The “CyberPac 8201,” for example, is a 28-lb. shock-resistant server that packs $60,000 of highly reliable processing power into a box the size of a briefcase.

“This is basically their ax when they go out in the field,” said Bruce Imsand, the chief executive officer of MaxVision, the Alabama-based company that makes the CyberPac. “This is for battalion-level incident response teams.”

MaxVision has sold CyberPacs to the Air Force and Army, Imsand said.

The Modern Day Marine conference at Marine Corps Base Quantico is the largest annual gathering of Marines and defense industry professionals who showcase their wares in the hopes of landing big contracts with the Corps.

The gear on display ranged from large amphibious assault vehicles and radar equipment to small sidearms and waterproof boots.

A large swath of the event was focused on providing computer processing power to Marines at the tip of the spear, whether for cyber capabilities or to fuel the increasingly complex intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools now required for expeditionary operations.

Protecting that gear, however, is a growing concern.

“If this stuff is going to get kicked out of a helicopter, the older cardboard boxes and wooden crates just don’t provide the protection that is required,” said Jeff Gazich, a sales manager for Gemstar, a Minnesota-based company that sells customized hard cases.

Gemstar is more than 50 years old but has only recently begun to focus on the military as a potential customer.

“We’ve been asked to come in here as their standard threshold for protection is rising,” he said.

Gemstar and several other companies want to sell cases to the Marine Corps that include foam protection, cooling systems and customized designs to fit specific types of hardware.

Powering that gear is another acute challenge for the Marine Corps and its expeditionary missions. The average Marine’s kit is already weighed down with heavy battery packs, and the Corps is continuing a search for the perfect battery or mobile power source.

Rechargeable, disposable and solar-powered batteries, as well as other experimental technologies have all . But so far there’s no silver bullet.

“They are all trying to find the right technology that can provide very high energy for a long period of time but it also has to be lightweight,” said Yves Destenaves, a product manager with Acumentrics, a Massachusetts-based company that specializes in battery and power systems.

Acumentrics sells a 9-lb. battery system that is sewn into a standard Marine’s backpack with USB ports and traditional electrical-plug inputs accessible from the pack’s exterior and within reach for the warfighter.

Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has frequently raised concerns about the Corps’ need to push cyber capabilities, both offensive and defensive, down to the lowest level. He’s concerned that the Corps does not have enough Marines with cyber skills and fears the military’s networks are vulnerable and could be a critical weakness in a future war.

Forward-deployed Marines need to be able to protect their own communications networks and potentially those of their local allies. They need to respond quickly to cyber attacks to identify, attribute and counter them. And they need to be prepared to launch offensive cyber operations to shape the battlefield when needed.

For now, the Marine Corps cannot provide all of those capabilities from a brigade-level headquarters.

“You’ve got to be plugged in and connected to the network to be able to see what’s going on,” Imsand said.

“You can’t do it remotely.”

To be sure, the two have scrambled party lines on national security, staking out positions often at odds with traditional Republicans and Democrats.

Trump has denounced past attempts at “nation building” and elicited concerns from foreign allies accustomed to Republican rhetoric of a more active role for the U.S. military. “He’s a non-interventionist,” said Doug MacGregor, a retired Army colonel who is now a consultant in Virginia. “In broad terms, he promises a break, not just from the last eight years but the last 25 years, in foreign and defense policy. We’ve been engaged globally for all sorts of reasons — how has this helped us? It’s bankrupting us, not helping us.”

Clinton sits closer to the status quo, promising a military that is historically small but high-tech and lethal. Few Democrats have more consistently favored the use of military force. “She would be the more muscular internationalist of the two candidates,” said Michael Noonan, a defense expert with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank in Philadelphia. “She’s a bit more hawkish than Trump would be. It’s completely useless to discuss foreign and defense politics in terms of liberal or conservative. Those discussions mean nothing. It’s really about restraint on one hand and internationalism on the other.”

There are other big differences. Trump wants to befriend Russia, which would mark a stunning shift in U.S. foreign policy and would change the role of the U.S. military in Europe. Clinton is skeptical of spending $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, an issue that will soon require tough decisions. They disagree on whether the U.S. military should adhere to international laws when pursuing terrorists. Both have promised to force lawmakers to end budget caps on defense spending, but plan on allocating that money in very different areas.

