Rapid Fire Dec. 18, 2012: Russian Armament Exports

Dec 18, 2012 10:00 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country will export more than $14B worth of arms in 2012. Their military sales doubled to $10B from 2005 to 2010, but while growth continued to be steady in past years it is now slowing down, as new orders in 2012 amounted to about $15B. Reuters | RIA Novosti | Voice of Russia.
  • US Senator Daniel K. Inouye [D-HI] passed away yesterday at age 88. A bona fide WWII war hero, he was the Senate’s president pro tempore and the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations as well as its Defense subcommittee. Patrick Leahy [D-VT] succeeds him as the Senate’s most senior member, and is likely to also take the committee chair. Statement from Sen. Inouye’s office | NYT | WaPo.
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  • In a thawing of a bilateral relationship that had grown markedly tense earlier this year, the US has made a $688M reimbursement to Pakistan, which had been held contingent on reopening logistics routes through the country and proved an effective leverage for the Americans. Since said GLOCs were reopened, the huge container backlog that had built up has been more than halved.

  • The GAO published a backgrounder on American export controls as enforced with countries that benefit from license exemptions or special treaties (the UK, Canada, and soon Australia).

  • The US Navy’s AEGIS Ship Integration and Test Program has postponed the estimated issuance of its RFP from this quarter to the end of the next one, with an award in Q2 FY14. Updated Industry Day PPTX deck.

  • The US Army’s Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD) Tactical Cloud Integration Laboratory (TCIL) will brief [MS Word] industry partners on January 18, 2013 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, on the cloud technologies they currently field and plan to use, such as Google Hadoop.

  • The Pentagon and the services issue documents called “Requests for Information” (RFI) and “sources sought” that are not formal requests for proposals (RFP), nor are they a commitment to later issue one. However “sources sought” is meant to indicate a more mature intent, while RFI is really open-ended market research. Sometimes the process can involve many steps, like this: RFI > sources sought > draft RFP > RFP > contract award. Defense Acquisition University.

  • Israel’s Army is fielding the Digital Ground Army (DGA) real time mapping system, 8 years after green-lighting it.

  • Ronald O’Rourke at the Congressional Research Service updated his report [PDF] on the many maritime territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) disputes involving China.

    • Categories: Asia - Central, China, Daily Rapid Fire, Forces - Naval, Israel, IT - Software & Integration, Leadership & People, Logistics, Pre-RFP, USA

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