Rapid Fire 2012-01-03: HR1540 Signed | British National Archives
Jan 03, 2012 09:00 ESTRelated Stories: Air Reconnaissance, Americas - Other, Americas - USA, Britain/U.K., Budgets, Contracts - Awards, Daily Rapid Fire, Legal, Nuclear Weapons
- President Obama signed the FY12 defense authorization bill (HR1540) on December 31 but expressed “serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
- A $355M contract (FA8637-12-D-6001) confirms the USAF procurement of 20 Light Air Support (LAS) Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano aircraft, via Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). Deliveries of this batch of 20 planes is expected to be completed by the end of April 2014. Last year Hawker Beechcraft filed a GAO protest for being excluded from the RFP and sued the US Air Force after losing the protest. DefenseLink | SNC | DefesaNet [in Portuguese].
- Some former officers of the British Armed Forces are concerned that increased use of reserve forces serves to mask lack of personnel in the standing Army.
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- The UK’s National Archives receive records from government departments after 30 years, when most of these documents are then made public. The 1981 archives reveal that the purchase of Trident nuclear weapons was less than consensual in the Cabinet (is it now?). Strong opinions were offered, as Foreign Secretary Peter Carrington stated at the time: “Failure to acquire Trident would have left the French as the only nuclear power in Europe. This would be intolerable.” He also warned Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that “reductions would be interpreted by both the islanders and the Argentines as a reduction in our commitment to the [Falkland] islands and in our willingness to defend them.” This was just months before the Argentinian military invaded. For more historical context, see Margaret Thatcher’s files as Prime Minister, 1981.
- Fast forward to last month: the Mercosur trading bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and land-locked Paraguay) agreed to prohibit ships flying the Falklands flag from entering its members’ ports.
