Dannelly Field Air Guard Station, Gowen Field Air Guard Station, Jacksonville Air Guard Station, Selfridge Air National Guard Base and Truax Air Guard Station are among potential hosts being considered for the F-35A fighter jet, Defense Tech reported Wednesday.

Oriana Pawlyk writes the U.S. Air Force will select two out of the bases to host the Lockheed Martin-built jet and noted that the service branch looks to deliver its first F-35A to Burlington Air Guard Station by 2019.

“The Air Force is committed to a deliberate and open process to address F-35 basing,” said Jennifer Miller, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations.

“As we progress through the basing process, we will share information so interested communities are aware of what to expect.

The report noted that the Air Force will also perform an environmental analysis as well as on-site surveys to compute cost estimates, infrastructure, logistics, manpower and potential impact to existing missions.

The Government Accountability Office has recommended the Defense Department define the role of chief military officers and deputy chief military officers in the militaryt’s strategic planning process.

According to a report published Wednesday GAO also suggested the alignment of DOD’s and military departments’ business transformation goals and objectives under that Agency Strategic Plan.

The report noted that 29 individuals have held CMO and DCMO roles within the DoD, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force from 2010 to 2016 to oversee business functions such as acquisitions and logistics.

Auditors said the military departments and DoD have faced challenges on retaining individuals in such positions because of a lack of alignment between the business transformation strategic planning efforts between the organizations.

DoD has also not aligned the military departments’ goals and objectives with the Pentagon’s Agency Strategic Plan, GAO added.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a program that seeks to help small-unit ground combat forces to control multiple unmanned air and ground vehicles.

DARPA said Wednesday it aims to develop and demonstrate more than 100 swarm tactics that could be applied by groups of unmanned air or ground systems with more than 100 robots through the OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics initiative.

“We aim to provide the tools to quickly generate swarm tactics, evaluate those swarm tactics for effectiveness, and integrate the best swarm tactics into field operations,” said Timothy Chung, a DARPA program manager.

Chung added OFFSET could potentially develop battlefield functions such as distributed perception, resilient communications, adaptive collective behaviors and dispersed computing and analytics.

OFFSET will offer engagement opportunities and share swarm tactics with anticipated U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps end-users.

The program calls for the development of a human-swarm interface that will work to monitor and manage swarms of unmanned platforms in real time as well as a networked virtual environment that will support a swarm tactics game where players could explore, evolve and evaluate swarm tactics.

DARPA also seeks to establish a community-driven program portal where participants can design swarm tactics and combine collective behaviors through the initiative.

The agency will host an event on Jan. 30, 2017 in Arlington, Virginia to discuss OFFSET and answer questions from potential proposers.

The Government Accountability Office has called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create a guidance for information recording on federal water resources projects undertaken by nonfederal sponsors.

GAO said Tuesday USACE headquarters does not monitor information on nonfederal sponsor-led federal water resources projects such as reimbursements that the Corps has issued for the federal share of the projects.

The report stated USACE headquarters collects reimbursement information from Corps district officials but GAO received varying information from the headquarters and the districts.

District officials told GAO that USACE guidance does not establish clear roles and responsibilities for federal water resources projects while nonfederal sponsors claimed that the Corps does not have a definite guide on project implementation process.

USACE published implementation guidance for feasibility studies undertaken by nonfederal entities in February 2016, where the Corps said it is not authorized to assist nonfederal sponsors in such studies except in certain circumstances.

The Corps will also issue draft guidance for construction projects led by nonfederal sponsors later this year.

John Kerry, Secretary of State, and Federica Mogherini, European Union representative for foreign affairs and security policy, have signed the European Union Military Logistical Assistance Agreement in a push to boost crisis response and foster security around the world.

U.S. European Command said Wednesday the State Department released a statement that noted the U.S.-EU Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement will also look to bolster the strategic partnership between the EU and NATO.

“(Eurcom) is deeply integrated across the region and this agreement increases our ability to rapidly exchange logistics support between our respective military forces in any situation,” said Navy Rear Adm. Paul Verrastro, European Command director of logistics.

The agreement completes a pledge during the 2014 U.S.-EU Summit to boost practical security and crisis response management cooperation, the State Department said Tuesday.

State Department added that ACSA will oversee the reciprocal provision of logistic support, services and supplies between the U.S. and EU at times of military deployments and operations.