* The Pentagon has decided to delay the issuance of furloughs for its civilian employees by a couple of weeks.
* President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy made a surprisingly candid and lucid speech [PDF] at an event held by the European Defense Agency:
Beyond the fields of military training and maintenance, there are other areas where we are hardly at the beginning of defence cooperation: in particular, technological innovation (for our industrial base), and procurement (for investment and equipment). Here also, as an expert put it, “reluctance becomes unaffordable”. I understand in practice it is more complicated.”
* Turkish Defense Industry Undersecretariat to truck maker BMC: deliver the Kirpi armored vehicles we ordered or else.
* South Korea President Park yielded to parliamentary and public opinion pressure and kept Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin from the previous administration. Her nominee Kim Byung-kwan had been criticized on a number of ethical grounds.
* Brazil’s lower chamber approved the national security policy, strategy and defense whitepaper submitted by the presidency last year (legislative package 576/2012) [all links in Portuguese].
* From the National Defense University’s Strategic Forum: Russia Still Matters [PDF].
* The American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, hosted several of its peers from across the political spectrum in an impressive round-up of Pentagon budget brainiacs. They collectively agreed to lambast the US Congress for a lack of political courage, and DoD for its denial of a drawdown that has already started to happen. CSIS’ Clark Murdock had the best rhetorical question, though that won’t make him any friends in the US Marines: “Does the Navy need an Army that has the world’s 4th largest Air Force?” (Incidentally Murdock recently published a briefing on the forthcoming Quadrennial Defense Review.) Video below of the AEI event: