FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. What women want. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “When it comes to the best benefits for attracting women applicants, the answers may surprise you. It isn’t paid maternity leave or on-site day care that women find most attractive, but ‘gender neutral’ benefits including telework, mentorship programs and paid training. . . .”
2. Money matters. Also from Lindy Kyzer, “Cleared professionals are expecting their employers to ‘show them the money’ this year, according to a recent survey of cleared professionals. And many are setting their sights higher than the standard three percent pay raise. . . . It’s yet another sign of upward movement in the defense and government contracting industry. After years of sequestration, shrinking budgets and employee furloughs, the future looks brighter.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Slowing withdrawal in Afghanistan. Reuters reports, “President Barack Obama on Tuesday granted Afghan requests to slow the drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and said he would maintain a force of 9,800 through the end of 2015 while sticking to a 2017 exit plan. Capping a day of VIP treatment for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the White House, Obama said the U.S. force would be kept at its current strength to train and assist Afghan forces, who took over responsibility for the fight against Taliban and other Islamic militants at the start of the year.” See also, “Afghan president expected to get warm welcome from Congress” and “What is driving a remarkable shift in US-Afghan relations?”
2. Jaysh al Fateh born to get Idlib. The Long War Journal’s Thomas Joscelyn reports, “Earlier this week, several rebel groups announced that they had established a new coalition named Jaysh al Fateh. In addition to Al Nusrah, the coalition includes Ahrar al Sham, Jund al Aqsa, Liwa al Haqq, Jaysh al Sunna, Ajnad al Sham, and Faylaq al Sham. The coalition has the city of Idlib in its crosshairs, having already captured much of the surrounding territory. The alliance launched its offensive . . . utilizing suicide bombers in a complex assault.” See also, “Jund al Aqsa launches suicide bombings in support of Idlib offensive” and “Syrian rebels launch offensive to capture Idlib city.”
3. Radical recruiting. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “U.S. law enforcement, with no clear understanding of how Americans are being recruited, are scrambling to identify U.S. residents attracted to radical Islamic ideology before those individuals try to travel or worse- launch an attack on U.S. soil. Many American ISIS or Islamic extremist recruits are immigrants or children of immigrants with roots in Muslim countries, while some are recent converts to Islam. They come from across the country, but most are from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, home to the largest U.S. Somali-immigrant community.”
4. FOAL EAGLE underway. Defense Media Activity’s Lisa Ferdinando reports, “The joint operations are defensive in nature, and each year North Korea reacts . . . . he exercises are held to ‘rekindle’ tactics, techniques and procedures, to ensure the United States can operate collaboratively with its own joint force and with its South Korean allies . . . . The Key Resolve exercise took place the first two weeks of March. It involved computer simulations hosted at various sites across South Korea and the United States. This year’s Foal Eagle exercise, running March 2 to April 24, is a series of joint and combined field training exercises spanning ground, air, naval, and special operations.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Promoting Northrop Grumman’s UCAS drone. Breaking Defense’s Colin Clark reports, “Former Navy pilot Sen. John McCain wants the Navy to build its first carrier-based drone with the ability to carry two tons of weapons in a stealthy platform able to fly into harm’s way and not primarily as a reconnaissance aircraft. And McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Serves Committee, went straight to Defense Secretary Ash Carter to make his case in a letter . . . . McCain urges the Pentagon to actually use the UCAS-D — better known as Northrop Grumman’s X-47B — to learn more about how to use carrier-based drones.”
2. AMRAAM $1 billion+ purchase. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Air Force airborne weapons experts are ordering several hundred of the nation’s most sophisticated radar-guided air-to-air missiles under terms of a contract modification . . . . The system is an active radar-guided intercept missile with inherent electronic protection capabilities for air-to-air applications against massed penetration aircraft and is designed to replace the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile. Tuesday’s order follows a similar AMRAAM deal three months ago for AMRAAM Lot 28 production. Since December the Air Force has placed AMRAAM missile orders with Raytheon worth more than $1 billion.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Spy story: Ralph W. McGehee. Business Insider shares an excerpt from McGehee’s Deadly Deceits: “She had been observing my strange comings and goings, my home office with its safe, map, and cameras, and my frequent hushed conversations with a variety of visitors. She wanted to know what it was all about. I braced myself. I knew that simple question was inevitable, one that every child asks sooner or later, but I had dreaded it.”
2. DARPA’s robot ghost ship: the Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, “In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced that they were building a 132-foot autonomous boat to track quiet, diesel-powered submarines. . . . To little notice, the system earlier this year passed a critical test, moving much closer to actual deployment and potentially changing not just naval warfare but also the way humans, ships, and robotic systems interact across the world’s waters.”
3. Revived: the Surveillance State Repeal Act. The Daily Caller’s Giuseppe Macri reports, “Some of the strongest reforms to the U.S. national security apparatus ever introduced in Congress were revived Tuesday by a pair of congressmen in the House of Representatives. . . . The bill would legally dismantle the National Security Agency’s most aggressive surveillance programs, including the bulk collection and retention of virtually all Americans’ landline phone records justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.”
4. CIA’s domestic game. Wall Street Journal’s Devlin Barrett reports, “The top two lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee are pressing the Justice Department with concerns the Central Intelligence Agency helped domestic law enforcement develop technology to scan U.S. cellphones. . . . At issue is a secret technology, used in both domestic law enforcement and U.S. military and intelligence operations overseas, in which a device mimics a cellphone tower, forcing all phones in range to identify themselves. The devices have had various names, including ‘dirtbox’ . . . .”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Kumbaya, m’Lord. “President Obama Tuesday stood by his earlier remarks that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had damaged the prospects of a Mideast peace process by saying in the closing days of his re-election campaign that there would be no Palestinian state during his tenure as Israel’s leader. . . . ‘ He is representing his country’s interest in the way he thinks he needs to do and I am doing the same. . . . This can’t be reduced to a matter of somehow let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya . . . it’s how can we get through a really knotty policy dispute’ . . . .”
2. Hands off! “Put former Rep. Barney Frank down as a Democrat not backing a potential Joe Biden for president campaign. In an interview to promote his new biography, the retired Massachusetts lawmaker slapped Vice President Biden as somebody who ‘lacks discipline’ and is ‘his own worst enemy.’ . . . Biden has a well-deserved reputation for speaking frankly, sometimes too much so, and has caught flack for being too touchy, most recently with wife of Defense Secretary Ash Carter.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “President Obama Must Stand With Afghanistan.” Politico contributor Senator Tom Cotton argues, “Afghanistan is at the heart of America’s national security policy. Were it not for Al Qaeda’s safe haven there, we might not have been attacked on 9/11. And Afghanistan stands as our one, irrefutable victory in the war against Islamic terror: We expelled Al Qaeda, and it hasn’t returned. President Obama, commit to making sure it remains that way.”
2. “Arming America’s allies is risky any way you do it.” Reuters contributor David Axe argues, “Arming an ally to fight on America’s behalf can save U.S. lives and money. But it’s not a foolproof strategy. With U.S.-made weapons, the main danger lies in controlling where the hardware winds up. With Russian-made gear, the greater risk is in where the weapons came from.”
3. “Iraq must stop onslaught of militia madness.” Rudaw contributor Ruwayda Mustafah Rabar argues, “The only solution for Iraq’s long-term prosperity is to control the influence and spread of militia groups. Iraq’s government should think beyond containing ISIS threat because the risk of militia groups growing more effective than the government is a serious threat.”
THE FUNNIES
2. Please, don’t play it again.
3. Abandon ship.