Conventional wisdom in Washington suggests the next commander in chief will have limited control when it comes to dramatically reshaping the military. Congress still controls the defense budget, and will have final say over force growth or reductions. But with both chambers up for grabs in November (the Senate more so than the House), troops can view the election in terms of how their votes could impact the military they know. Either choice will come with new leadership at the Pentagon, a new set of defense priorities and a new reality for those in the ranks.

FORCE SIZE & MILITARY SPENDING

For much of the presidential campaign, critics have hammered Trump as being intentionally vague and offering fewer specifics than Clinton. But when it comes to the size of the military, their roles are reversed. Trump has outlined a host of manpower and equipment targets, while Clinton has pledged generally to maintain the “best-equipped and strongest military the world has ever known.”

In September, Trump outlined plans for an active-duty Army of 540,000 soldiers, up about 50,000 from today’s level. The Marine Corps, under Trump’s plan, would grow by 10,000 troops and be composed of 36 battalions, up from 23 now. Both would represent dramatic reversals of President Barack Obama’s efforts to draw down the number of service members as the military’s commitments waned in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump pledged to build “a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines” and “an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft.” For the Navy, that plan represents a 27 percent boost in the fleet size. The Air Force boasts nearly 2,000 aircraft today, but a little more than 1,100 are readily available for missions, so Trump’s plan appears to be an increase in that inventory too.

“Russia has much newer capability than we do,” Trump said at the first presidential debate on Sept. 26. “We have not been updating from the new standpoint. I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s, they’re old enough that your father, your grandfather could be flying them. We are not keeping up with other countries.”

Maintainers service a nuclear capable B-2 bomber at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has outlined a host of manpower and equipment targets should he win the presidency, including an expansion of the Air Force fleet. His opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has pledged generally to maintain the “best-equipped and strongest military the world has ever known.”

Photo Credit: Mary-Dale Amison/Air Force

The message from Trump’s campaign is clear: As president, he’ll push for a larger military. Whether he can pay for it is another question.

“We buy products for our military, and they come in at costs that are so far above what they were supposed to be, because we don’t have people that know what they’re doing,” he said during the debate. Yet the National Taxpayers Union Foundation has estimated that growing the Army, Navy and Marine Corps alone would add more than $75 billion to the defense budget in the first five years, an almost 3 percent increase each year. Offsets like eliminating waste and civilian workforce attrition would not come close to covering that cost.

That means a Trump military budget would almost certainly breach the defense spending caps in place for the next five years, and require a long-term budget deal with Congress that has eluded Obama.

Clinton’s military plans could fall within those budget caps as she has not committed to any specific increases, like Trump has.

At the American Legion’s annual conference in August, Clinton said that America “cannot lose our military edge, and that means giving the Pentagon the stable, predictable funding it needs to make smart investments.” But instead of promising more troops or platforms, she pledged to “create a defense budget that reflects good stewardship of taxpayer dollars” including “investing in innovation and capabilities that will allow us to prepare for and fight 21st century threats.”

That appears in line with Obama’s effort to forge a leaner, more tech-centric military, one that’s focused on small-scale special operations missions and increasingly reliant on unmanned aircraft. Clinton, like Trump, has promised to find defense savings through cutting waste and fraud.

Clinton also has emphasized using “diplomacy and development on the front lines, solving problems before they threaten us at home.” That could translate to more dollars directed to State Department initiatives rather than military investments.

THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE

Trump and Clinton have sketched out vastly different philosophies about the U.S. military’s basic purpose and its role in the world.

Clinton envisions an activist military that’s deeply involved in advancing her notions of American interests and international law, relying on troops deployed with allies overseas “so we can respond quickly to events on the other side of the world,” she said in June.

Her campaign has highlighted Clinton’s hawkish views and apparent willingness to initiate military interventions or expand those already underway. She voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, she backed the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, and she advocated for the 2011 intervention in Libya. Clinton espouses a belief in American “exceptionalism” that resonates with some Regan-era Republicans, and she has drawn support from several Bush-era neoconservatives as a result.

