* After long negotiations between its ministry of finance and defense officials, Israel’s defense budget looks set to be reduced by 3 billion sheqels (about $830M) in 2014, with 1 NIS billion in reserves used to dampen cuts that were initially expected to be deeper: Globes | AFP | Jerusalem Post.
* Russia’s recently re-established Mediterranean task force is about to reach that sea and may see the addition of nuclear submarines, according to RIA Novosti. The number of patrols by Russian SSBNs has reportedly cratered (if the underlying intel is reliable) in the past two decades.
* Lessons from the recent stand-off in Ladakh between China and India: China is ready to take calculated risks to control the agenda, dictate the tempo, and back up an increasingly assertive posture with all its neighbors.
* Defense-Aerospace offers a worthy review of France’s CAESAR 155/52 caliber truck-mounted artillery program. The French army found such relatively heavy but mobile materiel useful against what turned out to be [in French] a determined enemy in Mali.
* The US Air Force will host an event [PDF] dedicated to fuze technology on 25-26 June 2013 at the University of Florida.
* The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) think tank’s latest report [PDF] ponders the future of US Special Operations Forces, following a decade where USSOCOM saw its budget more than quadruple and its personnel grow by 25,000 people (+68%).
* The Lowly Institute is starting a series of videos on Australia’s defense policy. The first one (embedded below) discusses whether enough is spent, relative to the country’s low threat outlook and the goals it sets for itself: