* Swedish general Hakan Syren, the Chairman of the European Union Military Committee, tells it like it is:
“The military capabilities of the EU member states are on a steady downward slope. […] Looking a few years into the future, it is simple mathematics to predict that many member states will be unable to sustain essential parts of their national forces, air forces being the prime example.”
* The French and German governments have started talks among advisors about the BAE/EADS merger plans, in preparation of a meeting between President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel this weekend. EADS CEO Tom Enders has argued in a letter seen by AFP [in French] that broader access to international defense markets was vital to EADS, given its current reliance on shrinking European budgets. The primary concern, whether in Berlin or Paris, is preserving jobs and maintaining influence: Der Spiegel [in English] | L’Usine Nouvelle [in French] | Le Monde [in French].
* BAE/EADS will also have to work hard in the US to complete a merger, as Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of Boeing Defense, described it as “a serious matter that needs to be scrutinized.” To that end, last month BAE hired two lobbying firms in Washington.
* Germany and the Netherlands have signed an agreement to extend the scope of their cooperation in ground-based air defense. Surely a coincidence, but just days before two Russian TU-95 bombers had to be intercepted after they came unannounced near Dutch airspace as the Royal Netherlands Air Force was about to conduct flight tests with its F-16s. The Russians have been making surprise visits off Alaska in recent months.
* The UK’s House of Commons Defence Committee published a report on Future Maritime Surveillance. They are concerned by risks coming from a capability gap that is not on a track to be plugged for years, in the wake of the Nimrod MRA4 cancellation.
* Earlier this month the Pentagon’s comptroller and acquisition chief issued a joint memo [PDF] on what to do with unobligated funds. They note that focusing on obligation benchmarks bears the well-known risk of leading people to burn fuel at the end of the fiscal year to maintain future funding, but that ignoring obligation baselines has drawbacks too because of congressional clawbacks. Kendall and Hale plan to review MDAPs with obligation rates below the norm.
* The US Navy’s Program Executive Office for Submarines (PEOSUB) is looking for researchers [PDF] who can help improve “the understanding of the generation, radiation, propagation and scatter of a variety of signal types (acoustic, chemical, optical, electromagnetic, radiological and hydrodynamic) associated with a submarine’s operation.”
* The US Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate (AFRL/RW) will host an Industry Day to get interested contractors up to speed with the High Velocity Penetrating Weapon Flagship Capability Concept (HVPW FCC) as a way to attack hard and deeply buried targets. October 4, Eglin AFB, FL, secret clearance or higher needed. AFLR awarded a couple related contracts in July. An AFRL presentation [PDF] from April 2011 described HVPW as a 2,000 lb weapon meant to be carried internally on F-35s.