* Australia and the UK signed a treaty to cooperate on areas including cyber security and defense tech. Britain pitched their Type 26 Global Combat Ships. Official statements: Australia | UK | Joint press conference.
* Earlier in the week Indonesia said it was considering buying 3 (presumably older) frigates from Britain, though details are lacking: Antara News | Investor Daily (in Indonesian) | Financial Times.
* General Dynamics C4 Systems and Alenia Aermacchi will bid together on the USAF’s T-X trainer competition to replace T-38 Talons.
* Airbus delivered two C295 transport aircraft ordered last year by Kazakhstan, which has an option for up to 6 more.
* The Army’s Mid-Tier Networking Vehicular Radio (MNVR) competition (W15P7T-12-R-0022) is expected to be wrapped up soon.
* The right-wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Institute for the Study of War estimate that maintaining a single base in Afghanistan after 2014 would require a minimum of 6,000 troops.
* The left-leaning Brookings Institute reiterates familiar recommendations to the Obama administration: keep the F-35 but scale back orders by half, make deals with Gulf Arab states to permanently station jets there in order to cut carrier battle groups, and use “innovative” sea swaps to keep naval troops deployed longer. Cutting the F-35 program by half would obviously have a dramatic effect on cost/unit while sea swaps were already tried last decade with mixed results (GAO | CBO).
