* During a trip to Poland President Obama announced he'd seek congressional backing for a "European Reassurance Initiative" worth up to $1B within the FY15 Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) request, which his Administration has yet to submit almost 4 months after...
DID site Articles
Events in Ukraine Make China Feel Cocky
* Maj. Gen Zhu Chenghu, from China's National Defense University, while talking about the US power projection abilities, doubled down on the sort of brazen declarations that are increasingly fashionable among Chinese officials: "we can see from the situation in...
UAE Tie-Up Introduces the RQ-1 Predator XP
Predator XP Concept(click to view full) With MQ-1 Predator UAVs fading from the marketplace as advanced customers turn to the MQ-9 Reaper, General Atomics is moving to broaden the type's appeal. At IDEX 2011, they announced a Memorandum of Understanding with the UAE's...
Shinseki Yields to Pressure to Resign from Veteran Affairs
* Eric Shinseki resigned this morning as Veteran Affairs secretary. With tepid support from the White House after yesterday's interim report from the VA's Inspector General and bipartisan calls for his resignation, there was little else he could do. He made a final...
Brazil Picks IAI’s K-767 MMTT as its Next Aerial Tanker
Colombian K-767 MMTT(click to view full) Brazil took long enough to modernize its future fighter fleet, and they're waiting even longer to modernize another important air force capability. Their KC-137 Boeing 707 derivatives were built in the 1960s, and Brazil took...
South Korea Buying GPS-Guided WCMD Cluster Bombs
WCMD Launched In June 2012, the US DSCA announced South Korea's formal request to buy up to 367 CBU-105D/B Wind Corrected Munition Dispenser (WCMD) Sensor Fuzed Weapons and associated parts, equipment, logistical support and training, for an estimated cost of up to...
US Federal Government Hard at Work to Put the Criminal in “Criminal Incompetence”
* The US Veterans Health Administration's Inspector General published an interim review [PDF] on the Phoenix Health Care System's patient wait times, scheduling practices, and their effects on patient outcomes: "To date, our work has substantiated serious conditions...
S-80: A Sub, for Spain, to Sail Out on the Main
S-80 cutaway, labeled(click to view full) The CIM-2000 Scorpene class diesel-electric attack submarine partnership was just the first step for Spain's Navantia, as it joined with France's DCNS to enter the global submarine market. Now Navantia is building on that base...
Australia Chooses JASSM Missiles on F-18s for Long-Range Strike
F/A-18 with test JASSMs(click to view full) In March 2005, Lockheed Martin's AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile (or JASSM) cruise missile won the competition with Boeing's SLAM-ER and the Taurus KEPD 350 for the AIR 5418 Follow-on Standoff Weapon (FOSOW)...