US Department of Defense FY 2014 Budget: After a Year of Drama, Budget Chairs Prescribe Sequester Painkiller

By releasing its budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 in mid-April, the Obama administration was two months over the legal deadline and later than at any time in the modern record. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reiterated the gambit that failed and arguably backfired in the previous fiscal year by ignoring the sequester. In place, President Obama put again on the table the broad terms he had offered earlier to House Republicans, with a mix of spending cuts (translation from Washington lingo: mostly a decrease in the rate of real growth) and tax increases. At the time that was received by most observers as a lack of realism, making the budget request at best relevant in terms of its hinting of relative priorities. Events throughout 2013 would then vindicate the view that the FY14 PB was a fantasy.

India Opens Major Western Naval Base Near Karwar

Latest updates[?]: Almost a year after approval for Phase IIA, India hasn't even picked bid-eligible contractors.

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Karwar, India: The Site

Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee opened the first phase of India’s giant western naval base INS Kadamba in Karwar, Karnataka state, on May 31/05, saying it would protect the country’s Arabian Sea maritime routes. Kadamba has become India’s 3rd operational naval base, after Mumbai and Visakhapatnam. It is valuable for its location, and also for its ability to transcend the fundamental capacity and security limitations of India’s other 2 naval bases.

INS Kadamba is being built near Karwar in the southern state of Karnataka. That Phase I construction was just part of India’s ambitious “Project Seabird,” a potential INR 50+ billion project that will include the naval base, and much more besides. India finished a scaled-back Phase I a full decade after the originally-envisaged 1995 completion date. As might be expected in India, Phase II is going forward at last, long after it was supposed to have been finished.

Closed, Fragmented Markets More Fragile When Downturns Come

Ammo Concerns

• National Defense on the munitions industrial base in the United States:

“A new Defense Department initiative seeks to ensure that new munitions development efforts include concurrent pursuit of designs for exportability. This is welcome and will be beneficial in the future, provided that the initiative remains adequately funded. Existing ammunition products, however, do not benefit from this effort.

It is imperative that sustaining critical munitions production capabilities become a prime consideration in decisions concerning international sales, especially during periods of reduced U.S. funding.”

• Turning ammo production into a more fungible and viable global market would make sense, but Der Spiegel notes that this is not even happening within just the European Union. Maybe participants in this week’s EU Council on defense should read Antifragile?