The faces from across the land stretch across our Mall, past the church of the presidents and the White House, all the way past the Canadian Embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue up to the Capitol on this day we celebrate our national democracy. And it is the Capitol about which I’m going to write. While incoming president Barack Obama readies for the enormous burdens he will shoulder after placing his hand on the Bible Abraham Lincoln used for his inauguration, he must be considering –and planning for– the relationships he will manage with the House and Senate.

For those who watch the money, there was one persistent theme through the lightly-attended confirmation hearing for the new Pentagon leadership team: the money pool will shrink and the military must improve how well it develops and buys weapons. “These [acquisition] problems have reached crisis proportions,” noted the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.)

Israeli ground forces were roughly handled in Lebanon in 2006 by Hezbollah fighters equipped with an abundance of anti-armor missiles, raising alarms in some quarters that the IDF’s vaunted armor corps had lost its edge. In Israel’s ongoing Gaza offensive, IDF armor has figured prominently as Hamas has been unable to repeat Hezbollah’s success and counter IDF tank incursions ranging throughout Gaza.

We’ve all heard people grumble that the country is going to the dogs. Well, here’s a new tack on that, courtesy of my colleague Christian Lowe at DefenseTech. What defense contractor or hunter could resist body armor for the dog? Think of all the urban applications! Or just the thing to protect your bird dog from your own bad aim! OK, I’ll cut to the chase since this one is pretty much just for fun.

With Bill Lynn’s confirmation hearing to be deputy defense secretary just a tick tock away, I tried scanning the horizons for likely problems he may face as the man who runs the day to day business of the Pentagon. Only one issue came up, and it’s not worries that he may be too nice to industry given his years as Raytheon’s top lobbyist. (Though it will be interesting to see how hard Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hammers away at this issue given how he grilled Bush appointees coming in from industry.)

UPDATED with subcommittee assignments at bottom:
Comity, good fellowship, patriotism — all these were on stark display Wednesday as the House Armed Services Committee held its first meeting of the new Congress. And there were words of encouragement — and caution — for the many new members of the committee. Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), the committee’s new ranking member [in the picture], helped capture the tone at the hearing. “:Let me say I hope future meetings are as accommodating as this meeting has been,” he said, looking straight at Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the committee’s chairman.

The Israeli Defense Forces don’t do nation building. Building governance, providing humanitarian relief and other “stability operations” that have become part and parcel of U.S. military missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, are not the purview of the Israeli military, in fact Israeli government policy precludes the IDF from performing those tasks.

The global financial crisis is likely to drive Democrats to approve or continue major defense programs such as the F-22 and Future Combat System because they provide so many jobs. At the same time, the Pentagon must improve its management and development of acquisition systems and should start by focussing attention on the rapid acquisition efforts as as the one for counter-IED technologies and MRAPs to institutionalize what made those so responsive to warfighters needs. Those are some of the ideas offered by Paul Kaminski, one of the grand old men of the military industrial complex.

The latest restructuring of the Army’s flagship Future Combat Systems modernization program has shifted the program’s focus from producing a new family of armored vehicles to replace the M-1 Abrams and Bradley fighting vehicles to instead providing wireless communications networks, robots and sensors to light infantry units that are most heavily engaged in today’s irregular wars.

Not many planes are as loved by ground troops as are the ungainly close air support warriors known as A-10s. With the war in Afghanistan heating up in October came potentially disastrous reports that many Warthogs, as the planes are affectionately known, were suffering serious wing cracks and would have to be grounded while the problem was studied. Today comes word from Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, commander of the Twelfth Air Force, that most Hogs are back in the air or soon will be.

SACEUR Gen. Bantz Craddock said criminality is the primary driver behind the worsening security situation in Afghanistan and is also to blame for recent attacks on NATO supply lines that wind through neighboring Pakistan. Agreement on an alternate route through the Russian federation is almost complete.

CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman searches for a strategic purpose behind Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza and is unable to find one. For all the tactical gains the Israeli military may be securing, the offensive is generating greater popular support for Hamas and widespread anger across the Islamic world aimed not only at Israel, but the U.S. as well.

A blockbuster New York Times piece reveals that early in 2008, Israel asked the Bush administration for deep penetrating bunker-buster bombs, aerial refueling tankers and permission to overfly Iraq in order to strike Iran’s Natanz nuclear complex. The requests were rejected and covert efforts to stop Iran’s program stepped up.

The Army has redefined what it considers a “high-hot” flying environment, adding 2,000 feet and increasing the temperature. For those companies hoping to land the new Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter contract, meeting the new requirement might demand some big technological leaps.

The word is finally out on who will fill the crucial Defense Department posts under Secretary Gates. Biggest news — Bill Lynn will be nominated as Deputy Defense Secretary, the man who runs the department on a day to day basis. Lynn brings one crucial skill at this challenging economic time: he knows how to […]

Air Power Australia’s Carlo Kopp says that because of poorly thought out alterations in fuselage shape made since its early design stages, the Joint Striker Fighter is no longer a true stealth aircraft and would be unable to evade the powerful new radars in next generation, Russian-built air defense systems.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent the leading defense appropriators and authorizers an unusual Dec. 31 letter in which he told them he thought it was likely the Pentagon would need an additional $69.7 billion in wartime spending. What makes the letter unusual is that Gates makes clear the number is not the administration’s position but his own.