Congressman John Murtha, one of the most powerful and influential Democratic lawmakers on defense issues in the House for more than three decades, died today in Arlington, Va., at the age of 77. For the last two years, Murtha had served as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, which determines where and how much of the Pentagon’s money is spent. In his position as the chairman and earlier as the ranking member of the so-called HAC-D, Murtha steered hundreds of millions of dollars to defense programs in his district, prompting accusations of sweet-heart deals and influence peddling.

The makers of America’s rockets and satellites “are still stumbling on fundamentals too often,” said Gary Payton, former astronaut and the top Air Force man on space acquisition. Payton’s comments seem to indicate a continuing trend of shoddy quality control among those whose toughest job is turning out top quality parts and software and making sure they work and fit well.

The Army plans to spend at least $7 billion over the next five years to develop its new Ground Combat Vehicle and is determined to get a jump on the project, with $934 million slotted for work in 2011 and nearly $2 billion the next year in what is clearly an accelerated development. The GCV will replace the FCS manned ground vehicles, cancelled last year, as the base model for future combat vehicles; the Army has said the initial vehicle will be an infantry carrier

Reviews of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review are pouring in from Washington’s defense cognoscenti and so far they come with a strong tilt towards disappointed. The lack of any real news or major program or policy shifts has led a number of defense wonks to question the value of the whole QDR process.

The Obama administration’s engagement policy and Defense Department budget cuts portend “an America in decline,” an approach the country must not accept, one of the top defense Republican lawmakers said today in a speech billed as a major policy address. “A defense budget in decline portends an America in decline,” Rep. Buck McKeon, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee says in a speech written for delivery at the conservative Heritage Foundation this morning.

The much-debated carrier fighter gap stretches about 100 planes wide in 2018. That is what Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee today. That is less than half of the Navy’s estimate, given to Congress last year. The Navy has pretty much stuck with a figure of 243 aircraft or, as some lawmakers have it, 48 planes a year.

Defense Secretary Gates slammed the F136 in his testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Today, GE tackled his arguments, offering what they take to be a point by point refutation. The most interesting point is that GE says costs for the program should be “far less” than the $2.5 billion investment over the next five years that Gates cited.

The Air Force looks as if it has punted the establishment of a COIN Wing (though we’ll see when the authorization process starts) based on its budget submission yesterday. Air Force budget officials said the so-​​called “light attack aircraft” would not have any significant funding until the 2012 submission, where the service will allot $172 million for the so-​​called COIN plane.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a clear signal to Democrats who might be eager to make cuts to the Defense Department’s budget: if you cut us below current levels you will “have to sacrifice force structure. We cannot do it any other way.” Making such cuts will mean that the United States will suffer from “a reduction in military capability and a reduction in our flexibility.” Gates was replying to a question from Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who cited the Obama administration’s domestic spending freeze, adding that the U.S. “may need to trim defense budgets as well.”

The big question for the Navy in advance of the QDR and the 2011 budget release was would DOD reconcile the growing gap between the Navy’s shipbuilding and funding plans? The answer is no. They didn’t even try. There is some vague talk in the QDR about the Navy and Air Force jointly developing an air-sea battle concept to ensure power projection, but provides no further details. While the Navy’s 2011 request increases funding for new ship construction from $12.4 billion in 2010 to $13.8 billion this year, it is still far short of what’s needed to reach the aspirational 313 ship fleet.

The Missile Defense Agency is struggling with lousy quality control among its contractors, its executive director said today. David Altwegg told reporters that he and his colleagues stood watching a recent THAAD test. A drogue parachute pulled the target out of a C-17. “We all stood there and watched it fall into the water,” said an obviously disgusted Altweg. A failure review board was convened and found the test failed due to “a quality control problem.”

Today, the Army requested $143 billion for 2011 in the base budget, a modest increase over the $140 billion the service received last year from congress, and an additional $102 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, formerly known as the supplemental war requests. While the design of the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), the replacement for the cancelled FCS ground vehicles, has yet to be finalized, the Army is still spending nearly $1 billion on the program.

The Humvee, which replaced the Jeep, will no longer be bought by the Army. While the service won’t buy any more Humvees, the Army is not getting rid of them. “The Army is not buying more Humvees but other people buy Humvees so the line is not terminated. We envision the Humvee to be an enduring part of the Army fleet for a long time,” Army Lt. Gen. Edgar Stanton, the military deputy in the Army comptroller’s office, told reporters during a Q and A session after the Army budget briefing.

UPDATED: Vice Adm. David Venlet, NAVAIR commander, Likely New JSF Program Manager; LM Issues Statement

The bombshell of budget day: Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the prpgram manager of the Joint Strike Fighter program was being canned and would be replaced by a three- star general. “One cannot absorb the additional costs in this program and the delays without people being held accountable,” Gates said during the question and answer period of his budget briefing today.

UPDATED: With Obama Calling C-17 Adds “Waste, Pure and Simple”

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has signaled that Democrats will search high and low for ways to “cut wasteful spending” in the Defense Department. Rep. Ike Skelton, known for his temperance on most matters military, put out a short statement saying that the HASC “will be watching closely as the administration implements last year’s reforms and will continue to look for ways to cut wasteful spending as we review this year’s budget.”

As DoD rolls out its 2011 budget request today, along with the Quadrennial Defense Review, one area we’ll be closely scrutinizing is the Navy’s shipbuilding plan. Last month, CBO naval analyst Eric Labs told Congress that if the Navy funds ship construction at the historical norm of around $14 billion a year, the fleet will fall to around 270 ships by 2025, a far cry from the service’s aspirational 313 ship battle fleet.

UPDATED: With Gates Comments on How Old Strategy Was “Too Confining”

Clearly continuing his Augean task of reshaping the U.S. military to win the wars it is fighting, Defense Secretary Robert Gates commits the Defense Department to institutionalizing his focus in the final, official version of the Quadrennial Defense Review. “This is truly a wartime QDR. For the first time, it places the current conflicts at the top of our budgeting, policy, and program priorities, thus ensuring that those fighting America’s wars and their families – on the battlefield, in the hospital, or on the home front – receive the support they need and deserve,” Gates says in his opening note to the QDR.

Jim Jones, president Obama’s national security advisor, didn’t break any big news today at the Center for Strategic and International Study. But he did highlight that this year will be tough and he offered some of the reasons why, like Iran. His comments on Iran came closest to news, when he said that Iran, facing increased pressure from the international community over its apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons might well strike out at Israel as a result. His reasoning was simple: a “pressured country often lashes out through its surrogates,” he said.

Much will be made of a few reluctant acknowledgements of reality. The Navy won’t plan on, for now, a new cruiser it can’t afford even under the wildest budget growth assumptions. The Army will continue redesigning the vehicles for its “system of system” target hunting technologies that we now know can’t find even primitive enemies. The Air Force will have to wait, but just a bit, for a new bomber to try, yet again, to attack what it called decades ago “critical nodes.” The Marine Corps will declare a return to its amphibious warfare heritage: to fight its way onto hostile shores — something it has not done since 1945.

The chief of the Army’s aviation branch recently said that Afghanistan is America’s third helicopter war; Vietnam and Iraq being the first two. That explains why DOD is requesting $9.6 billion for new rotary wing aircraft in the 2011 budget, according to a draft review making the rounds in Washington. It also urges the services to boost their pilot training so they can get more helicopters to Afghanistan.