In a call that may well tip the scales in favor of serious cuts to the entire defense budget, senior House Democrat Steny Hoyer called today for active duty troops to take a pay freeze, just as their civilian counterparts will. Hoyer, the outgoing Majority Leader, offered an olive branch to those who might oppose the whole idea of a pay freeze for those who wear the uniform. He said he would exempt those deployed to combat zones.

Fits C-17, EFP Protected
The Army finally kicked off the competition today to develop son of the Future Combat System after scrapping the earlier RFP which the Army decided pushed the technology envelope too far. Reflecting the tight fiscal environment the Pentagon faces, service officials unveiled a fixed price contracting strategy to develop a vehicle that can operate in everything from major armored fights to counterinsurgency missions.

The head of the Joint Strike Fighter program, who was portrayed in a letter by senior House defense lawmakers as voicing support for the F136 second engine, has issued a denial. While he supports the generic idea of competition, Vice Adm. David Venlet supports Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ position opposing the F136.

Winslow Wheeler, former congressional defense budget guru, has penned a provocative memo to the new Tea Party senators. His main message: the Pentagon budget needs to be frozen. Defense Secretary Robert Gates may already be readying one of the biggest cuts to the defense budget by changing the Tricare contribution of veterans, raising the prospect of a true budget battle royal.

The big information guns from Pratt-Whitney, General Electric and Rolls Royce have been rolling out in the last few days, filling our minds with thunderous thoughts and few new facts. Why all this activity? The lame-duck Congress engages in its final acts starting tomorrow, including a push to pass a defense policy bill and to figure out just what form of defense spending bill (and attendant language) it will pass before vanishing into the fog of history. The biggest salvo in the engine war resumption came from the pen of former Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. And money may soon run out for the F136.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said yesterday that the service would be “foolish” not to at least consider buying roughly 90 Uh-60s from the Army to replace its ancient UH-1N Hueys.

The U.S. Air Force’s top officer is concerned that delays in software engineering for the F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter could delay the service’s fielding of the jet.

“I’m still concerned, concerned on schedule primarily — a little bit less on technical matters — software, again, appears to be a potential pacing item here.”

Two Program Officials Fired So Far
The Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, insisted today that sensitive information about the price of the tanker bids was not released when it mistakenly sent KC-X competitors Boeing and EADS information on each other’s offers earlier this month. The Air Force sent each company one compact disc containing one page of information about their rival jet’s performance in the so-called Integrated Fleet Aerial Refueling Assessments. These assessments play a key role in the Air Force’s evaluation of the bids as they are being used to evaluate the performance of the jets in a variety of different military scenarios.

Ever since Defense Secretary Robert Gates canned the head of the JSF program, Marine Maj. Gen. David Heinz, Capitol Hill aides have hinted that substantial support remained within the Air Force for a second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. Now we have proof. A November 19 letter signed by leaders of the House Armed Services Committee cites testimony by Adm. David Venelet, program executive officer for the JSF program. The letter was sent to Rep. Norm Dicks, chair of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee

EADS North America CEO Sean O’Keefe today said that while he trusts the Air Force’s word that no game-changing information was disclosed when the service mistakenly sent data on rival bids to the KC-X competitors, he cannot rule out a protest. Speaking to reporters in Washington during his first public appearance since the Aug. 9 plane crash in Alaska that killed Sen. Ted Stevens and left O’Keefe badly injured, the executive repeatedly said the Air Force is conducting an extremely fair and “above board” competition, all in a way that would ensure the “avoidance of a [sustainable] protest.”

Today is F-35 Defense Acquisition Board day. Some will bill this as a make-or-break event for Lockheed Martin but we suspect much of the bad news has already leaked out. Today could be the precursor for what could be a much worse day in the future when Defense Secretary Robert Gates takes the data from today’s DAB meeting and decides what to do with it in the 2012 budget.

Senior Republicans have voiced concern about whether Tea Party supporters will join Democrats in cutting the defense budget. Their isolationist and protectionist sentiments may, Sen. John McCain said earlier this week, lead to weaker support for the war in Afghanistan. Given what certainly seemed like quite a bit of sturm und drang we asked some of the most prominent keepers of the GOP flame — at the Heritage Foundation — to explain just how deep the split might be on defense issues between GOP stalwarts and the new kids on the Hill. Heritage’s James Carafano says the media is making a mountain out of a molehill. — Colin Clark

For the first time since 1976, the United States military will publish a law of war manual, one that will embrace and enunciate controversial and new issues such as cyber war and the rights of that wonderful new legal class known as “armed non-state actors.” Of course, most of us just call them terrorists. This will be the first truly joint law of war manual for the U.S. military and is designed for the age of privates, sergeants and captains calling in and executing artillery, naval and air strikes.

The tidal wave is coming for defense budgets. Promising $100 billion in savings over five years, but hoping to keep the funds is not going to hold it back. The wave is coming, first, from a growing sentiment that America’s debts and deficits are our number one security problem, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen has said, and that defense must play a part in solving the problem.

A bipartisan panel led by the last people to effectively balance the federal budget wants defense spending frozen for five years, end strength cuts of 275,000 and boost Tricare copayments. The panel, led by former Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Alice Rivlin, OMB director under President Clinton, recommends killing or deferring the F-35, V-22, Virginia subs and ballistic missile defense. The panel argues that these cuts would still leave the United States the most powerful military in the world, one able to deploy and fight globally.

Pentagon acquisition boss Ashton Carter has again defended the Defense Department’s choice to forgo competition for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter engine program while delivering a speech on how the Pentagon can buy smart in a time of flat defense budgets. Buying from both LCS companies, on the other hand, is good competition.

In what is beginning to look like a concerted effort to position the Navy for expansion in hard times — or at least to protect what it has left — Adm. Gary Roughead offered a new version today of a speech he first unveiled last month predicting the rise of naval forces as land forces face increasing obstacles to operations in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The noted hawk and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Joe Lieberman, told a GOP conference today that he believes the Taliban are in retreat and cautioned that “very few” American troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan this summer. “We really have begun to turn the tide. That means, very specifically, we are beginning to push the Taliban out in this very necessary war,” said Lieberman, who just returned from a trip to Afghanistan with Senators John McCain, of Arizona, Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The presumptive chair of the House Armed Services Committee told reporters today that for the first time in many years the Congress will not pass a defense policy bill, known technically as the defense authorization bill. Rep. Buck McKeon acknowledged the lack of a bill would be a blot on the HASC copy book, raising fundamental questions about the committee’s purpose and power. But McKeon also told reporters that some of the important defense policies — continuing to build and fund the F-136 engine for the Joint Strike fighter, for example — could be inserted in a Continuing Resolution.