During a major foreign policy speech in June, she threatened action against Iran. “The world must understand,” Clinton said, “that the United States will act decisively if necessary, including with military action, to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”

Trump, on the other hand, is a Republican unlike any other in recent memory. His skepticism of military intervention evokes a political posture historically in step with the Democratic Party. He’s been outright critical of today’s armed forces and its leaders, describing them by using words like “disaster” and saying the generals under Obama have been “reduced to rubble.” Trump also has promised to prioritize the country’s financial security and that of American families, eschewing its leadership role around the globe.

To that end, Trump has signaled he would be cautious about using American military force abroad and defer instead to regional powers. He suggested the U.S. should let Russia take the lead in fighting the Islamic State group. He’s said countries like Saudi Arabia and South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons programs to help contain adversaries.

Trump has repeatedly criticized Clinton’s experience and her support for military involvement overseas. “Sometimes it has seemed like there wasn’t a country in the Middle East that Hillary Clinton didn’t want to invade, intervene or topple,” he said in September. “She is trigger-happy and unstable when it comes to war.”

Though he’s vowed to “knock the hell out of ISIS,” Trump says he’d use military force only when absolutely essential. He’s critical of broader U.S. policy in the Middle East and has suggested taxpayer money would be better spent at home. “We’ve spent $6 trillion in the Middle East,” Trump said while debating Clinton. “We could have rebuilt our country twice. And it’s really a shame. And it’s politicians like Secretary Clinton that have caused this problem.”

Relations with Russia reveal the clearest distinction between the two nominees. Clinton supports deploying more troops throughout Europe to challenge Moscow’s ambitions. “I think a president Clinton is going to be far less solicitous of Russia,” said Michael Rubin, a defense expert with the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.

Yet Trump has raised concerns about the costs and value of the NATO alliance. Trump’s friendly overtures toward Russian President Vladimir Putin suggest he may seek to fundamentally reshape the U.S.-Russian relationship, said Omar Lamrani, a military expert with Stratfor, a Texas-based firm that provides geo-political intelligence to the private sector. “We might see more of an opening for a Trump administration to make more accommodations with Russia.”

SOCIAL POLICY & ENVIRONMENTAL FEARS

Beyond such sensitive geopolitical issues, the next commander in chief will have to decide who carries out his or her orders. In eight years as president, Obama has overseen a number of historic changes in military personnel policy. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” law was repealed, allowing gay men and women to serve openly. More recently, he’s opened all combat jobs to women, the Pentagon announced this summer plans to lift its ban on transgender troops.

Clinton has praised the transgender decision and suggested that women should have to register with Selective Service, which would implement a military draft should the need ever arise. She has also promised to upgrade the service records of gay veterans dismissed under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy approved by her husband, President Bill Clinton, during the 1990s.

From left, Capt. Kristen Griest, Maj. Lisa Jaster and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, the first women to graduate from the Army’s elite Ranger School. Hillary Clinton has embraced many of the military personnel policies ushered in during the Obama administration. Her opponent, Donald Trump, says the armed forces aren’t a place for social experimentation. (Photo by Paul Abell/AP Images for U.S. Army Reserve)

Clinton has made “full equality” for the LGBT community a key pillar of her campaign, vowing to expand upon changes made by the Obama administration. Her campaign has promised regular town hall meetings with gay troops and military families to hear about their ongoing concerns and challenges.

Trump hasn’t weighed in directly on most of these issues, but he has spent most of the last year promising to upend “political correctness” in federal policies and programs. He has expressed opposition to gay marriage and backed local laws limiting transgender individuals’ access to public bathrooms and locker rooms. His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was an outspoken supporter of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

The Republican party platform approved this summer (which Trump’s staffers had a hand in authoring) includes language opposing “the use of the military as a platform for social experimentation.” It says that the services’ mission readiness and need to retain a quality workforce should guide all military personnel decisions, not the desire to advance a “social or political agenda.”

It’s unclear whether that could result in an attempt to rollback Obama’s efforts. Those in Congress who are critical of such changes have acknowledged that reversing these policies would be near impossible, given the number of job changes and dismissals it would require. But decisions still loom on how to implement such change, and whether new policies are needed to advance them further.

