DoD Buzz

Reports of the death of a crucial satellite system known as BASIC have been grossly exaggerated.
The Associated Press and other media outlets reported 10 days ago that $1 billion for BASIC was cut by the House and Senate Appropriations intelligence subcommittees, canceling the program. Well, as often happens with intelligence spending, the picture is much more complicated and nuanced, according to a senior Pentagon source and a congressional aide.

Theresa Hitchens, former editor of Defense News, is leaving the gently liberal (and officially nonpartisan) Center for Defense Information to take up a post with the United Nations. Hitchens will leave town in January to take up a post in Geneva, Switzerland as director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. So when you see definitive UN research about weapons of mass destruction (nukes, chem/bio,) small arms, landmines, and space issues, that will be Theresa’s doing.

The rumors, speculation and fear about China and its plans to build a true blue water fleet, complete with carrier groups and all that would mean for the shift in power in the Pacific, appear to have gained some substance.
The respected naval analyst Norman Polmar is hearing reports “that 50 Chinese naval officers have begun [...]

A few thoughts about tonight’s town hall-style debate… Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) may mention the issue of cost-plus contracts, something he sees as a root cause of the enormous cost overruns plaguing today’s systems.
McCain raised this issue in the last debate, saying the country should “do away with cost-plus contracts” because weapon systems costs “are [...]

Updated (1:28 p.m.) with some missile defense details. The 2009 defense authorization bill cleared most hurdles last night. There were a number of issues in need of resolution but the chairman and ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees hammered out agreements and the bill is now “moving fast” said one congressional aide.

It should be cleared by the end of the week. Details on some likely compromises follow.

The Pentagon is rushing to wrap up the Nunn-McCurdy review of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite by the end of the year.
They are rushing because the military hopes to issue a contract for another bird, the Transformational Satellite (T-Sat) about that time. Since the Nunn-McCurdy process requires the military consider whether there is [...]

Advocates of the Joint Cargo Aircraft are working on Capital Hill to convince a House subcommittee that a delay cited by the lawmakers for axing much of the 2009 funding for the plane is not a delay at all. Meanwhile, the head of Air Mobility Command hopes that an anticipated mobility requirements study finally will answer the question of just how many JCAs the Air Force really needs.

In what could be a game changer, I hear that some Northrop Grumman and EADS supporters are pushing a plan to sell 20 tankers — A330-200 freighter models — as a commercial deal directly to the Pentagon, thereby bypassing the whole RFP process. The idea: bypass the RFP process and inject the tankers directly into the Pentagon’s tanker fleet as quickly as possible.

In one of our periodic commentary pieces, former Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne tells us what the US and its allies should do in the wake of the Russian incursion: “Russian actions challenge the West to revisit its ability to defend the states bordering Russia, including the new states of NATO, against Russian military petro-power. Beyond Georgia or Europe, there is the question of the credibility of Western responses to states like Russia that take into their own hands the fate designing borders. After all, the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein led to a unified Western response to restore the territorial integrity of Kuwait. But to do this required a 6-month military buildup before a response could be generated.”

A reasonable person could infer that a recent memo freezing Air Force Cyber Command means the service is backing away from the effort. But I spoke with a source very familiar with the issue who said the service is not by any means backing away from its commitment. The memo is part of a policy pause by a new leadership in charge of an organization that has been traumatized by the unprecedented firing of its top leadership.