Tops for Tuesday & “That’s the fact, Jack!”
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Signed, Miserable in My Job. Contributor Diana Rodriguez plays Dear Abby for you and your job: “If the current job shows no hope of improvement, start looking for a better fit in another organization. Try to stick it out in the current job until another can be secured. Searching for a new job while still employed is always preferable, financially speaking and from a hiring manager’s perspective. Don’t consider quitting the current job until a new offer letter has been signed.” Remember this one?
2. With equivocation and mental reservation. Contributor D.B. Grady examines rhetoric: “There is a term of art in politics and among intelligence professionals that is known as the ‘limited hangout.’. . . The technique involves disclosing a self-contained and sensational but relatively benign story to overshadow something more damaging. It’s a non-confession, with the agency or individual seeming to ‘lay all the cards on the table,’ and assuage concerns that anyone is trying to hide anything. Upon learning the ‘truth’ as presented, the public is mollified and moves on with no real scrutiny of note, missing the real story altogether.” [That would be a great name for a high-end D.C. watering hole: Limited Hangout.]
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Shrinking the military. DefenseNews.Com’s Paul McLeary reports, “When it comes to the US Army and Marine Corps, there were no real surprises in Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s peek today of the 2015 defense budget. The Marines only merited one line, when Hagel confirmed that the Corps would lose 8,000 grunts in coming years as it drops to 182,000 personnel, and if sequestration returns in 2016, would shrink further to 175,000. The Army, on the other hand, actually leaped ahead of the secretary in recent months, laying out time and again everything that would happen to the force in coming budgets.” And from Christian Science Monitor, “The new budget, if it were to be approved by Congress, will take the Army down to pre-World War II levels – a good idea given that the US military is not likely to be waging troop-intensive nation-building operations for some time to come, Secretary Hagel said during a briefing with reporters.”
2. Turning up the heat on the cold war. Reuters’ Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk report, “Ukraine’s fugitive president was indicted for ‘mass murder’ on Monday over the shooting of demonstrators as new leaders in Kiev sought urgent Western aid to make up for a loss of funding from Russia, which is angry at the overthrow of its ally. . . . While Russia, its strategy for maintaining influence in its former Soviet neighbor in shreds, made clear its $15-billion package of loans and cheap gas deals was in jeopardy, the European Union and United States offered urgent financial assistance for a new government that may be formed on Tuesday.” Vice-President Biden behind the scenes in Ukraine.
3. al Sisi sets the stage in Egypt. Time’s Aryn Baker reports, “In an unanticipated statement read on live TV, Egypt’s interim Prime Minister declared the resignation of his Cabinet on Monday, a move likely to open the way for the country’s popular Defense Minister to run for the presidency in upcoming elections. For many Egyptians, that will be the announcement that can’t come fast enough. Already the streets of Cairo are draped in banners celebrating Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.”
4. Strange bedfellows—Iraq turns to Iran for weapons. Reuters contributor Ahmed Rasheed reports, “Iran has signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million, according to documents seen by Reuters – a move that would break a U.N. embargo on weapons sales by Tehran. The agreement was reached at the end of November, the documents showed, just weeks after Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki returned from lobbying the Obama administration in Washington for extra weapons to fight al Qaeda-linked militants. Some in Washington are nervous about providing sensitive U.S. military equipment to a country they worry is becoming too close to Iran. Several Iraqi lawmakers said Maliki had made the deal because he was fed up with delays in U.S. arms deliveries.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Cargo UAV – on its way. AviationWeek.Com’s Graham Warwick reports, “What was once a Pentagon research program to demonstrate a flying jeep has been given a new name and a new direction. Formerly called Transformer, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (Darpa) rechristened Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded Systems (ARES) program will now fly a modular, unmanned vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) delivery system.”
2. Raytheon wins $123 million with S. Korean Navy. GovConWire.Com’s Rick Nelson reports, “Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) has struck a $123 million direct commercial sale contract with South Korea to provide nine close-in weapon systems for that nation’s warship fleet. The company will supply and install its Phalanx radar and gun platform aboard the South Korean navy’s FFX-class frigates and AOE-class combat support vessels, Raytheon said Monday. The maritime self-defense systems are scheduled for delivery beginning in 2016 through 2022.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Drenched in drones. NextGov.Com’s Tim Fernholz reports, “While the Global Hawk has been subject to cost overruns in the past and faced opposition from Air Force brass, Northrop’s lobbying efforts and the desire to keep American pilots out of harm’s way look to have won out here. Unable to afford both reconnaissance planes, the Air Force has opted for modernity. The drone can stay aloft much longer than the U-2, even though there is skepticism about its ability to do everything the U-2 can. But, with plans also to cut the A-10 fighter jet (designed as a Soviet tank killer) and funding pushes toward cybersecurity and elite commando units, the US military is becoming more digital, specialized, and automated—just like the rest of the world.”
