FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. What’s your status? Editor Lindy Kyzer offers, “Want your online profile to get noticed? Posting a status message is one of the best ways to signal that you’re active – whether you’re a job seeker actively considering new opportunities or a recruiter actively pursuing new candidates. But since your status message should be updated fairly frequently, it can be difficult to come up with something new to say.. . . Whether you’re a recruiter or job seeker, here are some sample status messages to help you shine.”
2. Marketing your clearance. Also from Lindy Kyzer, “If you’re searching for a cleared job, companies care who the issuing agency is. While clearance reciprocity has always been a topic of reform efforts, it’s still faster for a company looking to staff a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract to be able to find DHS-cleared professionals. Some of the most in-demand candidates are those with a DHS clearance.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Guilty: Eddie Ray Routh. Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe reports, “Eddie Ray Routh, the man who killed “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and his friend in a rifle range rampage, will spend the rest of his life in prison. Routh, 27, was convicted Tuesday night of first-degree murder in the Feb. 2, 2013, killings of former Navy SEAL Kyle, 38, and Chad Littlefield, 35. . . . The jury of two men and 10 women found Routh guilty with a unanimous vote in the Erath County District Court . . . .”
2. Index of Military Strength: “not beefy.” Breaking Defense’s Colin Clark reports, “The conservative Heritage Foundation has published an ambitious Index of Military Strength, which . . . finds that the United States military is not beefy enough to manage the many threats it faces around the world. . . . In fact, three of the four Joint Chiefs of Staff told the House Armed Services Committee in late 2013 that they couldn’t meet the Defense Strategic Guidance standard of one MRC and one hold if sequestration had stuck through 2014.” Read the 2015 Index of Military Strength.
3. Famous last words: “no way.” Defense News’ John T. Bennett reports, “There is ‘no way possible’ for the White House’s proposed Islamic War authorization measure to lead to a third massive US military ground conflict in the Middle East, Secretary of State John Kerry told senators Tuesday. Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a White House-crafted authorization of the use of military force (AUMF) would authorize ‘no long-term combat.’ He added the Obama administration is not asking ‘to build up to a new Iraq or Afghanistan.’ ‘That’s not what we’re doing,’ he said.” See also, “Islamic State kidnaps around 150 Assyrian Christians in Syria” and “The new terrorists and the roots they share with gangs and drug lords.”
4. Capacity: what Ukraine needs. Defense One contributor Derek Chollet reports, “With the recent agreement in Minsk for a ceasefire in Ukraine, it may be tempting to put the brakes on assistance for the Ukrainian military. But given how brittle this agreement remains – as well as Ukraine’s long-term security needs – it is imperative not just that such efforts move ahead, but that the U.S. and Europe cooperate in doing so.”
5. Women Rangers. Christian Science Monitor’s Anna Mulrine reports, “Halfway through its preparations for the first-ever coed Ranger School in April, the Army took a moment to publicly take stock of how women are doing. . . .”
6. Close air support conference. Aviation Week’s Amy Butler reports, “Air Combat Command chief Gen. Herbert ‘Hawk’ Carlisle is hosting a week-long, multiservice summit on CAS early in March. Among the topics to be discussed are conducting CAS in a ‘contested’ environment, a term referring to airspace that is defended, though not with high-end integrated defenses seen in the anti-access area-denied (A2AD) situations.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $144 million for Hellfire missiles foreign sales. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Army anti-armor missile experts are ordering more than 2,000 U.S.-made Hellfire II tactical missiles for the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Australia. Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., announced a $144 million contract modification Tuesday to Hellfire Systems LLC in Orlando, Fla., to produce 2,060 Hellfire II missile models AGM-114R, AGM-114R-3, AGM-114P-4A, ATM-114Q-6, and AGM-114R-5.”
2. $1.1 billion: Army’s helo shopping spree. Also from Military & Aerospace Electronics, “The past month has seen the U.S. military on a buying spree for advanced helicopters designed for a wide range of tasks from reconnaissance to attack. Since late January U.S. Army aviation authorities have announced orders for 84 helicopters worth about $1.1 billion. The three separate orders are for 35 AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters for the U.S. Army; eight AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters for the government of Indonesia; and 41 UH-72A Lakota light helicopters for the U.S. Army.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Predicting hacks. Nextgov’s Aliya Sternstein reports, “Academics and industry scientists are teaming up to build software that can analyze publicly available data and a specific organization’s network activity to find patterns suggesting the likelihood of an imminent hack. The dream of the future: A White House supercomputer spitting out forecasts on the probability that, say, China will try to intercept situation room video that day, or that Russia will eavesdrop on Secretary of State John Kerry’s phone conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
2. DARPA’s Communicating with Computers program. DARPA reports, “The lifelong human imperative to communicate is so strong that people talk not only to other people but also to their pets, their plants and their computers. Unlike pets and plants, computers might one day reciprocate. DARPA’s new Communicating with Computers (CwC) program aims to develop technology to turn computers into good communicators.”
3. Beefing up VA’s cybersecurity. Nextgov’s Jack Moore reports, “The Department of Veterans Affairs wants to spend at least 15 percent more on cybersecurity measures next year. The department’s fiscal 2016 budget request proposes upping spending at the Office of Information Security by about $24 million to a total of $180 million next year . . . . The focus on cyber makes sense given the large target VA has proven to be for hackers.” See also, “Do feds waste half of IT spending?”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Friday’s coming, baby. “The dispute between the vulnerable Republican and the Alabama conservative highlights the larger challenges facing McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner. The two are staring at a Friday deadline to avoid a shutdown of DHS but are struggling to balance the demands of immigration hard-liners with Republicans who fear political and practical fallout from DHS shutting down. McConnell has been quiet for weeks about his next steps. But his new proposal on Tuesday . . . signaled that he’s nervous a shutdown could damage his party politically. Twenty-four GOP senators are up for reelection next year.”
2. On familiar ground. “Bringing legislation to the floor that would only pass with help from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democrats could significantly undermine the Speaker’s credibility with his 245-member caucus — the largest majority the GOP has had in generations. House Republicans will huddle in a private meeting in the Capitol basement on Wednesday morning to discuss their options, and it’s likely to be a tense gathering.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “What’s the Matter With the American Military?” The Atlantic contributor Sebastian Junger argues, “War is too serious a business to be filtered through politics or even personal belief. Like science or justice, it should be implacably neutral. Anything less fails to honor the many lives, both civilian and military, that were lost in these conflicts.”
2. “US wants to hack your phone because it doesn’t have real spies it needs.” Reuters’ contributor Patrick G. Eddington argues, “The FBI’s attack on the encryption revolution is an assault on the efforts by citizens to maintain their Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure. Instead of fighting the modern encryption revolution, the government should be embracing it.” See also, “Secrecy around police surveillance equipment proves a case’s undoing” and “NSA Director Mike Rogers vs. Yahoo! on Encryption Back Doors.”
3. “Russia Lost the Long Game at Debaltseve.” The Moscow Times contributor Alexander Golts argues, “As for Debaltseve, the military victory there is probably a political failure. After all, according to the logic of Russian officials, it turns out that the separatists can simply ignore President Vladimir Putin’s will.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Catastrophizing.
2. Loose cannons.
