The United Arab Emirates announced $1.4B worth of contracts with Oshkosh ($380M for 750 M-ATVs), General Atomics (near $200M for an unspecified quantity of unmanned Predator UAVs), and others. Talks about the purchase of defanged “Predator XPs” (XP for export, not Blue Screens of Death) had started two years ago. Decaffeinated coffee, low-fat bacon, unarmed UCAVs… Gulf News | Bloomberg | Reuters | Defense News.
The elephant in the room is the UAE’s Rafale-Typhoon standoff: they are still talking to both vendors.
Gordon Adams, a budget staffer during the Clinton administration, is convinced the Pentagon has plenty of room for backoffice cuts, but thinks the recent announcements are driven by pressure politics:
“[DoD and the services] decided to go forward with the most horrendous things they could think of due to consequences of the sequester. The timing that they chose was as one secretary was leaving and the other secretary was wounded in battle, congressional battle; in other words, perfect time for the chiefs to assert themselves. So, they did.”
The Pentagon’s pressure might be aimed at Congress, but small businesses in the ship repair industry are sure feeling it too.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) tracker of sales by the top 100 weapons manufacturers (excluding Chinese ones) shows a 5% drop of their combined revenue to $410B. 44 US firms amount to 60% of the total, followed by 30 companies from Western Europe with 29% of sales.
Democrats fell short by one vote to overcome a Republican filibuster of Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. Filibusters of cabinet appointees are few and far between, especially when the nominee is from your own party, but the Republican leadership seems to be signaling this is more of a delaying tactic than a definitive rebuttal. At least the Senate had the wherewithal to congratulate the Baltimore Ravens for winning Super Bowl XLVII, which sounds right out of the Idiocracy movie but we are not making this up. Turns out Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is a huge fan. Program you DVRs to Feb. 26 for season 2, after the Senate’s 10-day recess. Majority Leader Harry Reid | SASC Ranking Member Jim Inhofe | WaPo | The Hill.
Danny Werfel from the Office of Management and Budget told the US Senate Committee of Appropriations that furloughs triggered by sequestration would not start until April because of legal considerations. Senate | Federal News Radio | GovExec.
Early next week the US Senate’s majority and minority leaders agreed they will introduce a bill to postpone/dilute/replace/forget-we-ever-brought-it-up sequestration. Define what you mean by “agree.” NYT | Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
In the wake of Giuseppe Orsi’s arrest last Tuesday, Finmeccanica’s board appointed COO/CFO Alessandro Pansa as the company’s CEO. At least until a board meeting coming in April, as the Italian government may want to pump new blood at the head. The matter is taking a political turn, with former prime minister Berlusconi going on TV to defend the paying of “commissions” in countries that are “not full democracies” if you want to close deals. With friends like these… Finmeccanica | FT | Bloomberg | Il Sole 24 Ore [in Italian] | Il Fatto Quotidiano [in Italian, with surreal video].
In a release recapping their acquisition of AW-101 helicopters from Finmeccanica’s subsidiary AgustaWestland, the Indian government confirmed that it had “put on hold all further payments to Agusta Westland.” Since Mr Berlusconi may pull off a surprise electoral comeback in forthcoming elections in Italy, imagine then the awkwardness of his first meeting with Indian officials. In the meantime, the Times of India writes that documents filed in an Italian court point to bogus software and engineering contracts as the vehicles for the alleged kickbacks.
Congressman Duncan Hunter [R-CA, HASC member], has a point in an interview with Politico, on how Pentagon officials have been handling their pre-sequestration communication:
Debate in the full US senate about the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense should start today, following yesterday’s far from consensual approval (14-11 following party lines) in the Armed Services Committee. In all likelihood Hagel will be confirmed, threats of a Republican filibuster or not, but he will start his tenure with a wobbly image, in contrast with John Kerry’s shoo-in as Secretary of State. SASC | NYT.
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama announced the withdrawal of 34,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, or more than half of the current contingent. SOTU 2013 | DoD | Stars & Stripes.
Donald Gene Garst, a former employee of a company contracted by the Pentagon at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $52K fine for smuggling kickbacks he obtained in return for favoring a construction subcontractor. As a clue in hindsight on the defendant’s character, Garst was told by the state of Kansas to stop shady brokering practices [PDF] a decade ago. US Department of Justice | Topeka Capital-Journal.
The global trend toward mine-resistant patrol vehicles actually added India back in the late 1990s, when it began to buy used South African Casspir vehicles. India ended up buying 165 Casspirs from 1999-2001, and they have seen extensive use in Jammu and Kashmir. The Casspir can be thought of with some justification as “the original MRAP,” and still serves with a number of national armies (South Africa, Djibouti, India, Indonesia, Namibia, Peru) as well as with private firms like Mechem De-mining.
The Casspirs India bought began production in 1979-1980, however, and many have served for a long time now. Even refurbished vehicles won’t last forever, and India’s Maoist Naxalites have demonstrated both signs of both informal co-belligerency with Islamist terrorists, and signs of cooperation further up the supply chain. With bomb-making skills spreading globally, and IED land mines a growing choice around the world, might there be an opening for an Indian MRAP program? BAE Systems thought so, hence its DLSI joint venture with Mahindra.
The US Senate Armed Services Committee will likely vote this afternoon on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense. Republican senators denied as an unfounded rumor that they were considering walking out of the committee.
Senate Democrats will introduce a bill later this week that would postpone sequestration by another 10 months, based on a mix on spending cuts and tax increases. will it be anything the Republicans are likely to agree to? Reuters.
Congressman Ander Crenshaw (R-FL, HACD member) and 8 other representatives from coastal states wrote Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to ask him to delay pending cancellation of third and fourth quarter ship maintenance availabilities.
According to anonymous sources cited by the Washington Post, the Obama administration is considering leaving 8,000 troops in Afghanistan in 2014-2015, then phase them out to as little as a thousand by 2017. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dempsey says it all depends on what the post-war mission is going to be. A key question is of course the ability of Afghanistan to run its own security forces: a new GAO report points out shortfalls in funding, which relies overwhelmingly on international support.
iGovTech created Team TACLAN, based in Tampa, FL, to execute the contract, which included additional industry and academic partners. Until a 2012 award appeared to have placed TACLAN’s near-term future in other hands…
The US GAO found that a new requirement to justify $20M+ sole-source contracts awarded under the 8(a) small business program had been poorly implemented by the services during FY2012. In any case the number and value of such contracts dramatically fell since about the time that requirement was added to federal acquisition regulation. A case of correlation meaning causation?
Daniel Goure at the Lexington Institute thinks [PDF] the Pentagon should consolidate its contracting following examples set by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) with Tailored Logistics Support Program or Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) with SeaPort-Enhanced.
DARPA will host a Proposer’s Day for the Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program on February 26 in Arlington, VA. Their goal is to improve performance when spectrum is shared between military radars and civilian or military communications systems. Feb. 21 update: presolicitation.
US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the FY14 President Budget will not be submitted until the end of next month. It will include a 1% military pay raise (i.e. most likely lower than inflation) but is not going to be fully based on the baseline established by the Budget Control Act. Passback guidance was provided by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to the Pentagon at the end of last month.
Another round of base realignment and closure (BRAC) will be on the table. That was also the case last year but the idea was soon found dead on arrival in Congress.
Canada is to go through an unusually large rejiggering of its military leadership, with new chiefs for the Navy and Army coming this year, among many other appointments and reassignments.
is a huge fan