The debate over climate change also looms large over the military. A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, for instance, concluded that rising oceans threaten to submerge 128 military bases by the year 2100, fallout from warmer global temperatures. Obama has framed climate change as a significant national security issue, sparring with Congress over the use of renewable fuels in military vehicles and warning that the demand for natural resources will feed unrest and create more terrorist breeding grounds around the globe.

Clinton has echoed that argument of climate change as a national security issue, and during the first presidential debate accused Trump of ignoring the science behind it. “Some country is going to be the clean-energy superpower of the 21st century,” she said. “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.”

Trump countered, saying that environmental issues are a concern but not to the extent that Clinton has suggested. He also accused Obama and Clinton of advocating energy policies, including public investment in solar energy, that are “putting a lot of people out of work” and said he believes these efforts need to be dialed back.

NEW WEAPONS & NUCLEAR UPGRADES

At first glance, the candidates look like traditional Republicans and Democrats on the issue of defense spending. Trump has called for increasing the Pentagon’s budget — though it’s not clear by how much, or how he’d pay for it. Clinton has signaled support for Obama’s approach and rarely voices concern about military readiness.

Yet many military experts say the new commander in chief may have little control over the next few Pentagon budgets. The next president will arrive at the White House facing sequestration, the law imposing spending caps or across-the-board spending cuts through 2021. It’s like a legal “meat ax,” as former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta liked to say. Moreover, it’s unlikely any call for a surge in defense spending will become law.

“The budget situation does not change in January 2017 regardless of whether Hillary Clinton or Donald trump is inaugurated president,” said Christopher Preble, a defense expert with the CATO Institute. He predicts that Tea Party Republicans, who oppose most government spending, will block the congressional consensus needed to increase Pentagon funding. “The impasse we’ve seen since 2011,” Preble added, “that doesn’t change.” 

Clinton opposes sequestration and has voiced support for the approach to military spending laid out by the Obama administration: incrementally exceeding the current spending caps in hopes of raising them over the next several years. The gridlock in Washington would pose a problem for Trump, who has vowed to “rebuild” the military.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s top brass warns that these tight defense budgets could threaten overall readiness and a host of specific modernization programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force’s B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber and the Navy’s long-term ship-building plans. The next president will have to evaluate these and other programs as they move from concepts into the Defense Department’s official budget process, but it’s not entirely clear where either nominee stands.

Clinton has suggested she would oppose planned spending for new nuclear weapons, specifically the Pentagon’s goal of investing $1 trillion to modernize the U.S. arsenal — spending that includes new bomber aircraft, new ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and a new fleet of ballistic-missile submarines. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” Clinton said in January. She has also voiced support for nuclear disarmament measures. 

The Ohio class ballistic missile submarine Rhode Island, seen here off Kings Bay in Georgia. The Navy has ambitious plans to replace its Ohio class fleet. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class James Kimber/Released)

Trump has suggested he might use nuclear weapons. “

Somebody hits us within ISIS,   you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?” he said on MSNBC in March. And he’s repeatedly said it’s important for a president to be “unpredictable” regarding nuclear weapons.

The lack of specificity is frustrating those with the most at stake. “We’re talking about the largest agency with the largest budget, in charge of making sure the country is safe,” said Mandy Smithberger, a military analyst for the Project on Government Oversight, nonprofit in Washington. “And there’s been very little meaningful debate about either candidate’s plans for the future.” 

One thing is certain as the presidential campaign heads into it’s final stretch: Military professionals are not happy with the options. 

“The consensus is: ‘Are you ready to go to the polls and hold your nose?” said one recently retired admiral who said the topic comes up often among military officers, both past and present. He said many worry about Trump’s temperament while Clinton’s improper handling of emails at the State Department is seen as an egregious and unforgivable error among those who work with classified information every day.

“Neither candidate,” the admiral said, “passes anyone’s test.”
Follow @LeoShaneLeo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

Andrew Tilghman covers the Pentagon for Military Times. He can be reached at atilghman@militarytimes.com.

