Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

4. Department of Defense · Notable

Field an advanced battle management system for Joint All Domain Command and Control

Partially done

114 4. Department of Defense

“Attain an operationally optimized advanced battle management system as the Air Force element of the DOD Joint All Domain Command and Control enterprise.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The Air Force's own budget still books ABMS as a prototype, and that is the answer to the operational question. The FY 2027 R-1 carries PE 0604003F, Advanced Battle Management System, at line 37 under **Budget Activity 04, "Advanced component development and prototypes"** - not Budget Activity 07, Operational system development, where the same exhibit puts fielded programs: $595,537K FY2025 actual, **$870,876K FY2026 enacted**, **$1,040,945K requested for FY2027**. The enacted figure is $151,599K below the $1,022,475,000 the FY2026 NDAA authorized, which is a gap between an authorization and an appropriation rather than a cut to the request. Two negatives from the summary books point the same way. In the FY 2027 Budget Request Overview Book, "Advanced Battle Management System" appears **only in the Appendix B acronym list**, while the $2.3 billion the Department names for delivering CJADC2 to joint warfighting capabilities goes to the Maven Smart System and the Joint Fires Network - other programs, not the Air Force element the Quote asks for. GAO reached the same place from the other end on 2025-04-08, finding that DOD "has yet to build a framework that can guide CJADC2-related investments across DOD or track progress toward its goals". So `done` is unavailable for a reason the record now states rather than for want of a readable host: the Air Force element is funded as a prototype at a rising level, and nothing on an allowlisted source calls it operationally optimized.

  2. Partially done

    The FY2026 NDAA (P.L. 119-60) funds program element 0604003F, Advanced Battle Management System, at $1,022,475,000 - $18,000,000 below the request - and sec. 227 requires a joint multi-domain range complex in the western States capable of testing and training in Joint All Domain Command and Control, with an initial demonstration within a year of enactment. Sec. 219 puts the Joint Fires Network under Director of Operational Test and Evaluation reporting. The system is funded and being tested; nothing on an allowlisted source calls it operationally optimized or fielded.

  3. Partially done

    Section 20005 of the reconciliation act (P.L. 119-21) appropriated $400,000,000 for the development and deployment of the Joint Fires Network and associated joint battle management capabilities and $400,000,000 to expand advanced command-and-control tools to combatant commands and military departments - the joint layer the Air Force element is meant to plug into.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Both the appropriation and the authorization were read in full text.

  • The earlier claim that war.gov and media.defense.gov both refuse automated reads was wrong and is withdrawn (2026-09-06). Both answer a normal browser request; comptroller.war.gov, which carries the budget exhibits, answers even a bare one. The operational question was never unanswerable for want of a site, and it is answered in the 2026-04-21 event above.
  • The small authorization cut below the request is recorded because it bears on the ask: Congress funded ABMS, but did not add to it. The FY 2027 R-1 then shows appropriators landing $151,599K below even that authorization.
  • The 2026-09-03 negative was measured against the wrong exhibit, and that is the lesson worth keeping. A search on 2026-09-03 recorded zero hits for “Advanced Battle Management”, “JADC2” and “CJADC2” in the FY 2027 Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System book (generated 2026-04-21) and read it as a negative about the program. Re-measured 2026-09-06: the count is right and the inference was not. That book lists Major Weapon Systems, which are procurement lines; ABMS is an RDT&E program element, so the exhibit that carries it is the R-1, where it sits at line 37 as PE 0604003F with $1,040,945K requested for FY2027. This is the same trap as #213’s three names for one aircraft, in its other form: the term was right and the document was wrong.
  • war.gov releases, 2025-01-02 to 2026-09-03, carry nothing on ABMS. The site’s article feed (1,500 items) returns zero hits for “ABMS” and “JADC2” and one for “battle management”: the 2026-06-25 release announcing “Agent Network”, the Chief Digital and AI Office’s second Pace-Setting Project, built on Maven Smart System and delivered with USPACOM, USSOUTHCOM and USEUCOM. That is a Department-wide AI targeting and battle-management capability, not the Air Force element of the JADC2 enterprise the Quote names, so because progress is measured on this ask it is recorded here and not as an event.
Action
create
Object
Advanced Battle Management System
ID
214