The tanker competition has grown so baroque that it’s easy to sometimes wonder what’s real and what’s delusion. The latest twist is that EADS and some of Europe’s governments are reportedly lobbying for a deadline extension on when tanker bids can be submitted. Boeing’s brethren on Capitol Hill, sensing a possible threat to $35 billion for the company that means so much to their states, swung into action with little delay. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said any, “Delay is unacceptable.”

The Obama Pentagon proclaims it’s commitment to reformed acquisition and greater competition. Robbin Laird, international defense consultant who advised the Air Force on the last tanker competition, argues in this commentary that Northrop’s decision to pull out of the KC-X competition will pose a basic test of the administration’s commitment and it’s ability to oversee a major program.

The Pentagon’s head of operational testing and evaluation is “concerned” that a recent decision to remove fuses and fire extinguishers from the Joint Strike Fighter program means more planes may be lost to enemy fire and may increase the risk from fires resulting from fuel leaks and related risks. Michael Gilmore said in written testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee that the program recent removal of “shutoff fuses for engine fueldraulics lines, coupled with the prior removal of dry bay fire extinguishers, has increased the likelihood of aircraft combat losses from ballistic threat induced fires.

The 2010 QDR directed the Air Force and Navy to jointly develop the concept to “guide the development of future capabilities needed for effective power projection operations.” Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has been thinking through just such a concept for the last two decades and has a new paper out titled “Why AirSea Battle?” that lays out the case for why its needed.

UPDATED: Sarkozy To Press Obama On Tanker
Today’s headline in The Hill tells the story: “McCain Endorses Pentagon Process On Tanker Bid As Legitimate.” My colleague Roxana Tiron asked McCain for his views and the story says he told her that he “was not worried about Boeing, the only competitor left for the contract.” Meanwhile, EU officials warned against American protectionism in the wake of Northrop’s decision to pull out of the $35 billion deal.

While the Marines don’t like the difficult maintenance required for MRAPs, their top operations officer says the service is keeping them rolling and relying on the ungainly trucks to get them to the fight. The MRAPs and their smaller, more mobile cousins, the M-ATVs, are a “big plus, really performing well,” in the Afghanistan fight, Brig. Gen. David H. Berger, operations director Marine Corps HQ. They are sustaining readiness levels of 92 or 93 percent, he added.

UPDATED: DepSecDef Lynn Says U.S. ‘Disappointed’ By NG Decision
More than eight years since Boeing first tried to supply new airborne tankers to the Defense Department, the company appears to have finally won the tanker competition. Northrop Grumman announced today that it will not bid on the KC-X tanker and it will not file a protest that might delay the program any further The announcement came from the top. “We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the RFP, which clearly favors Boeing’s smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity,” said CEO Wes Bush.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.