While some Defense Department documents say that U.S. Northern Command would have primary responsibility for supporting civilian agencies in such an event, other documents suggest U.S. Cyber Command should be leading that effort, the Government Accountability Office found, according to a new report published Monday.

In the event of an attack on the nation’s electrical grid or financial system, for instance, the Defense Department would be expected to back up the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Yet, the Pentagon has no clear rules in place for how that might play out.

“This absence has caused uncertainty about who in DoD would respond to support civil authorities in a cyber incident, and how they would coordinate and conduct such a response,” according to the GAO report. “The designation of cyber roles and responsibilities in DoD guidance is inconsistent.”

One major issue, according to the GAO, is the role of a “dual-status commander,” a legal designation specifically designed for domestic crises that require military support. Dual status allows a single officer to assume simultaneous command authority over both federal military forces and state-level National Guard troops.

Appointment of a dual-status commander is a standard arrangement for streamlining the military’s response to domestic disasters such as hurricanes or floods. However, that did not work during a major military exercise last year known as “Cyber Guard 15.”

During that exercise, which simulated a major cyber attack, the dual-status commander did not have tactical control of cyber units that reported to U.S. Cyber Command, and those cyber units were not able to fully participate and log into important online networks, the GAO said.

“According to the U.S. Northern Command officials, this led to a lack of unity of effort among the units responding to the emergency that were not under the control of the dual-status commander,” the GAO report said.

In response to the GAO’s report, Pentagon officials acknowledged the limitations of current rules for supporting civil authorities in a cyber incident.

Yet military officials say they still have not yet determined the best bureaucratic approach to supporting a civil authority in a cyber incident and, as of January 2016, the Pentagon has not begun efforts to issue or update its current guidance to provide better clarity.

The GAO report suggested that fixing that ambiguity would be wise.

“We believe that by issuing or updating guidance that clarifies roles and responsibilities for relevant DoD officials, DoD will be in a better position to plan for and support civil authorities in a cyber incident,” the GAO report concluded.

After a two-year review of the once-controversial issue, defense officials decided that creating such a device that may be affixed to noncombat performance awards is sufficient to “specifically recognize remote but direct impact on combat operations,” according to a memo obtained by Military Times.

The memo added that a common definition of “direct impact on combat operations” should be devised.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is expected to sign the memo later this week.

The small pin denoting the letter essentially is the successor to the short-lived Distinguished Warfare Medal, derisively known as the “Nintendo medal,” that was fraught with controversy and Pentagon politics from its inception.

It was first unveiled as a way to honor troops who are directly involved in combat operations, but are not physically in theater and facing the physical risks that warfare historically entails.

Combat veterans were outraged by the new medal’s rank in the official “Order of Precedence” above the Bronze Star, which honors ground troops for specific acts of heroism performed under fire.

The Distinguished Warfare Medal, approved by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta near the end of his tenure in 2013 to recognize drone pilots and cyberwarriors who remotely impact combat operations, existed for only a few weeks before his successor, Chuck Hagel, killed it. A new device to be pinned on existing combat medals is about to be approved to recognize such troops.

Photo Credit: Defense Department

The DWM was created in February 2013 by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a former CIA chief and strong advocate of early unmanned systems drone programs, who said it “recognizes the reality of the kind of technological warfare we are engaged in the 21st century.”

That decision was overturned and the medal eliminated just a few weeks later by newly appointed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who was awarded two Purple Hearts.

Hagel said unmanned systems drone pilots and cyber warriors were more appropriately honored by a “distinguishing device that can be affixed to existing medals.”

The medal was the first new forcewide award recognizing combat achievement since the Bronze Star was created in 1944. Its creation was strongly supported by the Air Force, which has struggled to retain unmanned systems drone pilots to meet today’s high demand.

The Great Blimp Chase of 2015 ended Wednesday afternoon when an Army observation balloon went down in Moreland Township, Pennsylvania.

The balloon became untethered from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, about 12:20 p.m. on Wednesday, prompting two New Jersey Air National Guard F-16s to pursue it, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command.

While the F-16s from Atlantic City Air National Guard Base were armed, at no points did the pilots consider shooting the blimp down, said Navy Capt. Scott Miller,  a spokesman for NORAD.

