* According to the Korea Herald, South Korea’s 2015 defense budget has been finalized by parliament at 37.4 trillion won ($33.4B), a 4.9% increase slightly below what the ministry had asked. 11.1 trillion won ($9.9B) is allocated to procurement.
US DoD Leadership
* Ashton Carter has now been officially confirmed as the US Administration’s choice for Secretary of Defense. Unlike his predecessor he should sail through the Senate confirmation process. Once confirmed he’ll get his fair share of headaches and then some.
* Jamie Morin, Director of DoD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE), speaks today at the CSIS think tank (1pm ET) about bugeting in an uncertain fiscal environment.
Army/USMC Assault Bridges
* The US Army is organizing an industry day [FBO] on December 17 at their depot in Anniston, AL, to discuss forthcoming XM1074 Joint Assault Bridge (JAB) production at low then full rates between FY15 and FY20, for a projected total of 361 units to be produced by a single award winner. Here’s a draft executive summary [PDF] about this joint program between the Army and Marines to replace the legacy M48/M60 tank-based Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (AVLB). General Dynamics Land Systems and a DRS/IMI team won the 2 EMD contracts back in 2012.
Middle East
* Reuters: Islamic State cedes little ground despite air attacks.
Europe
* Deutsche Welle’s Bernd Riegert thinks that Germany may have to consider reintroducing conscription if the crisis between NATO and Russia lasts.
* Germany made a ruckus when it was revealed that NSA had eavesdropped on Chancellor Merkel, but according to a former project leader at the German BND intelligence agency, the chancellery had authorized the delivery of what ended up being insufficiently filtered information to the Americans between 2004 and 2008. Last year it became apparent that despite public statements of horror by French politicians in the wake of the Snowden revelations, similar secret information sharing arrangements existed between France and the US. DW.
“Guardians of Peace”
* Revelations about the extent of a massive data breach affecting Sony Pictures keep coming. The hack extends to social security numbers of 47,000 employees and celebrities, salaries at auditing firm Deloitte, in addition to passwords to hundreds of systems that were stored in clear text files. WSJ | Fusion | Ars Technica | Brian Krebs.
* Today’s video is a panel hosted last month by the Reagan National Defense Forum on cyber security. The NSA has a written transcript (of course they do):
