After a two-year effort, an international ban on the use of cluster bombs will go into effect on Aug. 1. And, just as it did with the landmark landmine ban, the United States refused to sign the treaty and has no plans to scrap its inventory of cluster bombs. But the world’s sole superpower may find it more difficult to use them thanks to European allies who agreed to the ban last month.

Army officials say they want to open up the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) competition to any company that builds combat vehicles, not just BAE and General Dynamics. They are hoping other builders can gain entry into the niche armored fighting vehicle market, said GCV PM Col. Bryan McVeigh. He also laid out the requirements for the new vehicle.

Sen. John McCain is worried about the F-35 and thinks the Defense Department has done a pretty lousy job of telling Congress about the program’s woes. “As a strong supporter of the F-35, as a person who supported cancellation of the F-22, I’m very disturbed” about how the Pentagon kept the Congress informed. He said at today’s Air Force posture hearing that the SASC has not “been adequately informed of the extent of what the difficulties are.”

Boeing unveiled the plane it will offer for the KC-X airborne tanker competition today, including a little movie and a press release. There was no mention of a 777 tanker, just the long-expected 767. One of the more intriguing adds to the new bid was the news that the new tanker will boast “a digital flight deck featuring electronic displays” taken from the 787, Boeing’s most advanced civilian plane. It will “show all flight attitude, navigation, engine indication and crew-alerting information on screens 75 percent larger than on a commercial Airbus A330.” One can almost hear the Boeing folks crying: Take that EADS!

No one at the Pentagon has been willing to say the Joint Strike Fighter buy might get smaller until now. But Robert Hale, the comptroller and thus the main money man, made it explicit today. “If there is cost growth, I think we will just have to reduce the buy,” he said at the annual Precision Strike Association conference.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order this week changing the line of succession at the Defense Department, reversing changes made by the Bush administration in 2005. The deputy secretary of defense remains the immediate successor if the secretary of defense is unable to perform his duties, but the March 1 executive order reinstates the three service secretaries – Army, Navy and Air Force, in that order – as next in line.

It could be a long range strike platform. It could use SAR and electro-optical sensors to spy on an enemy. About the only thing it won’t do is serve as an attack fighter. It is Boeing’s Phantom Ray, an unmanned aerial system being developed by the company’s Phantom Works. The company will roll out the new plane in May. It should taxi in July. Then it will move to NASA’s Dryden site for flight and other tests, which should begin in December.

Air Force Secretary Mike Donley confirmed the Joint Strike Fighter program will breach the Nunn-McCurdy cost growth limits but Congress should expect few changes after the mandated review occurs. Donley told defense reporters that the Pentagon has already made many of the changes that are needed.“We’ve been taking all the mitigating and corrective actions we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach,” he said. How big the breach will be and when it will be reported to Congress, he isn’t sure.

The number one priority of the GCV, according to what’s written in the initial capabilities document and the capability development document, is to provide armored protection to the soldier, particularly against IEDs. Close behind it is mobility. “The MRAP is not mobile off the roads… protect the individual soldier, having a mobile off-​​road capability and having it networked… are the three [priorities] that come to mind,” said Army Maj. Gen. Keith Walker, the service’s Future Force Integration Directorate Commander.

In a recent government survey of more than 100,000 people across the U.S., 40 percent reported no broadband or high-​​speed access to the Internet, while 30 percent said they have no Internet access at all. Satellite broadband delivery is seen to be a quick and economical solution to this problem.

UPDATED: Congressional AIde Says F-35 Still A “Pig;” Lockheed Defends Program

In his most significant action since the Senate confirmed him, Ash Carter has issued an acquisition decision memorandum moving full rate production to November 2015, to withhold $614 million from Lockheed Martin and only pay it “to reward measurable progress…” Carter’s revised plan drew a stinging critique and call for a production freeze from Winslow Wheeler, a former congressional budget expert now with the Center for Defense Information.