Officially known as the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, the balloon is meant to detect manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles, swarming boats and tanks, the news release said. It is meant to stay afloat up to 10,000 feet above sea level.

In the end, it was not shot down, Miller told reporters on Wednesday. It is not immediately clear how the blimp deflated, but its tail piece fell off about a quarter mile from where it finally came tor rest, he said.

It is also unclear how the cable that linked the blimp to the ground snapped, but officials do not believe the weather was a major factor in the balloon losing its mooring, Miller said. It dangled several thousand feet of cable as it drifted away, he said. No one on the ground was hurt when the balloon went down.

The blimp became an internet sensation on Wednesday, generating countless memes and tweets as the public waited with bated breath to see where the balloon would drift next.

About 2 p.m., the balloon was spotted over Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, after it apparently knocked out power lines.

Media had speculated that the two F-16s trailing the balloon may have to shoot it down. While that was never in the cards, U.S. pilots have downed balloons before.

During World War I, Army Air Corps pilots would attack heavily defended German observation balloons.Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, is named after Medal of Honor recipient 2nd Lt. Frank Luke, known as the “Arizona Balloon Buster” for shooting down 14 observation balloons before being killed in September 1918.

Despite the advance of many military technologies in recent years, there’s still no good solution to “detection of underground voids (tactical tunnels),” as the Pentagon calls it.

That’s why a tunnel-detection device is among the first problems targeted by the Defense Department’s new “crowdsourcing” initiative, a technology development program that aims to draw on the knowledge and skills of current troops and government employees.

Launched in early October, “Laboratory Innovation Crowdsourcing,” or LINC, is posting “challenges” and opening the door for anyone with a military or government email address to propose solutions.

It’s a unique way to circumvent the Pentagon’s traditional bureaucracy that develops technology and acquires new systems. Run by the little-known Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, LINC is modeled on a similar program used successfully by the intelligence community for several years.

“We’re looking for out-of-the-box thinking,” said Adam Tarsi, CTTSO chief of staff. “The whole purpose of LINC is to try to develop or identify non-obvious relationships and solutions that we might not have thought of using the traditional methods.”

There’s no monetary reward, but troops and employees who contribute to successful developments will be recognized across the military community. For the Pentagon, the program potentially offers big cost savings, since work provided by government workers is “government intellectual property,” and their ideas would not come with the costs normally associated with patented or copyright material drawn from the private sector.

In total, about four million people are eligible to access the LINC challenges, including service members, civilians from all government agencies and a select set of contractors.

Among the other initial “challenges” posted by LINC is a software-driven product that would help troops identify unknown materials in the field. For example, service members might come across a laboratory, but it might be unclear whether it’s a bomb-making facility or a methamphetamine lab or have some other unfamiliar purpose.

The LINC challenge is looking for a highly sophisticated algorithm that can help identify material compounds and let operators know what they are looking at, Tarsi said.

Ideas and proposals will be reviewed by the CTTSO staff and, if viable, may be handed off to one of the office’s program managers for more formal development, Tarsi said.

The complex nature of the challenges posted to LINC will make the pool of respondents potentially very small.

“It’s a very specific, highly scientific, technological problem set,” he said.

“Our quest is to find people working in this space that we don’t know. We know the usual suspects, but is there somebody else who has an expertise on this? It’s not going to be a secretary or logistician or a gate guard that are going to propose that. They are going to have some engineering expertise.”

Republicans and Democrats in Congress face an Oct. 1 deadline to reach a budget deal and are trying to negotiate a stopgap measure to stave off a shutdown that would grind to a halt many of the Defense Department’s civilian-run operations and raise questions about troops’ Oct. 15 paychecks.

“During a government shutdown, all military personnel would continue in a normal duty status; however, they would not be paid until Congress provides funding,” Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work wrote in a memo sent to all Defense Department troops and civilian employees Sept. 25Friday morning.

“The uncertainty of the current circumstances puts our workforce in a difficult situation, and should a government shutdown occur, it could impose hardships on many employees as well as the people we serve every day,” Work wrote.

In 2013, Congress passed legislation specifically to protect military pay during that year’s government shutdown, but that measure has expired.

