FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. What the hot cleared jobs are. Contributor Tranette Ledford shares, “With 2014 already well underway, employment projections show increasingly high demand for cleared careers across the nation. Compilations from Gartner, U.S. News and World Report and the Department of Labor all cite specific technology careers as the top earning fields, and they’re equally heavy with opportunity as the world moves further into the digital era.”
2. Best locations for young, cleared Vets. Also from T. Ledford, “According to the U.S. Census Bureau and the American Community Survey, some cities have an exceptionally high number of younger workers. When those cities also have a strong defense industry presence, they’re good bets for younger, cleared veterans looking for jobs.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. BRAC Attack: pushing for Base Realignment and Closure. DefenseNews.Com’s Paul McLeary reports, “Senior US Army leadership has doubled down on its support for another round of shuttering and shrinking domestic installations, with Army Secretary John McHugh telling a congressional committee Tuesday morning that the service could save about $1 billion a year by undertaking a new round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC.)”
2. SecDef’s advisor for military professionalism. American Forces Press Service’s Jim Garamone reports, “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has chosen Navy Rear Adm. Margaret ‘Peg’ Klein to serve as his senior advisor for military professionalism. . . . In her new job, Klein will report directly to Hagel. In addition to coordinating the actions of the Joint Staff, the combatant commands and the military services, she will work directly with the service secretaries and chiefs on the Defense Department’s focus on ethics, character and competence in all activities at every level of command with an uncompromising culture of accountability . . . .”
3. DoD’s “smart” civilian workforce reduction. NextGov.Com’s Bob Brewin reports, “Secretary of the Army John McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee today that the service’s civilian workforce will drop to 263,000 at the end of fiscal 2015, a drop of 22,000 from its Afghanistan and Iraq war high of 285,000. McHugh and Odierno said ‘we will do it smartly, focusing on preserving the most important capabilities.’”
4. North Korea begs for attention. Christian Science Monitor reports, “North Korea test-fired two medium-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, South Korea and the US said, a defiant challenge to a rare three-way summit of its rivals Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington that focused on the North’s security threat. The launch of the Rodong missiles—for the first time since 2009—violates UN Security Council resolutions and marks a big escalation from a series of shorter-range rocket launches the North has staged in recent weeks to protest ongoing annual military drills by the US and South Korea that Pyongyang claims are invasion preparation.”
5. Syrian rebels take the beach, sort of. Aljazeera.Com reports, “Syrian rebels have seized control of a tourist site by the Turkish border that allowed them a small foothold by the Mediterranean for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad erupted three years ago, activists said. Amateur video posted online by activists on Tuesday shows a group of rebels by the sea in the seaside strip known as Samra, some sitting on rocks and raising their guns.” LongWarJournal.Org’s Thomas Joscelyn reports, “Muhsin al Fadhli, a senior al Qaeda leader who once headed the organization’s network in Iran, relocated to Syria in mid-2013, according to a report in The Arab Times on March 21. . . . the publication reports that al Fadhli has joined the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria. He was apparently sent to the country after a dispute broke out between Al Nusrah and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS).”
6. Iraq—worst since 2008. Also from Aljazeera.Com, “Violence across Iraq has killed more than 80 people, including 41 soldiers, and left scores more injured, amid the country’s worst protracted period of unrest since 2008. The bloodshed on Tuesday comes just weeks before Iraq is due to hold its first national vote since 2010, though the poll was thrown into disarray earlier when the entire electoral commission resigned over political interference. In the deadliest attack, 22 soldiers were killed and 15 others injured in al-Nibaee village, near Taji city, north of Baghdad.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Boeing lands DARPA. GovConWire.Com reports, “Boeing (NYSE: BA) will work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop and test an airborne launching system for deploying small satellites under a potential $104 million contract. The contract contains $30,673,934 in base funds and two option periods that are separately worth $72,044,948 and $2,032,857, DARPA said . . . .”
2. Contractors’ Veteran hiring rule. FederalTimes.Com’s Nicole Blake Johnson reports, “New rules that took effect Monday require federal contractors to adopt benchmarks for hiring certain groups of veterans and disabled workers. One of those rules updates the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, which prohibits contractors and their subcontractors from discriminating against protected veterans when hiring. Under the new regulation, contractors are now required to set annual benchmarks and measure their progress in hiring and recruiting disabled veterans and other vets protected by law.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Robot Soldiers update. DefenseOne.Com contributor Patrick Tucker reports, “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Robotics Challenge, which is trying to build a walking, climbing, humanoid robot for ‘disaster relief’ operations, has inspired excitement, speculation and anxiety about Terminator-style robots on the future battlefield.”
2. Three Secret Service job openings. AP’s Josh Lederman reports, “The Secret Service sent three agents home from the Netherlands just before President Barack Obama’s arrival after one agent was found inebriated in an Amsterdam hotel . . . . all three were on the Counter Assault Team, which defends the president if he comes under attack, and that one agent was a ‘team leader.’ . . . The Secret Service’s reputation for rowdy, fraternity-like behavior snowballed in April 2012 in the run-up to another Obama foreign trip, this one in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, Colombia, where 13 agents and officers were accused of carousing with female foreign nationals at a hotel where they were staying before Obama’s arrival.”
3. F-35—severe turbulence. FedScoop.Com’s Dan Verton reports, “Continued software problems related to the Defense Department’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program could lead to delivery delays of less-capable aircraft at a long-term price tag that may prove unaffordable . . . . In addition to delivery deadlines and weapon system capabilities issues, DOD also faces steep financial burdens related to the F-35 acquisition effort. For the program to continue as planned, DOD will have to dedicate an average of $12.6 billion per year through 2037, with several years peaking at $15 billion, according to GAO.” NextGov.Com’s Bob Brewin reports, “Slow progress in developing, delivering and testing mission systems software for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ‘continues to be the most significant risk area’ for the $397 billion tri-service project, the most expensive in history, the Government Accountability Office reported.” Read the GAO report.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. One for the road: “Three Secret Service agents in the Netherlands ahead of President Obama’s trip there were sent home prior to the president’s arrival, reportedly after a night of excessive drinking. One agent was discovered drunk and passed out in a hotel hallway. . . . The individuals were reportedly members of the service’s Counter Assault Team, which is tasked with protecting the president if he comes under attack.”
2. Russia in context: “’Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan,’ said [President] Obama.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Some Silver Lining in the Ukraine Crisis.” USNews.Com contributor Ilan Berman argues, “The Obama administration is now talking tough about what it is prepared to do in order to confront and deter Russia. But Moscow will only understand that the White House truly means what it says when it sees Washington make real, meaningful changes to its defense spending and strategic outlook. Thanks to Putin’s provocative moves, those changes might come about sooner rather than later.”
2. “Europe beware: Isolating Russia will turn it into Hitler’s Germany.” Christian Science Monitor contributor Jacques Attali argues, “Today’s ongoing confrontation will get us nowhere at best. At worst, it will invite a repeat of history when a series of absurd events resulted in the outbreak of world war.”
3. “Syria’s Latest Victim: International Law.” Time contributor Dave Miliband argues, “The crisis in the Ukraine has rightly focused attention on the implications for international law as well as international relations. But it is not the only contemporary example of disarray in the defence of international laws. The war in Syria is not only descending into a war without end. It is a war without law—international humanitarian law.”
THE FUNNIES
2. Military matters.
3. Press brief.
