Rapid Fire 2012-01-09 | Budget Cuts: Not Just How Much, But How
Jan 09, 2012 09:00 ESTRelated Stories: Budgets, Daily Rapid Fire, Europe - France, Lobbying, Materials Innovations, Middle East - Israel
- The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) and Professional Services Council (PSC), teamed up as the “Defense Industrial Base Task Force”, sent a joint letter [PDF] to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to outline what they think the impact of budget cuts might be. More subtle than past communications that threatened with the loss of 1 million jobs, the document states that subcontractors may choose to leave the defense market, forcing primes to in-source functions that they currently subcontract. This shows how the discussion has shifted from “should there be any cuts at all” to “how to execute cuts in a responsible way.” Where, and when, matter as much as how much.
- Panetta doesn’t need much convincing though. Neither the FY13 budget in the works nor the Pentagon strategy update from last week plan around the execution of full sequestration. The Secretary told NPR: “if we had to do over a trillion dollars in cuts in this department, I have to tell you that the strategy that we developed, we’d probably have to throw that out the window and start over.” The key element that seems to differentiate President Obama’s defense strategy from Donald Rumsfeld’s is the concept of “reversibility”. That may work to maintain high-level expertise such as military government management. However, shipyards and plants plainly need sustained work to keep going.
- The US Army is investigating the theft of six figures worth of night-vision goggles and other soldier equipment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
- The US Navy is shifting to “Type V” polysiloxane paint to reduce weather wear that degrades the original tint of gray into many different shades and even turns pink. The process of painting with Type 5 and is a little more involved, and the material is more expensive than the Type 2/3 Low Solar Absorbance (LSA) coatings it replaces. However the Navy hopes to save in the end thanks to less frequent repainting. Navsea procurement guidance [PDF] | Sherwin-Williams | Defense News.
- Israel’s Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said he’d increase the defense budget by $700M.
- Renault Trucks Defense provided 80 SLATE anti-sniper systems to France’s DGA procurement agency for integration on top of VAB infantry vehicles.
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