out if they like what they see.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final passage Wednesday to an annual military policy bill that will authorize $901 billion in defense programs while pressuring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide lawmakers with video of strikes on alleged drug boats in international waters near Venezuela.

The annual National Defense Authorization Act, which raises troop pay by 3.8%, gained bipartisan backing as it moved through Congress. It passed the Senate on a 77-20 vote before lawmakers planned to leave Washington for a holiday break. Two Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee — and 18 Democrats voted against the bill.

The White House has indicated that it is in line with President Trump’s national security priorities. However, the legislation, which ran more than 3,000 pages, revealed some points of friction between Congress and the Pentagon as the Trump administration reorients its focus away from security in Europe and toward Central and South America.

The bill pushes back on recent moves by the Pentagon. It demands more information on boat strikes in the Caribbean, requires that the U.S. maintain its troop levels in Europe and sends some military aid to Ukraine.

But overall, the bill represents a compromise between the parties. It implements many of Trump’s executive orders and proposals on eliminating diversity and inclusion efforts in the military and grants emergency military powers at the U.S. border with Mexico. It also enhances congressional oversight of the Department of Defense, repeals several years-old war authorizations and seeks to overhaul how the Pentagon purchases weapons as the U.S. tries to outpace China in developing the next generation of military technology.

“We’re about to pass, and the president will enthusiastically sign, the most sweeping upgrades to DOD’s business practices in 60 years,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Still, the sprawling bill faced objections from both Democratic and Republican leadership on the Senate Commerce Committee. That’s because the legislation allows military aircraft to obtain a waiver to operate without broadcasting their precise location, as an Army helicopter had done before a midair collision with an airliner in Washington, D.C., in January that killed 67 people.

“The special carve-out was exactly what caused the January 29 crash that claimed 67 lives,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, said at a news conference this week.

Cruz said he was seeking a vote on bipartisan legislation in the next month that would require military aircraft to use a precise location sharing tool and improve coordination between commercial and military aircraft in busy areas.

Boat strike videos

Republicans and Democrats agreed to language in the defense bill that threatened to withhold a quarter of Hegseth’s travel budget until he provided unedited video of the strikes, as well as the orders authorizing them, to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.

Hegseth was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday ahead of the bill’s passage to brief lawmakers on the U.S. military campaign in international waters near Venezuela. The briefing elicited contrasting responses from many lawmakers, with Republicans largely backing the campaign and Democrats expressing concern about it and saying they had not received enough information.

The committees are investigating a Sept. 2 strike — the first of the campaign — that killed two people who had survived an initial attack on their boat. The Navy admiral who ordered the “double-tap” strike, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, also appeared before the committees shortly before the vote Wednesday in a classified briefing that also included video of the strike in question.

Several Republican senators emerged from the meeting backing Hegseth and his decision not to release the video publicly, but other GOP lawmakers stayed silent on their opinion of the strike.

Democrats are calling for part of the video to be released publicly and for every member of Congress to have access to the full footage.

“The American people absolutely need to see this video,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “I think they would be shocked.”

Congressional oversight

Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by the Trump administration several times in the last year, including by a move to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine and a decision to reduce U.S. troop presence in NATO countries in eastern Europe. The defense legislation requires that Congress be kept in the loop on decisions like those going forward, as well as when top military brass are removed.

The Pentagon is also required, under the legislation, to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment stationed in Europe unless NATO allies are consulted and there is a determination that such a withdrawal is in U.S. interests. Roughly 80,000 to 100,000 U.S. troops are usually present on European soil. A similar requirement keeps the number of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea at 28,500.

Lawmakers are also pushing back on some Pentagon decisions by authorizing $400 million for each of the next two years to manufacture weapons to be sent to Ukraine.

Cuts to diversity and climate initiatives

Trump and Hegseth have made it a priority to purge the military of material and programs that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues, and the defense bill codifies many of those changes. It would repeal diversity, equity and inclusion offices and trainings, including the position of chief diversity officer. Those cuts would save the Pentagon about $40 million, according to the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee.

The U.S. military has long found that climate change is a threat to how it provides national security because weather-related disasters can destroy military bases and equipment. But the bill makes $1.6 billion in cuts by eliminating climate change-related programs at the Pentagon.

Repeal of war authorizations and Syria sanctions

Congress is writing a closing chapter to the war in Iraq by repealing the authorization for the 2003 invasion. Now that Iraq is a strategic partner of the U.S., lawmakers in support of the provision say the repeal is crucial to prevent future abuses. The bill also repeals the 1991 authorization that sanctioned the U.S.-led Gulf War.

The rare, bipartisan moves to repeal the legal justifications for the conflicts signal a potential appetite among lawmakers to reclaim some of Congress’ war powers.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.