* US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dempsey explained in a letter to a congressman that opposition to the Assad regime in Syria is too fragmented and would not align with American interests, were they to prevail. In his opinion this weakens the case for military support from the US.
* Bashar Assad’s joint venture with al-Qaeda during Operation Iraqi Freedom ended up giving way, way too much information and knowledge to a competitor.
* Taiwan unveils its corvette sized Littoral Combat Ship, in answer to China’s missile armed Type 022 Houbei Class Fast Attack Craft. Lung-De’s wave-piercing catamarans will carry 16 sub-sonic and supersonic anti-ship missiles.
* India has sent the draft of a Border Defence Cooperation Agreement to China, to hopefully put an end to incidents and intrusions, real or imagined.
* Daniel McGroarty from Carmot Strategic Group, about China making assertive maritime claims while backing investments in the commodity and energy sectors of its neighbors:
“China’s simultaneous inside and outside game, by turns threatening the Philippines while also investing in it, points up the asymmetry in the competition between the U.S. and China in the Pacific Rim. China meshes military, political and economic domains as different strands of a single overriding strategy.”
* Russia is Sudan’s primary weapons supplier, and they have reportedly started delivering a mix of attack and transport helicopters last year following a 2011 agreement. Sudan may also acquire used Su-30Ks returned by India a decade ago.
* The Russians are dragging their feet to get AgustaWestland to lower the price of a potential sale of 35 AW139 helicopters.
* Sometimes no news is good news: the US DoD Inspector General thinks the Air Force’s Hard Target Void Sensing Fuze (HTVSF) program looks on track for its low-rate initial production (LRIP) scheduled for Q3 FY14.
* 3D printing gone wrong has its own support group on picture-sharing site Flickr .
* The video below shows the assembly of MiG-29K fighters at the Lukhovitsy plant:
