After two years or so of claiming that they had fixed the key sensor on one of the most troubled programs in recent Pentagon history it looks as if Northrop Grumman has finally found a fix. The program is NPOESS, the nation’s most sophisticated weather and climate satellite managed and funded by a tortured trio of the Pentagon, NOAA (at the Commerce Department) and NASA.

Iran is flexing its military muscle as world condemnation grows over its nuclear program. Last week, Iran held what it touted as its largest ever air defense drill intended to send a message to Israel that an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would not be a repeat of the fairly effortless Israeli destruction of Syria’s al-Kibar nuclear facility two years ago. Analysts warn that delivery of a missing piece in Iran’s air defenses would almost guarantee an Israeli air attack: the long talked about sale by Russia to Iran of the S-300 (SA-20) surface to air missile system.

Last week several respected Washington defense analysts told the House Armed Services Committee that we are in decline while Asia is on the rise. While most military analysts watch China closely and never forget the always ambitious Russians, few have been willing to tell Congress or anyone else that what the Chinese might call US hegemony is on the wane. Such an essential critique invites a closer look and requires debate. Our first critique is from two respected scholars, one from the Naval War College and the other from Harvard’s Kennedy School and the war college. Their conclusion: the end of the world is quite a ways off, though US power is in “relative decline.”

The Pentagon, after years and years of deliberation and heavy pressure from Britain, has finally decided it will not share the all-important computer source code for the Joint Strike Fighter. Sharing source code would, in the words of one close observer of the program, “turn the British JSF into a Trojan Horse.”

A major troop buildup in Afghanistan would prolong the war at a moment when the U.S. should be looking for ways to end it. Worse, military escalation could further destabilize South Asia and hinder the Obama administration’s larger efforts to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al Qaeda. How might things unravel? Consider the last eight years of conflict in the region. In 2001, U.S. troops and their allies routed much of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

UPDATED: Ash Carter Says LockMar Should Share Costs To Bring Program Back on Track. LockMar Says Plane Back To Flight Dec. 7.
A troublesome fuel shutoff valve. The engine inlet rake needed replacement. Those are among the latest reported problems with the Joint Strike Fighter program, specifically with the STOVL version that just arrived at Patuxent River. A congressional aide confirmed the information, adding that these issues do not pose an immediate threat to the test program.

President Obama will announce his new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan sooner or later. Given that the key decision — at least publicly — will be how many more troops to send to Afghanistan it seems propitious to consider the Bush administration’s decision to surge roughly 30,000 troops to Iraq. How it worked and why is the subject of a new film, “The Surge: The Untold Story.”

Two influential analysts told lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week that America’s strategic position in the world is eroding. America is losing its technological edge and is in deep financial trouble, while purchasing power is shifting from the West to Asia. Those trends cannot be undone, they warned, so the U.S. must adapt and seek greater cooperation with allies and establish “rules of the road” with potential rivals.

When it comes to cyber attacks, the odds are against us. The head cyber protection guy at the National Security Agency, Richard Schaeffer, told the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that about 80 percent of attacks on our networks can be prevented. That is “unacceptable,” Sen. Ben Cardin, subcommittee chairman, told Schaeffer and the other government officials testifying before him. “We would never ponder a defense budget that is dependent on an 80 percent success rate.”

The non-partisan CBO said defense budgets must grow by at least six percent beginning next year to pay for weapons programs currently on the books. The base defense budget would have to increase to an average of $567 billion annually for two decades. While that might not appear all that high, it must be viewed in the context of sluggish U.S. economic growth, record deficits, and the need to pay interest on that growing pile of debt.

Amid warnings of the perilous state of the rotary-wing industry comes a new GAO report warning of a looming “tactical airlift gap” because no aircraft can move the Army’s “medium weight” weapons about the battlefield. The Air Force and Army are looking at the Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) effort, still in the conceptual stages, to provide a new aircraft that might fit the bill. The JFTL could be a massive rotary-wing aircraft, if the Army gets its way.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair should sign by Dec. 1 a document laying out new responsibilities for the National Reconnaissance Office, builder and operator of America’s spy satellites. This will set in motion the first substantial changes to the NRO charter since 1965, four years after then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara created the NRO and drafted its charter.

John Warner, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, looms as one of the canniest and most rational defense experts on Capitol Hill for the last two decades. His inclusion as co-chair of the independent panel charged with overseeing the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review would have provided the nation with a keen eye to ensure that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and company did not get away with too many fudged or badly reasoned decisions. Sadly, that is not to be. That may leave the panel behind the power curve, as the Heritage Foundation’s Mackenzie Eaglen told us.

DoD is sufficiently worried about the long term health of the helicopter industry that acquisition chief, Ashton Carter, wants to create a new intitiative, run from his office, that would corral the different services’ research and development money (altogether about $110 million) and funnel it to where it can have the most impact. The new initiative would include a partnership between government and an industry consortium.

Counterinsurgency adviser David Kilcullen spoke last night at SAIS in Washington and said the Taliban have proven capable of adapting to smaller U.S. and NATO troop increases in the past and coming back stronger. That’s why he believes a “middle ground” approach that sends less troops than Gen. McChrystal wants is destined to fail. To knock the Taliban back and regain the initiative requires sending around 40,000 more troops, he said.

When one of China’s top two military leaders visited America last month, the PLA launched an impressive and coordinated propaganda effort. The Chinese also have crafted an coordinated approach to using cyber warfare, melding it with signals intelligence, electronic warfare and precision guided weapons in a new strategy called Integrated Network Electronic Warfare (INEW). “This sort of multi-spectrum assault has potential implications that go well beyond the battlefield,” Larry Wortzel, a top China expert will tell Congress Tuesday.

A key part of the seemingly endless debate about Afghanistan and Pakistan — not to mention Iraq — has been just what forces are needed to succeed. Most analysts agree that mass — numbers of troops — is one key to success. Most thinktank analysts agree that a counterinsurgency (COIN) approach is best. Deploy close to the people and clear, hold, build. The part that doesn’t get a lot of attention in the public debate is just what it takes to do to the “clear” part. Read Doug MacGregor’s pungent comments on what he thinks the US needs to send.

Now that the V-22s have landed in Afghanistan, it’s time to take a look at how they will be used. Robbin Laird, a defense consultant who works for the Marines — among other clients — got a chance to interview the flight crews of VMM-261, headed by Lt. Col. A. J. Bianca, about the concepts of operations they expected to follow. We’ve got links to the interviews, an interview with Laird and links to video of the V-22 teams undergoing deployment to Afghanistan and some of their training.