* USA reportedly prepping a $2 billion military aid package for Pakistan, even as Foreign Policy magazine openly wonders if there’s any way to fix the country, and India has concerns of its own. China’s Xinhua has its own slant.
* iCD Research: The Israeli defense sector is expected to grow at a 3% compound annual growth rate, reaching $15.8 billion by 2015; defense spending is expected to focus on procurement of missile defense systems, fighter aircraft, submarines and armored vehicles.
* US Coast Guard releases their v5.0 Blueprint for Continuous Improvement in acquisition and contracting.
* Iris Independent Research offers their KC-X competition white paper, “9 Secrets of the Tanker War.” One entirely unsurprising conclusion: KC-X is it; there will be no KC-Y and KC-Z as planned.
* Playing hardball: Sen. Jim Webb [D-VA] is holding up DoD civilian and flag officer nominations until he receives data related to the decision to close JFCOM in Norfolk, VA.
* Australian DSTO and Thales Australia working on a fiber optic towed array (FOTA) project to improve detection of submarines.
* Deja-vu all over again: Under a proposal being developed by NATO, the Russian military might be returning to Afghanistan for the first time since the Soviet army left the country in 1989.
* Never say die: Phase II of a $100 million Armed Forces Reserve Center at WWI-era Ellington Field in Houston is expected to be completed in January.
* HawkerBeechcraft laying off another 350 workers.
* US Army expects to save $100 million and improve email function integration by migrating 1.4 million unclassified email accounts to the DISA-managed Microsoft Exchange 2010 service.
* L-3 gets $92.4 million contract to provide the US Army with a battlefield anti-intrusion system (BAIS) [PDF], which is a sensor-based early warning system for small tactical units.
* Lockheed Martin snags $66 million in task orders to provide software for the Army’s Battle Command System.