* The centrist Stimson Center issued a report [PDF] compiling ideas for defense savings from a wide variety of sources. Whereas the Pentagon tends to point to billions of dollars of imaginary efficiencies lacking any specificity, this document enumerates actual, tangible options.
* The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Lockheed Martin successfully tested a prototype Extended Medium-range Ballistic Missile (eMRBM) air-launched target. Good news for the agency, as a report issued last month by the GAO pointed out the additional risk posed by the use of new targets for the forthcoming [PDF] Flight Test Operational-01 (FTO-01) meant to test the Ballistic Missile Defense System against several targets.
* EADS’ Q1 2013 revenue reached 12.4 billion euros (about $16.1B) or 9% higher than a year ago. Airbus Military was in better shape than last year, with sales of 612 million euros thanks to more tanker and transport aircraft billing. The outlier was Eurocopter with double-digit slides in both billings and bookings.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin said more snap exercises will come to properly assess troop readiness. Sudden large scale troop movements are also an effective tool to freak out neighbors such as Georgia.
* BAE will cut 100 jobs from the 5,000 or so in its Australian workforce, mostly in South Australia.
* Austal inked partnerships with shipyards in Thailand and Vietnam – after a similar deal in Singapore back in January – in order to be able to maintain LCSs and JHSVs to be deployed by the US Navy in Asia.
* Latest hotspot because of overlapping maritime claims in Asia: a ship from the Philippines’ coast guard shot at a Taiwanese fishing boat, killing one fisherman. The Philippines is now trying to avoid public escalation.
* Geoffrey Till, a professor of Maritime Studies in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, recently presented his book on naval expansion throughout Asia at the IISS think tank. Video below:
