Rapid Fire July 10, 2012: Always Be Shipping | Australian Plans

Jul 10, 2012 10:30 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
  • Afghan logistics are a high priority for NATO members in what remains a tense, entangled situation. Use of the Ulyanovsk airport in Russia should start next month, while Pakistan is expanding capacity at the Torkham border crossing. A lot of trucks still seem stuck in Karachi for the time being. Some Islamic clerics protested Pakistan’s border deal with the US over the weekend, followed by an attack killing 8 Pakistani soldiers yesterday. The Obama administration agreed to release withheld Coalition Support Funds, but this may have to gain approval in the Senate.
  • Jeffrey Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget since the beginning of the year, will testify in front of the House Armed Services Committee next month on the Administration plans, if any, to deal with sequestration. One scenario that has emerged is for budget cuts to remain largely on the table, but executed in a more structured and less precipitated way than the ham-fisted sequester. Zients will tell Representatives that it’s their mess to clean up.
  • The Australian DoD published its 2012 Defence Capability Plan [PDF]. The DCP shows projected procurement and sustainment spending by sector over the 2012-2016 period and outlines schedules for 111 projects worth about AUD $153B (about the same in US dollars).
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  • Hawker Beechcraft, Inc. signed an exclusivity agreement that may lead to an acquisition by Superior Aviation Beijing from China for $1.79B. This deal explicitly excludes Hawker Beechcraft Defense Company (HBDC) which would remain a separate entity.

  • Avascent, a consulting firm, tried to size up current and future international defense offsets. They see such obligations growing to $50B+/year by 2016, though the opaque and volatile nature of many such deals makes this type of forecast relatively fuzzy. Epicos, another company tracking offsets, has a more conservative estimate of the market’s size, but everyone agrees that it is a complicated and fragmented market.

  • RAND’s Arroyo Center studied the US Army’s use of their Standard Army Management Information Systems (STAMIS) and found that mundane data access and quality issues prevented the system from delivering on its lofty “cradle-to-grave” vision. Companies in the private sector have found that software for purposes such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not really used unless workflow is really, really easy. STAMIS seems to require a lot more data entry than troops are willing to commit to in practice. But you cannot make sound decisions based on crappy data.

  • Recently from the US Army War College: China’s cyber power and America’s national security [PDF]:

    • “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is preparing for total cyber warfare. They are conducting cyberspace reconnaissance; creating the ability to do economic harm and damage critical infrastructure; preparing to disrupt communications and information systems necessary to support conventional armed conflict; and readying to conduct psychological operations to influence the will of the American people.”

    Categories: Asia - Central, Australia & S. Pacific, Budgets, China, Daily Rapid Fire, IT - Cyber-Security, Logistics, Mergers & Acquisitions, USA

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