DoD to Focus on Data Rights
* Katrina McFarland, assistant secretary of defense (acquisition), wants to push program managers to move away from closed systems such as those used on the F-22:
“What have you done to make your system open, and why? Where did you open up the system? How are you asserting your rights? Do you know your rights? How are you actively working with your industrial partner to make sure that you are asking for the right rights? Not all the rights, but the right rights. It’s a bit of a challenge.”
Iterated Field Testing
* The US Army’s Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 14.1 is wrapping up today. Next spring’s NIE 14.2 will see the first participation of the other services as well as foreigners.
Asian Subs
* USNI rounded up the submarine programs already fielded and currently underway in East Asia.
What’s Ailing India’s Defense Sector?
* The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania looks into a sector known above all for its slowness.
* Spain is ramping up its diplomatic presence in India to support military exports, reportedly with the understanding that results will take time.
Interventions Fail For Lack of Local Legitimacy
* From the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, an analysis of why Somalia has stubbornly remained a failed state for so long:
Among the lessons thus drawn, which are applicable to other insurgency and conflict situations in Africa, is that the repeated failure of internationally-backed attempts to reestablish a national government in Somalia underscores the limitations of top-down, state-centric processes that are structurally engineered with a bias in favor of centralization, rather than bottom-up, community-based approaches better adapted to the local sensibilities.
* And in the Army War College’s latest Parameters, a cautionary article [PDF] noting progress in Afghanistan without ruling out the possibility of civil war resurgence.
* NATO’s withdrawal of Afghanistan is one of the three main threats Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu is concerned about, which is sees as premature. In a somewhat contradicting view, NATO’s eastwards expansion also worries him, alongside international Islamist terrorism.
Evolving Currents in the US Congress
* The conservative American Spectator offers a good wrap-up of the evolving foreign policy views within the Republican party, which, after a decade dominated by neoconservatives, has seen the rise of lawmakers less inclined to intervention, if not outright isolationists.
Best Military Gear Ad Ever
* Allahu Akbar… or not! Video below:
