* As US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta meets with Chinese leaders to urge them to solve their differences with Japan through diplomatic channels, protests in China appear to involve a mix of underlying official support and genuine grassroots anger. Real or staged, who in their right mind would long for the good old days when Chairman Mao – whose portrait was waved by demonstrators – starved tens of millions of his countrymen to death? China needs to grow up if they want to be taken as a responsible actor.
* Panetta tells Foreign Policy that there’s still some tough fighting ahead in Afghanistan. With the suspension of joint NATO-Afghan ground operations in the wake of continued “green on blue” attacks, this sounds like a sensible warning.
* His predecessor Robert Gates made a call for “whatever adults remain in the two political parties [to] make the compromises necessary to put this country back in order” during a panel [PDF transcript] hosted by CSIS.
* The Pentagon won’t factor in sequestration while it works on the FY14 budget in the months to come.
* The US Air Force’s fleet of Block 30 Global Hawks may be supported for another year, but in the longer run it would be too expensive to modify them for exports, according to Lieutenant General Larry James. Block 30 was lined up for termination in the FY13 President Budget. The USAF will need guidance from Congress to finalize this.
* The USAF is interested in using commercial aircraft to lift some of its payloads. This should lead to the issuance in January next year of an RFP for a Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) contract to get satellites into geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) and low earth orbit (LEO).
* An independent Scotland would face significant defense budget challenges, according to a prominent academic.