* The Pentagon will ask for $526.6B in the President Budget to be rolled out on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. Pretending that sequestration does not exist worked out so well, they’re about to do it again with the FY14 budget. The House of Representatives will have a timely hearing on mental health research on the very same day.
* The answer [PDF] from CSBA’s Todd Harrison: “[T]he current cycle of managing from budget crisis to budget crisis is preventing the Pentagon from managing for the long term. To break out of this cycle, DoD should accept the reality of the budget caps currently in effect and begin planning for this lower level of funding.”
* Boeing’s F/A-XX will come in manned and unmanned versions, with a choice of liveries going from subdued light grey to bold Navy blue, and will provide “greatly increased range and offer far superior kinematic performance.” The nice things you get when pretend budgets meet unknown future tech.
* The US Air Force has been flying its B-2 long-range bombers for more than 15 years. Spirit of Florida, though not the first of its kind, is the first one to have reached 7,000 flight hours.
* Tensions have not flared over territorial disputes in the Sea of Japan like they have in the South and East China Seas, but it does not mean such challenges do not persist under the surface. CNA offers a backgrounder [PDF].
* Defense-savvy journalist Jean-Dominique Merchet notes [in French] how France’s Ministry of Defense has made ends meet in recent years by selling assets such as buildings and radio frequencies. He estimates at about 8 billion euros the value that the French government could get from sales of its stakes in defense-related publicly-traded companies, though there’s also a few firms like DCNS or Nexter that have not been floated yet.
* It takes 6 hours, and a fair amount of precision, for the French navy to drydock one of their nuclear-powered submarines. Here’s a time-lapse video that shrinks that operation to 3 minutes:
Entrée au bassin d’un sous-marin nucléaire d… por Marine-Nationale
