* The Israeli approach linking threats to military budgeting… and their “Talpiot” program that has started plucking top 18 year olds out of standard military service and putting them to work solving key problems in the government, military and industry.
* They’ll See the Big Board!: The Russian air force will join its U.S. and Canadian counterparts in the first-ever joint air defense exercises Aug 8-11. NORAD will manage the event, which will involve simulated hijacking of commercial flights by terrorists.
* Private Sector Salvation: Aerospace CEO says the company is looking to expand in the commercial space business as defense business slows down.
* Strategy Analytics: Fighter aircraft, UAVs expected to spur a 43% growth in the military airborne communications system market, which could reach $1 billion by 2020.
* CACI gets $22 million task order to support the US Strategic Command’s joint exercises and training under the $900 million USAMS II contract vehicle.
* Rin Tin Timid: Gina the German shepherd, a US military bomb-sniffing dog, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after a tour in Iraq, says USAF vet. Better-adjusted dogs are deploying to Afghanistan.
* Airbus A400M medium-heavy transport’s all-composite wing passes punishing stress tests.
* That’s So 20th Century: Using rhetoric out of a Soviet propaganda film, the North Korean official news agency warned that the nation’s military would “repel fire with fire” in response to the “puppet military’s warmongers’…naked military invasion of our Republic’s sacred territorial waters.” Apparently, they are not happy about the US-South Korean naval exercises.