2. A few good UAVs. C4ISRNet.Com contributor James K. Sanborn reports, “The Marine Corps is experimenting with a new unmanned ground vehicle that can patrol installations and detect intruders or potential enemy forces nearly a mile away. The Mobile Detection Assessment Response System, or MDARS, was used in late January to successfully secure an air base during the latest Integrated Training Exercise — the final predeployment workup all units conduct at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif. The vehicle could be headed to Afghanistan, according to its developers, although concrete plans have not been made.”
3. G.I. Google Glass. Wired.Com contributor Allen McDuffee reports, “Walking around Silicon Valley with an augmented reality display on your face makes you a glasshole. On the battlefield, though, similar technology will soon turn U.S. soldiers into a lethal cross between the Terminator and Iron Man. Q-Warrior, the newest version of helmet-mounted display technology from BAE Systems’ Q-Sight line, is a full-color, 3D heads-up display designed to provide soldiers in the field with rapid, real-time ‘situational awareness.’”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Super-downsize me: “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel renewed his warning to Congress on Monday that shrinking defense budgets mean a smaller military and cuts to popular programs — but that a return to sequestration would be even worse. Previewing the Pentagon’s fiscal 2015 budget being delivered to Congress next week, Hagel put the needle back on a broken record of debate over base closures, ship and aircraft disposals, weapons program cancellations and cuts to troop pay and benefits. . . . The proposal amounts to a roll of the dice in a midterm election year, when defense advocates in both parties in both the House and Senate will be loath to close bases, idle factories or open themselves to accusations they cut pay or benefits for troops and their families.”
2. Dingell won’t dangle: “Michigan Democrat John Dingell, a gruff legislator who has served longer in the U.S. Congress than any other person in history, announced on Monday that he will retire from the House of Representatives after this year. Speaking to a Michigan business group, the 87-year-old Dingell said he would not seek re-election in November because he no longer could ‘live up to my own personal standard’ for serving in Congress. . . . In characteristic fashion, Dingell used his retirement announcement to deliver sharp words to some of his fellow lawmakers, whom he criticized for contributing to the partisan gridlock that has made this Congress one of the least productive in decades. ‘This Congress has been a great disappointment to everyone,’ Dingell said.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Afghan women: No turning back.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Helena Malikyar argues, “Whether the presidential contenders’ lofty promises and the unprecedented attention they appear to be giving to women voters will translate into real action the day after the new president is sworn in, is uncertain. All prominent candidates have assumed a flexible posture towards the Taliban, leaving the door open for negotiations and possible power sharing arrangements as a means to reach peace and stability. Women’s rights and the Taliban clearly present an oxymoron that no politician, however skilled, can reconcile.”
2. “Russia in a corner over Ukraine.” Also from Aljazeera.Com, contributor Alexander Nekrassov argues, “Ukraine splitting into two parts would actually be beneficial to Russia in the long run, as it will get the industrial powerbase that keeps the country going. Western Ukraine without the east will totally depend on the hand-outs of the EU, a prospect Brussels must be dreading. But from a point of view of symbolism such a split would be damaging for Russia domestically and might even put Kremlin under pressure.”
3. “Why North America is stronger than its parts.” Reuters contributor Arturo Sarukhan argues, “The path forward in enhancing North America’s global competitiveness and economic well-being must be based on a clear understanding that the three North American nations are partners, rather than competitors. The fact that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker led her first official trade mission to Mexico is an encouraging and important sign. Businesspeople around the world are looking for ways to break into new or ‘hard to access’ markets, and buy from whomever can reliably offer them the best product, or goods and services with the fastest turnaround time. As the United States once again looks to foreign markets to promote economic growth and job creation, it would do well to fully recognize that the greatest opportunity — and the future — lies in North America.”
THE FUNNIES
3. Friend me.
