Defense Secretary James Mattis has issued a memorandum that details the Defense Department’s “three lines of effort” that aim to maintain U.S. military superiority amid security threats posed by North Korea, Russia, China, Iran and the Islamic State militant organization, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Mattis wrote in the Oct. 5 memo to defense personnel such an effort is composed of three initiatives and one of those is to restore military readiness through the establishment of a safe nuclear deterrent, deployment of a conventional force and retention of irregular warfare as a key competency.

DoD’s second line of effort aims to build up alliances and develop new partnerships to foster economic growth and deter possible attacks.

The third initiative seeks to carry out business reforms across the Pentagon through streamlined acquisition processes and requirements, budget discipline and establishment of a culture for rapid innovation.

Mattis mentioned some of the reforms in the third line of effort, such as the realignment of the role of defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, DoD’s efforts to prepare for a full financial audit in fiscal 2018 and creation of a new chief management officer position.

Glenn Dean, program manager of the U.S. Army‘s Stryker Brigade Combat Team, has said that the service branch looks to integrate the Trophy active protection system on a brigade of Abrams main battle tanks by 2020, National Defense Magazine reported Tuesday.

The report noted that the active protection system was designed to engage anti-tank guided missiles and rocket-propelled grenades and the service branch will equip a brigade of Abrams tanks to be stationed in Europe.

“The Army made a decision [that] we would move forward on phase two — which is our final series of testing — and phase three — which is production and deployment, essentially — simultaneously,” said Dean during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington, D.C.

Dean noted that Trophy was evaluated at Camp Grayling, Michigan to assess the system’s durability in cold environments then further live testing activities were conducted at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

Michael O’Leary, director of business development at Leonardo DRS, said that the company looks to supply a Trophy system for the Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles to help the service branch meet size, weight and power requirements for the vehicles.

Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, has said the U.S. Navy has begun to explore ways on how to harness collected data to accelerate the decision-making process as the U.S. faces threats from peer adversaries such as Russia and China, Federal News Radio reported Tuesday.

Tighe said at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association’s Navy IT day the service branch is working on ways to generate decisions quickly through data collected from various sources such as financial systems and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors.

She mentioned the Navy’s efforts to help functional area managers identify data that can be used to perform certain functions and cited the need for a data strategy as the service migrates data to the cloud.

“Part of that calculus requires a data strategy that makes sense of the data that we’re moving to the cloud, which data needs to go to which kinds of clouds,” Tighe said.

“Which data needs to be organized together, what are the standards by which we’re collecting that data.”

Michael Griffin, former NASA administrator, has come out as the most likely candidate for the role of defense undersecretary for research and engineering, sources told Defense News.

Griffin led the space agency between 2005 and 2009, Defense News reported Monday.

The USDR&E role is part of a reorganization plan the Defense Department announced in August and plans to implement in February 2018.

Under the restructuring effort, DoD plans to split the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics role into two positions in which one will be responsible for acquisition and sustainment functions – USDA&S – while the other undersecretary will oversee R&E efforts.

Ellen Lord, formerly Textron Systems president and CEO, was confirmed in August as DoD’s acquisition chief and will transition to the USDA&S role once the restructuring plan takes effect on Feb. 1.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has called on Defense Department leaders to prepare military options that the U.S. government can use in response to North Korea if diplomatic measures fail, Politico reported Monday.

Mattis told the audience at the Association of the U.S. Army conference that current actions against North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons activities are currently led by diplomacy and economic sanctions.

“Now, what does the future hold? Neither you nor I can say, so there’s one thing the U.S. Army can do, and that is we have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed,” Mattis added.

The defense secretary also urged Congress to eliminate budget caps on defense to help maintain the U.S. military’s readiness, Washington Examiner reported.

Mattis said at the AUSA conference that the Army and other services should support the move to repeal the $549 billion spending cap for fiscal year 2018 by voicing the need for additional funds to stay ahead of adversaries.