Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said budget instability, denial of necessary reforms and micromanagement are the three budget concerns the Defense Department faces, DoD News reported Thursday.

Terri Moon Cronk writes Carter appeared with Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday to discuss concerns over a possible continuing resolution, military operations and national security challenges.

“Instead of stability, we’re going into fiscal year 2017 with yet another continuing resolution… for the eighth fiscal year in a row, [and] that’s a deplorable state of affairs,” Carter said.

“The CR that goes past December would undermine our plan to quadruple our European Reassurance Initiative,” he added.

Carter also asked the Senate panel to approve the defense budget request for fiscal 2017 as the U.S. military works to address the challenges posed by Russia, North Korea, Iran, China and the Islamic State militant organization, according to the report.

Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Hokanson, former deputy commander of the U.S. Northern Command, was approved by the Senate on Thursday to serve as the new vice chief of the National Guard Bureau.

He helped spearhead Northcom’s efforts to prepare for and address threats within North America and the command’s area of responsibility as well as managed the military organization’s defense support to civil authorities, the National Guard said Monday.

Hokanson also previously served as vice commander of the North American Aerospace Command’s U.S. element, adjutant general of the Oregon National Guard, commander of the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team based in Iraq and chief of staff at Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix in Afghanistan.

He has completed more than 2,600 flight hours as a command pilot in the AH-64 Apache, OH-58 Kiowa and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

He also supported the Operations Just Cause, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom missions.

His personal decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit and Combat Action Badge.

President Barack Obama has signed a memorandum that requires government agencies to consider the effects of climate change in the development and implementation of national security policies and plans.

The memorandum aims to establish a system that will integrate climate science data and insights into national security policymaking functions, National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Senior Advisor Brian Deese wrote in a blog post published Wednesday.

Rice and Deese said the memorandum requires 20 agencies to form a working group that will identify U.S. national security priorities related to climate change.

The 20 agencies will also create a climate change and national security action plan to aid information sharing on climate change risks, the blog post stated.

The memorandum also directs agencies to develop strategies to address climate-related threats such as impacts on economy, food security and the flow of migrants and refugees.

The National Intelligence Council also released a report that stated climate change could pose national security challenges for the U.S. in the next two decades.

The report showed that climate change will continue to threaten the stability of countries, social and political climate, health, food security and economic growth.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work has said the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center serves as the initial organizational construct of the Defense Department’s Third Offset Strategy, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Cheryl Pellerin writes Work told audience at an Air Force Association conference in Maryland that JICSpOC at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado “is designed to perform battle management and command and control of a space constellation under threat of attack.”

“It has to fight through those attacks and provide the space support that the joint force relies upon,” he added.

Work, an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 for 2016, noted that the Third Offset Strategy seeks to restore the U.S. military’s tactical and operational superiority over potential adversaries, Pellerin reports.

“Offset strategies are… about technologically enabled operational and organizational constructs that [give] the joint force an advantage — primarily at the operational level of war, but also the tactical — thereby strengthening conventional deterrence,” he said.

Work also mentioned learning machines, human-machine combat teaming, assisted-human operations, network-enabled autonomous weapons and human-machine collaboration as the strategy’s five technology elements, according to the report.