FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. BRAC, Budget, Battle Royale. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “The Department of Defense announced that it was unhappy with the House Armed Service Committee’s mark-up of the Fiscal Year 2015 Department of Defense budget. . . . The House Committee mark-up ignored several of the Pentagon’s budget requests, including a proposal for another round of base realignment and closure (BRAC), to limit military pay, and funding for the A-10 Warthog. Kirby noted that the budget process was still in the early phases, and would be debated in the Senate as well as within conference.”
2. Attracting top talent in the Fed. Contributor Diana Rodriguez explains, “According to a survey released last month by the Partnership for Public Service, working with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a mere 2 percent of college students planned to work for the federal government upon graduation, while 6 percent responded more positively by saying federal service was an ideal career choice. . . . in order to compete with the private-sector for top college graduates, and retain them after they are hired, federal agencies will have to ‘close these gaps in employee satisfaction in order to create workplace cultures that can compete with the private sector.’”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Collective self-defense in Japan. DefenseNews.Com’s Paul Kallender-Umezu reports, “By the end of this week, a key panel will recommend Japan adopt the right to collective self-defense, a move that would fundamentally change Japan’s deterrence posture . . . . Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, called this ‘a major change’ in one of the basic principles of Japan’s post-war defense policy. ‘If we can use this new opportunity well . . . we’ll be able to maintain the balance of power in the region against the might of China’. . . .”
2. Iranian pushback. Reuters’ Michelle Moghtader and Mehrdad Balali report, “Iran’s Supreme Leader described as ‘stupid and idiotic’ Western expectations for his country to curb its missile development, striking a defiant tone ahead of a fresh round of nuclear talks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to mass produce missiles and said the nuclear negotiations were not the place to discuss Tehran’s defense program or to solve the problem of sanctions damaging the Iranian economy.”
3. East Ukraine—the votes are in. AP’s Peter Leonard and Vladimir Isachenkov report from Donetsk, “The Kremlin urged the Ukrainian government Monday to engage in talks with representatives of the eastern part of the country following the controversial referendums where about 90 percent of voters said they backed their regions’ sovereignty. The statement signaled that Russia has no immediate intention to annex the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, like it did with Crimea following a similar referendum in March. The cautious stance appears to reflect Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hope to negotiate a solution to what has become the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.”
4. We’re [still] number one! American Forces Press Service’s Terri Moon Cronk reports, “While some around the world believe the United States is a weakening superpower, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel today defended America as the world’s dominant force. ‘I have seen some of [that perception], yes,’ Hagel said . . . . ‘But we are still the dominant power. No one’s in our universe, whether you apply a metric or measurement of an economic power or military power.’ But that doesn’t mean the United States can solve every problem alone, he said.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. BAE wins NVG fight. MilitaryAerospace.Com’s John Keller reports, “U.S. Army night vision experts are looking to two electro-optics companies to develop the next generation of military night-vision weapon sights to enable soldiers to fight effectively at night. Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., announced contracts late Tuesday to the BAE Systems Electronic Systems segment in Nashua, N.H., and the DRS Technologies Imaging and Targeting Solutions (ITS) segment in Dallas to build Individual and Enhanced Night Vision Goggle (ENVG) III weapon sights. . . . BAE Systems and DRS ITS also are expected to produce the head-worn goggle for the ENVG III system. The head-worn goggle and the weapon sight are tightly linked to enable the user to fight at night with the two components.” See also, “U.S. military electro-optical spending to reach $13.5 billion over next 10 years.”
