Larry Dodgen, the retired Army lieutenant general who led the Army Space and Strategic Command before joining Northrop Grumman, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack while playing tennis near his home in Huntsville, Ala. He was 60. A memorial service will be held Thursday morning in Huntsville, with burial at Arlington National Cemetery in early March. A company official said Dodgen’s unexpected death “is significant on many levels” for the company.

Reviews of the 2010 QDR have been pretty harsh. Last week, we asked Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and lead QDR author, to responsd to critics who say the report focuses too much on the current wars and neglects the rise of high-end challengers such as China. In a defiant tone, Hicks challenged critics to show where the report failed to address emerging threats.

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 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.”

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.

It is official. The two major theater war strategy — blueprint for American power for almost a quarter century — is no more. In the long run, that is likely to be the most significant change outlined by the Quadrennial Defense Review. This QDR acknowledges the need for a robust force capable of protecting U.S. interests against a multiplicity of threats. But it is “no longer appropriate to speak of major regional conflicts as the sole or even the primary template for sizing, shaping and evaluating US forces.”

He’s affable, writes well, is sharp as a tack and he’s unemployed. He’s also Norm Augustine, about as close as you get these days to the giants of the aerospace business like Curtiss, Hughes, Tripp and the guys who used their initials to start a cool company called TRW. When this former CEO of Lockheed Martin, and recent head of the Augustine Commission charged with reviewing America’s manned space flight plans, says a treaty on space debris is a good idea and that we have a “window” in which he thinks one can be cobbled together, it’s worth listening.

The Pentagon has “dodged the bullet” in the fiscal 2011 budget but will almost certainly face demands for cuts next year. That was the fundamental assessment of strategy and budget experts at the respected Center for Strategy and Budgetary Assessments, a thinktank and consulting shop on which senior military leaders often rely. “I can tell you there is no way the defense budget will be immune to budget reduction efforts,” Stan Collender, one of Washington’s most respected budget wallahs, said at CSBA’s annual budget briefing.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, coping with two wars and terrorism, has sent analysts to Haiti to help SouthCom and the State Department plan and deploy trrops and aid. We got an email from NGA spokeswoman Sue Meisner telling us of the deployment. Given the enormous strains on the intelligence community’s analysts, pouring through huge quantities of pictures, human intelligence, multi-spectral imagery and signals intelligence data, this deployment sends a clear signal of the depth of the Obama administration’s commitment to Haitian relief.

Capitol Republicans have been banging heads over the last few weeks, trying to figure out how to counter the expected results of the soon-to-be-released Quadrennial Defense Review. The greatest challenge for the Republicans is simple: Robert Gates, who has drawn the mantle of this QDR tight about his shoulders, stands behind the decisions arrived at during the QDR and he was appointed by a Republican. His national security credentials are impeccable and no one can accuse him of being weak on national defense or a misguided Democrat.

Editor’s note: After speaking with an Air Force official, I’ve changed the headline on this story to better reflect Gen. Schwartz’s focus on finding alternatives to GPS to be used when operating in denied environments.

The proposed new charter for the nation’s spy satellite builder, the National Reconnaissance Office, is stuck in the Department of Defense’s general counsel’s office. The lawyers are apparently worried that the new charter may expand the agency’s powers into areas governed by the military services.

Less than four months after China resumed military to military talks with the United States, the people’s republic failed to alert the U.S. or anyone else before it conducted its most recent missile defense test. At least one influential lawmaker urging the Chinese to do more to open up. “Most major countries alert the international community when conducting similar missile tests, but China chose not to do so. If ever there was a time for openness, transparency, and military-to-military dialogue, now is it,” said Rep. Rick Larsen, co-chair of the Congressional US-China Working Group.

In what may be another sign of a quiet but persistent arms race between the US and China, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has told the world that the PLA has successfully tested a ground-based midcourse anti-missile system. This is a very sensitive issue for the Pentagon. When contacted, several OSD experts on China declined comment. One said simply this is, “a very sensitive topic about which we were told not to comment.” Reaction from independent China watchers was mixed, with some saying that China was clearly trying to match capabilities with the US, or Russia, or India…

The sleeper issue of 2010, the one issue that almost no one who follows defense these days knows much about, is arms control. And it looks likely, says defense analysts and congressional aides, to be the single hottest defense topic on Capitol Hill this year. They key indicator to watch — wehtehr the Obama administration ponies up $6 billion in the NNSA 2011 budget to refurbish two nuclear weapons buildings.

UPDATED: Veteran Pentagon Watcher Predicts Budget Gridlock if Gates Leaves And GOP Wins House and Heritage Analyst Comments

We humbly offer a few events and trends to watch over the next two years, since one year is far too short in the defense world, as any budget weenie can tell you. What to watch: Gates on his way out the door; the November elections; the struggle in Af-Pak; the intelligence wars. First, Defense Secretary Robert Gates may leave. The rumors have been that he would go just before the next budget is announced.

Although the Pentagon’s general counsel’s office is still slicing and dicing the language, the NRO’s boss says he is “confident” that the Defense Secretary and Director of National Intelligence will soon approve a document laying out new responsibilities for the maker and operator of the nation’s spy satellites. The document, known as the statement of principles, is all part of an effort by the national security leadership — and pushed hard by NRO Director Bruce Carlson — to improve the NRO’s performance and accountability.

After two years or so of claiming that they had fixed the key sensor on one of the most troubled programs in recent Pentagon history it looks as if Northrop Grumman has finally found a fix. The program is NPOESS, the nation’s most sophisticated weather and climate satellite managed and funded by a tortured trio of the Pentagon, NOAA (at the Commerce Department) and NASA.

Two influential analysts told lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week that America’s strategic position in the world is eroding. America is losing its technological edge and is in deep financial trouble, while purchasing power is shifting from the West to Asia. Those trends cannot be undone, they warned, so the U.S. must adapt and seek greater cooperation with allies and establish “rules of the road” with potential rivals.

The non-partisan CBO said defense budgets must grow by at least six percent beginning next year to pay for weapons programs currently on the books. The base defense budget would have to increase to an average of $567 billion annually for two decades. While that might not appear all that high, it must be viewed in the context of sluggish U.S. economic growth, record deficits, and the need to pay interest on that growing pile of debt.