Russia has tried to use these treaty talks to lock in its nuclear advantages and take away any potential American defenses, and our side seems ready to agree it will neither improve nor expand its existing system for countering long-range ballistic missiles. Meanwhile, true to Obama’s dream, the U.S. government doesn’t seem to think that having the ability to inflict widespread damage on Russia would be essential to an improved bilateral relationship.

The Army received approval from Ashton Carter to release the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Request For Proposal (RFP) to industry today. We have a copy of it here; additional attachments to the RFP can be found at the TACOM procurement web site. Industry proposals are due no later than 1 p.m. on 26 April, Army officials say.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee called Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ principal arguments against the F136 “short-sighted” and largely dismissed them. “The Department’s analysis does not consider the risk that a single engine would present not only to our fighter force, but to our national security, given that the F-35 will account for 95 percent of our nation’s fighter fleet. With this program, as with all others, we cannot use near-sighted vision when long-term security is at stake.”

At the Army’s annual winter symposium underway in Florida, Textron unveiled a new vehicle called the Small Combat Tactical Vehicle Capsule (SCTVC), it’s a bolt-on armored capsule that fits onto the existing Humvee chassis, giving the vehicle Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) level protection from IED and mine blasts. Textron hopes to get a piece of the Army’s $1 billion-plus, 60,000 vehicle up-armored Humvee recap contract due out this spring.

UPDATED: Pratt Says Tight Budget Pushing Lawmakers to Question F136

The late Rep. Jack Murtha believed strongly in the need for a second Joint Strike Fighter engine and it showed. Appropriators have pushed through $3 billion in funding for the F136 over the years and Murtha was in the front row as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. At the first meeting of the HAC-D under the leadership of Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) several members expressed doubt about the need for a second engine.

UPDATED: Boeing ‘Disappointed’ WTO Subsidies Not Addressed In RFP; NG Does Not Pull Out … at Least Not Yet.

First reactions are in from lawmakers who were briefed on the Air Force’s new Tanker RFP this morning. Norm Dicks (D) from Washington state, chairman presumptive to replace the late Rep. John Murtha on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said the RFP is “a fundamental plus for the smaller aircraft.” When asked his opinion on Northrop/EADS threats to drop out of the bid because they believe the RFP is weighted heavily in favor of rival Boeing, “I will say hallelujah.”

We got our hands on today’s Tanker RFP brief from Deputy SecDef William Lynn, chief weapons buyer Ashton Carter and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley.

Larry Dodgen, the retired Army lieutenant general who led the Army Space and Strategic Command before joining Northrop Grumman, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack while playing tennis near his home in Huntsville, Ala. He was 60. A memorial service will be held Thursday morning in Huntsville, with burial at Arlington National Cemetery in early March. A company official said Dodgen’s unexpected death “is significant on many levels” for the company.

In an early show of strength, Hill supporters of the F136 have made very clear to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Obama administration that they will continue to support the second engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter.

While the letter, signed by the committee’s chairman and ranking member with their counterparts on the HASC air and land forces subcommittee, starts off with nice words about their “great respect” for Gates’ “judgement and the sincerity of your position,” it quickly goes on to slam the Pratt & Whitney engine.

UPDATED: Army COS Gen. Casey Voices Unease About Scrapping Don’t Ask During Wartime

The Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, told the House Armed Services Committee today that he worries changing the current policy on gays in the military could “perturb the force” at a time when it already faces strains from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Marines are using Ospreys to help set up ambush kill boxes as they hunt the Taliban around Marja, a source familiar with the issue tells us. This may help put paid to the criticism that Ospreys are basically really fancy flying buses. If they are being used where lead is flying and playing a key combat role it’s pretty hard to disregard them, unless you can also disregard assets like Bradleys and Strykers.

It’s a bit mushy, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today that he is “very hopeful” that we will have two competitors” responding to the final tanker RFP. When I asked Gates during today’s press conference when the final RFP would be out, he wouldn’t go beyond saying, “very soon.” Rumors are that it may come out any time this week.

Did the Army really pitch chief Pentagon weapons buyer Ashton Carter on a new infantry fighting vehicle weighing in at 70 tons? That’s what a Reuters news story claims. Defense consultant and analyst Loren Thompson thinks the Army’s future Ground Combat vehicle plan is unraveling.

News that the F-35’s IOC date will probably shift substantially to the right led a congressional aide to note Congress now has few ways to help the Pentagon or taxpayers other than by supporting the F136 second engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter. Gates’ successful kill of the F-22 means “there are now very few options for Gates or Congress… All staff can do is recommend to members that whatever screwed up program that they have that the risk to operational readiness is unacceptable without a competitive engine program. Everyone acknowledges this off the record, except Gates.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead has signed off on the Navy’s “Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges.” The Navy will buy ships and aircraft that provide “broadened” and “balanced” capabilities to deal with a range of irregular opponents, including pirates, terrorists, criminal organizations, insurgents and other state and non-state actors, the document says. By “balancing shifts in our investments” the service will better address and incorporate “urgent and emerging requirements” to confront the “hybrid nature” of future challenges. It emphasizes buying “multi-mission ships and aircraft,” oriented to “lower end operations.”

Air Force Chief Gen. Norton Schwartz has confirmed what most everybody assumed would transpire, that the oft-​​delayed F-​​35 Joint Strike Fighter program will most likely breach the Nunn-​​McCurdy statute that requires the Pentagon notify Congress if a weapon’s cost is spiraling out of control. “I would say it is a possibility and maybe even [be] likely,” Schwartz told reporters at the Air Force Association’s air warfare symposium.”

Vice President Joe Biden seemed pretty sure it would happen, and it did. During his speech today at the National Defense University, Biden told the audience “some in my party would may have problems” with the administration’s decision to commit $7 billion over the next five years to upgrade the nuclear weapons complex. Sure enough, just about half an hour after the speech, the group Peace Action patted Biden and Obama on the head for restating their rather mushy commitment to a world without nuclear weapons — eventually — but kicked the VP for “wrongly” stating that we need to modernize nuclear weapons facilities.

Deputy SecDef Bill Lynn confirmed that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the common operating platform for the Air Force, Navy, Marines, along with a host of foreign nations, has run headlong into further delays, stretching out the development time and adding costs to what is already the Pentagon’s most expensive program.

Coast Guard commandant Adm. Thad Allen said that his National Security Cutter is a better ship for partnering with foreign navies than the Littoral Combat Ship. Problem is, he doesn’t have enough cutters to meet the current demand from the various combatant commanders.

A key supporter of the F/A-18 E/F isn’t sitting still for Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ latest explanation of the ever-shrinking fighter gap. Rep. Todd Akin wrote Gates an early Valentine’s Day card pressing him to buy more planes and to use multi-year authority to buy them.