2. Bio engineered sensors. Also from Military Aerospace.Com and John Keller, “U.S. military researchers are hiring four organizations and spending more than $5.67 million on a program that seeks to find ways of easily engineering biology for advanced sensor capabilities, chemicals, materials, and therapeutics. Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have announced four contracts for the Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules project to develop a biology-engineering infrastructure for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and for the engineering biology community.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. U.S.M.C. deals Blackjack. AviationWeek.Com’s Amy Butler reports, “With a wingspan of just 16 ft., the Blackjack is a derivative of the Integrator small tactical UAS built by Boeing subsidiary Insitu. The design, with a 39-lb. maximum payload, beat out three competitors in July 2010: Raytheon’s Killer Bee-4, AAI Corp.’s Aerosonde Mk. 4.7 and General Dynamics/Elbit Systems’ Storm. The Blackjack is optimized to give Marines a look ahead, whether they are landing on a beach or conducting patrols in urban terrain.”
2. The Self-Censorship effect. VentureBeat.Com contributor Gregory Ferenstein explains, “An MIT researcher claims he’s quantified some of the troubling self-censorship civil liberties advocates worried would result from public knowledge of mass spying. The new study reports that Google users were slightly less likely (2.2 percent) to use search terms that the National Security Agency flagged as potential national security threats. . . . How much self-censorship should we tolerate before we care about the effect of mass surveillance? Snowden himself once responded to a question I posed about the ‘why should we care’ question.”
3. Cyber-security best practices. FederalTimes.Com’s Adam Stone reports, “Army knows the need, universities know the science, and private-sector information technology brings it together. . . . The Defense Department told Congress its Cyber Command needs $5.1 billion for fiscal 2015. With cyber threats evolving at a rapid clip, it serves the military well to tap into private-sector best practices as early and as often as possible. A range of collaborative efforts have been put into place so Defense can keep its finger on the pulse, and industry can show off its most promising new ideas.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Self-flagellation or reverse psychology: “Top military brass has a desperate message for lawmakers: please cut our pay. Congress is considering proposals from the Pentagon’s most senior officials to reduce service member pay raises to below inflation, freeze pay for generals and other high-ranking officers, limit housing allowance increases, and increase fees for military health care. The request might be odd for any other agency, but the Pentagon must reduce its budget by up to $1 trillion over the next decade. The proposals are estimated to save the Department of Defense $2 billion in fiscal 2015 and $31 billion over the next five years.”
2. We’ll be right back: “Top Secret Service officials ordered agents responsible for patrolling the White House perimeter to abandon their posts to protect a friend of the agency’s director in 2011 . . . . The agents, who were sent more than an hour away from D.C., were told that then-Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan was concerned that his assistant was being harassed by her neighbor . . . . Two agents were sent twice daily to monitor the home of the assistant, Lisa Chopey, between late June and August . . . . The agents were members of the surveillance team that patrols the outskirts of the White House compound and responds to reported problems . . . .
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Will Iraq fall apart?” Aljazeera.Com contributor Scott Field argues, “In the end, it may be external powers – principally Iran – that have the decisive say in whether Iraq continues its dangerous descent under Maliki, or struggles back onto the path of inclusive politics. Tehran’s intervention in 2010 was critical to anointing Maliki for a second term. But recent signals from inside Iran, coupled with the discontent in Najaf and the Sadr camp, suggest that they may be skittish about supporting him for a third.”
2. “Russian History Is on Our Side: Putin Will Surely Screw Himself.” TheDailyBeast.Com contributor P.J. O’Rourke argues, “Now, because of what he’s doing in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has a higher smeared popularity rating than Ivan the Terrible or even Stalin. We certainly should have screwed him over. But Russian history is on our side. He’ll certainly screw himself.”
3. “Benghazi: The zombie scandal.” Reuters contributor Suzanne Garment argues, “For every citizen angry at what he sees as a politically motivated attempt to obscure U.S. weakness in the world, someone else is convinced that the whole business is just an excrescence of rabid partisanship. So even Benghazi, with its four dead Americans, repeated inquiries and remaining questions, is not likely to reach a political crescendo. And not likely to die. Instead, it will probably dribble off into inconclusiveness and join its fellows in the land of the political undead. We get the scandals that we deserve.”
THE FUNNIES
