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Prospect of Israeli Ground Attack in Gaza Met with Concern

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* A barrage of over 100 Palestinian rockets was aimed at Israeli cities on Saturday, and IDF told North Gaza residents to evacuate ahead of launching a significant attack. * Jordan’s King is unhappy about that prospect, and US State Secretary John Kerry is echoing those concerns, but Israel doesn’t care in a post-ISIS world. People haven’t paid enough attention to PM Netanyahu’s recent speech. American officials certainly have not, and there seems to be a bit of divergence between them and Congress. Even some Israelis are less than enthused about the prospect of a ground operation. * US officials told the NYT that according to a classified report many Iraqi military units are infiltrated with informants for Sunni extremists or Iran-backed Shiites. USAF Quick Reactionary Capability (QRC) Programs * The US Air Force Materiel Command would like to meet contractors with “the ability to rapidly develop and apply unique solutions to air delivered weapons systems requirements, studies and demonstrations.” There might be up to $490M over 5 years in studies and demonstrations. An industry day will take place on July 28 at Eglin AFB, FL. (We confirmed with the contract specialist that the year is indeed 2014, not 2011.) […]

* A barrage of over 100 Palestinian rockets was aimed at Israeli cities on Saturday, and IDF told North Gaza residents to evacuate ahead of launching a significant attack.

* Jordan’s King is unhappy about that prospect, and US State Secretary John Kerry is echoing those concerns, but Israel doesn’t care in a post-ISIS world. People haven’t paid enough attention to PM Netanyahu’s recent speech. American officials certainly have not, and there seems to be a bit of divergence between them and Congress. Even some Israelis are less than enthused about the prospect of a ground operation.

* US officials told the NYT that according to a classified report many Iraqi military units are infiltrated with informants for Sunni extremists or Iran-backed Shiites.

USAF Quick Reactionary Capability (QRC) Programs

* The US Air Force Materiel Command would like to meet contractors with “the ability to rapidly develop and apply unique solutions to air delivered weapons systems requirements, studies and demonstrations.” There might be up to $490M over 5 years in studies and demonstrations. An industry day will take place on July 28 at Eglin AFB, FL. (We confirmed with the contract specialist that the year is indeed 2014, not 2011.)

Asia

* Su Bin, a Chinese citizen running an aviation tech firm, was recently arrested in Canada on charges from the US Justice Department that he had stolen (then resold) information from Boeing and other contractors on programs such as the C-17 and F-35.

* INS Kolkata, India’s 1st homemade Type 15B destroyer, has been handed over to the Indian Navy for commissioning next month. Kolkata is a multi-purpose air warfare destroyer, and is the 1st surface combatant to carry IAI Elta’s MF-STAR AESA radar. It’s also designed to launch the future Barak-8 air defense missile and PJ-10 Brahmos supersonic cruise missile.

* Japan’s Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera spoke about his country’s new security and defense policy at a CSIS event in Washington, DC last week. Transcript [PDF].

Africa

* DefenseWeb provides an update on the growing array of South African weapon projects. Emerging-market missile offerings from firms like Denel (SA), Roketsan (TR), Mectron (BR), and LIGNex1 (KR), are expanding fast. This “Hyundaization” of the global defense market has important implications for Western firms, and Western diplomacy.

Flexible Robot Parts

* Researchers from MIT recently published a paper describing material made of wax and foam that could be used to build more flexible self-healing robots. Phase change is triggered with heating, reminding of shape memory alloys first developed by the US Navy more than 50 years ago. Video below:

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