Hill staffers told Military Times on Sept. 24Thursday that legislation to protect military pay if a shutdown happens is “premature,” given the numerous discussions ongoing among lawmakers to stave off the budget crisis.

But congressional aides also were promising that the military would get “whatever it needs” if a shutdown does occur.

Many observers say a last-minute budget deal is likely.

In the past, congressional leaders have been loath to adopt resolutions permanently protecting military pay from interruption in the event of a shutdown.

Some individual lawmakers back the idea, but others believe such a move would blunt the potential impact of a budget impasse, possibly reducing pressure on lawmakers to reach a compromise and avoid such shutdowns.

Although a government shutdown technically would begin Oct. 1, bimonthly military paychecks scheduled for that day would be unaffected because they are processed in the final days of September.

Individual troops and civilians should stand by and await further direction during the next several days, Work said.

“Your chain of command will be reaching out to you to provide additional detail on our contingency plans and your status under a potential lapse,” he wrote in Friday’s memo.

Defense officials say the response to a government shutdown this year would be very similar to the one that occurred in 2013:

Many civilian employees would face temporary furlough, though DoD would identify thousands of workers as “essential” and order them to continue on their jobs. If Congress authorizes payments for military personnel, the civilians who process those checks would likely be declared essential employees.

Overseas operations would continue into October regardless of a shutdown, but still could suffer some impact due to the civilian furloughs.

In addition, a shutdown and civilian furloughs would dramatically slow or entirely halt many of the military’s administrative functions and impact key civilian-run services such as military health care, child care, commissaries and other on-base services.

Staff writer Leo Shane III contributed to this report

The plan reflects a high-level recognition that the Air Force’s remotely piloted vehicle fleet can no longer meet the forcewide demand for combat air patrols unmanned aerial vehicledrone pilots, mainly due to severe pilot shortages.

“Demand exceeds supply in this type of mission,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.

The new plan aims to ratchet up the number of daily unmanned drone flights from the current level of about 60 each day to 90 by 2019, a goal that will affect long-term planning for budgets and manpower, Davis said.

The Air Force’s UAVdrone fleet will maintain its current requirement of 60 daily combat air patrols, Davis said. The Army will assume responsibility for between 10 and 20 daily sorties; U.S. Special Operations Command will provide 10 drone flights per day; and contractors will handle up to 10 additional flights, Davis said.

Any sorties conducted by contractors would have to be unarmed, Davis said.

Last year, the Defense Department tried to reduce the number of combat air patrols that Air Force UAVdrone pilots fly to 55 per day as the U.S. mission in Afghanistan wound down. But after the Islamic State group conquered large parts of Iraq, the need for UAVsdrones soared and the U.S. began daily intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions over Iraq and Syria.

The increase is expected to affect manpower requirements.

“As we talk about expanding UAV flights, we also have to look at the workload of the analysts that process those,” Davis said. The plan is “meant to inform budget requirements, [and] inform how we man, train and equip the force.”

The plan will expand use of the Army’s growing fleet of MQ-1 Gray Eagles, a variant of the Air Force’s Predator. The plan also hands the Army an expanded high-profile mission at a time when budget cuts are forcing trims to the ground combat force.

The Navy does not have a significant fleet of large unmanned surveillance aircraft. The Navy MQ-4C developed under the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program is not expected to be operational until 2017.

The Air Force has struggled to retain pilots for its fleet of remotely piloted aircraft. The reasons include long work hours driven by global demand, lucrative alternatives in the private sector and long-standing complaints that the Air Force treats them like second-class pilots compared to the manned-aircraft pilots that dominate the service’s leadership.

The Air Force announced in July that MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drone pilots will be eligible for retention bonuses worth up to $135,000 beginning next year.

The Air Force estimates it needs to train 300  unmanned aircraftdrone pilots per year to keep up with demands, but the training pipeline’s capacity can handle only about 180, Air Force officials said.

A recent Government Accountability Office report found that the Air Force had 83 percent of the UAVdrone pilots it needs as of March. The report also found that only 35 percent of unmanned aircraft pilots had trained for all of the seven missions they are expected to fly due to pilot shortages and the relentless demand for sorties around the world.