FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Opportunities in contracting. Contributor Peter Suciu reports, “As military deployments overseas have increased opportunities in the military contracting community have also been on the rise. According to a new Pentagon report to Congress, the number of private contractors working for the United States Defense Department in Iraq grew eight-fold over the past year.”
Blowing the whistle. Contributor David Brown writes, “We’ve come to associate the term with Edward Snowden, which is unfortunate—not because he is or is not a whistleblower–but because ordinary citizens who blow the whistle rarely make daring slips across the border before becoming celebrities. Instead, whistleblowers at the highest levels sometimes suffer prosaic consequences that can prove more devastating than mere exile. Here are five famous whistleblowers from the defense community, and what happened when they went public.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Birth of jihad. The Atlantic’s Kathy Gilsinan reports, “This month marks five years since the start of the Syrian uprising—a movement that, for a brief period in March 2011, looked like it might bring peaceful change to an authoritarian state. . . . But something had happened in the interim that helped change the character of the uprising, and played a role in turning the country into the battlefield it is today, in which major combatants—most notoriously ISIS and its local rival, the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra—are indeed terrorist groups.”
ISIS gas attack. Vice News’ Campbell MacDiarmid reports, “On March 8, Islamic State militants fired more than 40 rockets carrying chemical warheads at this northern Iraqi town of mud-wall compounds and dusty date palms on, according to district head Hussein Adil, killing a young child and wounding over 800 civilians. After the attack, which may have been carried out with a mixture of chlorine and mustard gas, nearly half of the town’s 30,000 residents, mostly ethnic Turkmen Shiites, fled in terror.”
Korea sanctions. Reuters reports, “China expressed its opposition on Thursday to unilateral sanctions against North Korea saying they could raise tension, after the United States imposed new curbs on the isolated country in retaliation for its nuclear and rocket tests. U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed sweeping new sanctions on North Korea intended to further isolate its leadership after recent actions seen by the United States and its allies as provocative.”
Islamic “NATO.” Homeland Security News Wire reports, “Saudi Arabia has approached thirty-four Muslim-majority countries with a proposal to create a NATO-like military alliance of Islamic countries to combat terrorism. The proposed alliance would not be formed to confront any country in particular, but rather would be put together for the purpose of combatting terrorism.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Cyber Simulation Center contracts. Federal Times’ Aaron Boyd reports, “The Air Force is ramping up operations at its Cyber Simulation Center, run by the 90th Information Operations Squadron with contractor assistance from CACI Federal. . . . The expansion will include 17 new contract positions, including 12 app developers, two quality assurance specialists, a technical writer, a network specialist and a voice/data communications engineer.”
ATACMS’ replacement. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Army fire-support experts are choosing Raytheon Co. as one of two or more companies to begin developing a new long-range artillery rocket with a maximum range of 300 miles to replace the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). . . . The Raytheon Missile Systems segment in Huntsville, Ala., will offer a new missile design for the Army’s Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) program, Raytheon officials announced . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
CIA’s new CIO. FCW’s Sean Lyngaas reports, “John G. Edwards, an IT professional with a mix of government and private-sector experience, has succeeded Doug Wolfe as the CIA’s CIO . . . . Edwards has some 20 years experience in the intelligence community, including nearly 15 ‘overseeing technical operations and engineering support’ at CIA . . .”
Ruling the skies. Defense One’s Marcus Wesigerber reports, “China has stirred up aviation watchers in recent years by producing two aircraft, the J-20 and the J-31, that largely resemble the F-22 and F-35 respectively. Military experts say the resemblance is merely skin-deep. The guts of those copycat planes — the sensors and other high-tech electronics, and high-performance engines — are inferior to the U.S. originals.”
Advanced Pulse Compression Noise. Defence Talk reports, “The need to preserve radar system performance while operating in both a contested (adversarial attack) and congested (high traffic) radio frequency environment has presented a significant challenge to radar system designers. These challenges led the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, or CERDEC, to research and develop a tunable, noise-encrypted radar waveform referred to as Advanced Pulse Compression Noise, or APCN.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Shot, over. “President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, launching an election-year fight with Republicans that will reverberate in battleground states across the country. Senate Republicans immediately ruled out any action on Garland, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who has nearly 20 years of experience on the bench and a reputation as a moderate.”
Hunker down. “Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland will head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to begin his one-on-one meetings with senators, as Democrats vow to jump-start a confirmation process that Republicans are adamant will never really begin. And while a handful of GOP senators said they’d at least give Garland the courtesy of a meeting, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has more than enough support from his conference to block the nominee for the foreseeable future.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“Why—and how—Russia won in Syria.” Reuters contributor Josh Cohen argues, “As Moscow exits the Syrian morass, the five-month-long military campaign represents a clear geopolitical win for Vladimir Putin.”
“Keep America’s Top Military Officer Out of the Chain of Command.” Defense One contributor John Hamre argues, “Putting the chairman in the chain of command and creating an American version of a general staff would have astounding political implications, and none of them are good.”
“Maximizing The Chances Of Failure In Afghanistan.” War on the Rocks contributor and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy argues, “Unfortunately, our military commanders are forced to continue this mission without everything they need to take the fight to the insurgency, and a recklessly fast troop drawdown is placing unnecessary risk on the mission and ultimately threatening the success of Resolute Support.”
