* US Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno released a slidedeck [PDF] detailing the budget shortfall that will affect operations & maintenance for the rest of the fiscal year. Of course cramming a year worth of cuts into half the time is going to look bad. But the Budget Control Act (BCA) – the law that sets the sequester in place – had already been on the books for months when the Administration submitted its FY13 budget request a year ago. That the Office of Management and budget and the Pentagon chose to pretend sequestration would not happen when they built that budget, then stuck to that position for months despite clear lack of action in the Senate, is entirely self-inflicted.
* President Obama continues to urge Congress to preempt sequestration before its March 1st deadline while Secretary of Defense Panetta and CJCS Martin E. Dempsey complain about the effects of the continuing resolution. This elicits a reminder: the House of Representatives passed its defense Appropriations bill in July last year. It is the Senate rather than the whole Congress which has shown little interest in appropriations bill this fiscal year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had made clear at the time that the BCA was all the budget he needed for FY13.
* Yesterday’s WSJ article by Michèle Flournoy on how to properly cut defense spending seems to be making the rounds. The Administration’s Plan B for the next SecDef in case Senator Hagel continues to meet opposition in the Senate? We have so far restrained ourselves to watching Netflix’s House of Cards just two episodes at a time, but in the meantime there’s always real life.
* A week ago Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions introduced a voluntary layoff program aiming to reduce its workforce by about 350 people. Dice | WaPo.
* The Defense Acquisition University (DAU) will host a training forum on Better Buying Power 2.0 on April 9, 2013 in Fort Belvoir, VA.
* The US Navy’s Chief Information Officer updated his guidance [PDF] on Acquisition Information Assurance Strategy (AIAS) to reflect requirements set by the Clinger-Cohen Act and SECNAVINST 5000.2E [PDF].
* Huntington Ingalls Industries is following up on its CEO’s recent talk of relaunching its Avondale shipyard in Louisiana as an energy business rather than closing it. They opened a dedicated website to support their pitch to potential customers/partners/bidders.
* The US Army’s Communications-Electronic Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) issued a Request for Information last month to research UAS-based electronic warfare capabilities the industry might have to offer. They just extended the response date to Feb. 22.
* There were talks in Russia last year to reopen airbases in the Arctic but these plans are now reportedly put on ice.
* The South Korean military would like to have its own dedicated observation satellites rather than rely solely on dual-use sats, reports the Yonhap news agency. The country’s latest milestone was the first launch a week ago of a satellite from its soil.
* France successfully fired an Aster 15 missile in a test on the Aquitaine FREMM frigate. DGA [in French].
