Rapid Fire 2011-01-03: Washington State’s Defense Industry

• The Harmony Project – Combating Terrorism Center at West Point releases “Self-Inflicted Wounds: Debates and Divisions within al-Qa’ida and its Periphery.” If you want a snapshot of the war from the other side, this is an excellent starting place.

• North Korea has added battle tanks based on the old Soviet Union T-72 to its arsenal and boosted its special forces, artillery pieces, and weapons of mass destruction over the past 2 years, according to South Korea’s 2010 defense white paper. All that said, the South would wipe the floor with them in a full-on war – but at the cost of Seoul.

• Washington state defense contractors are adjusting to lower defense spending.

• Regulatory paperwork causes Airbus to miss it 2010 target for fielding Australia’s KC-30 aerial tanker.

• Canada deploys its initial CC-130J Hercules tactical transport aircraft at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.

• The XB-70 Valkyrie was almost the 1st nuclear-powered bomber.

• Egypt resisted US pressure to refocus its military to counter “asymmetric threats,” such as terrorism, weapons smuggled into Gaza, and piracy, leaked cable shows.

• MIKEL, a Fall River, MA-based sonar signal processing firm, gets a $9.1 million contract to provide research automation and data fusion, target motion analysis, weapon employment, and tactical decision aids for U.S. Navy submarines.