* Pakistan’s military wants more F-16s, plus Chinese submarines to go with its new French boats, and a joint submarine development venture. These plans are all being made against a backdrop of a serious domestic insurgency and widespread flooding damage, which have combined to create over 1 million internal refugees, and threaten the government’s medium term ability to maintain control of the country. Even as the state is very obviously fraying in other ways, and the military’s ability to play a constructive role is coming into serious question.
* “Weapons and the Art of Diplomacy” discusses WikiLeaks revelations and the role of American diplomatic staff in promoting arms buys and other transactions. Oddly, they included Thailand’s case, but left out Norway.
* EADS returns to profitability; A400M airlifter program gets new chief; Eurocopter snags 68 new helicopter orders.
* Senate Armed Services Committee launches probe into counterfeit military electronic parts following Commerce Department study [PDF].
* GAO report [PDF] says key questions on the Army’s ground combat vehicle (GCV) program need to be answered, including how urgently the GCV is needed, the robustness of the analysis of alternatives, its cost and affordability, plausibility of its schedule, and whether mature technologies will be used. They aren’t the only ones asking questions.
* Frost & Sullivan says UK land defense market is expected to reach $1.5 billion in 2017, up from $834 million in 2010.
* Dutch Queen Beatrix in Oman to resume a postponed visit, and promote a potential corvette/OPV order from Damen Schelde. They make the Holland-class OPV, and the modular-build Sigma-class, ordered by Morocco (frigate), and Indonesia (corvette).
* Australian defence minister Stephen Smith is will use his current official visit to Europe to pursue the lease of RFA Largs Bay to the Royal Australian Navy. The Bay-class LSD was delivered in 2006, but is being mothballed under the recent SDSR. Australia had no amphibious ships on hand for disaster relief during the recent Cyclone Yasi.
* Japan’s JASDF security forces are preparing to assume a more forward security role, with training from their US Air Force counterparts.
* ATK gets $54 million order to supply 120mm training tank ammunition – M865 kinetic energy and M1002 multipurpose anti-tank training rounds – for the US Army’s M1A1/A2 Abrams main battle tank.
* Six aerospace and defense companies, including Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and ITT, agree to pay close to $4 million to cleanup contaminated groundwater in the Los Angeles area.