An important congressional supporter of the second engine for the Joint Strike fighter is “pessimistic” about the coming House floor vote on whether the engine should be funded in the House defense authorization bill. The reason for the supporter’s pessimism is simple: the majority of House lawmakers know little about defense issues and the issues surrounding the F135, made by Pratt, and the F136, made by General Electric and Rolls Royce, are highly complex. So the vote will rest largely on coalitions, the interests of major donors and constituents and horse trading — not on the merits of the issue. The House vote on an amendment killing the F136 General Electric/Rolls Royce alternate engine program is expected Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has thoroughly embraced the “indirect approach” to battling global terrorists networks. Its a strategy long favored by Mike Vickers, Mr. SOLIC; one of the few Bush administration DoD holdovers. Vickers was an advisor in El Salvador during the 1980s, and is a big proponent of that small footprint approach, providing advisors and money to boost foreign militaries rather than sending in large ground forces to pull constabulary duty. Efforts to build out Yemen’s special operations forces to battle al Qaeda is an example of Vickers’ indirect approach.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order this week changing the line of succession at the Defense Department, reversing changes made by the Bush administration in 2005. The deputy secretary of defense remains the immediate successor if the secretary of defense is unable to perform his duties, but the March 1 executive order reinstates the three service secretaries – Army, Navy and Air Force, in that order – as next in line.

Air Force Chief Gen. Norton Schwartz has confirmed what most everybody assumed would transpire, that the oft-​​delayed F-​​35 Joint Strike Fighter program will most likely breach the Nunn-​​McCurdy statute that requires the Pentagon notify Congress if a weapon’s cost is spiraling out of control. “I would say it is a possibility and maybe even [be] likely,” Schwartz told reporters at the Air Force Association’s air warfare symposium.”

The Army recently took a big step forward in its quest for the “holy grail” of battlefield network connectivity: providing satellite imagery, video feeds from aerial drones, text messaging and more robust communications to small networked teams on the move through rough terrain. The idea is to create a platoon or smaller unit computer “cloud” that can move with the soldier as they move, providing communications and connectivty between each other and higher headquarters even when dispersed.

Influential Australian counterinsurgency adviser, David Kilcullen, says the Obama administration risks a Suez style disaster if it fails to deploy the troop numbers requested by Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The deep divisions within the administration and the long delay in answering McChrystal’s plea for more troops has created deep concerns among NATO allies and has presented an exploitable opportunity for the Taliban, Kilcullen tells Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

OSD is sponsoring tests of a new system designed to defeat RPG warheads, called TRAPS, it deploys airbags around a vehicle that neutralize incoming warheads. TRAPS manufacturer Textron says the system has proven succssful in recent live fire tests.

Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal spoke Thursday at Britain’s prestigious IISS where he laid out U.S. strategic interests in the war and explained what he called “counterinsurgency mathematics:” how killing two insurgents can lead to the creation of 20 more in their place. He said the war will be won or lost not by killing insurgents but by protecting the population.

Not one but two international bodies are currently deliberating laws and regulations intended to either ban outright or curtail the use of cluster weapons. Unexploded cluster bombs that litter old battlefields continue to inflict frightful civilian casualties. DOD is trying to implement a protocol that would allow production and use of only those cluster weapons with a dud rate of less than 1%.

The Army recently completed exercises testing its new surveillance and reconnaissance technologies as well as precision missiles due to equip infantry brigade combat teams, as part of its spin out of technologies from the former Future Combat Systems program. Soldiers from the Army’s Force Development Testing and Experimentation unit put the new aerial drone, sensors and missiles through a series of battlefield tests against a mixture of conventional and irregular opponents.

Defying Taliban threats, Afghans voted today in national elections that are seen as a vital test of U.S. and Afghan government progress. Now comes the more dangerous stage as questions of legitimacy will surround the winner, whoever that might be and the Taliban seek revenge on those who defied their calls to stay away from the polls.

Contradicting recent press reports saying the entire FCS program — not just the vehicles — had been cancelled by OSD, Army Chief Gen. George Casey told the SASC today that was not the case and that the rest of the program will go forward following restructuring. Casey said he tried but ultimately was unable to convince SecDef Gates that the Army had built enough protection against IEDs into the FCS vehicles.

The Marines, in what could offer some lessons for the KC-45 tanker program, is building KC-130J airoborne refuelers that will boast substantial ISR and firepower, according to our colleague Byan Mitchell at Military​.com. In what looks a classic Marine approach, the Corps is basically building a modular system is can apply whenever needed to provide streaming video to commanders, as well as an impressive weapons suite.

SecDef Gates killed the FCS vehicles because the Army failed to incorporate lessons learned from contemporary battlefields where close combat and anti-armor weapons are lethal to lightly armored vehicles. FCS designers had set out to build a lightweight vehicle that could be flown to troubled hot spots. But the vehicle program failed because it would not have been very survivable once it landed in the middle of trouble.

There is one month left before the government-wide cyber review ends. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to announce a cyber COCOM soon after that review is finished. We delve into the rollicking debate about the roles of DISA and, to a lesser degree, NSA and STRATCOM when this command stands up.

The Marine Corps’ aging heavy-lift helicopters lack a “high-hot” capability, limiting where Marines can operate in Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain. To provide Marines fighting there with greater mobility, the service will deploy a squadron of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft to Afghanistan by the end of the year, said Commandant Gen. James Conway.

Military analyst Frank Hoffman lays out his plan to restore solvency to American strategy by trimming Pentagon spending and adopting a less interventionist foreign policy. Highly specialized, exotic, over-tooled weapons and forces are out. Flexibility and weapons that are easily configured to fight at the high-end the low-end and everything in between will be at a premium.

CSBA’s Bob Work presented his much anticipated report on the Navy and future shipbuilding. Work said the Navy’s current plans are much too costly and he aimed for something more realistic. Still, he thinks shrinking budgets will force the Navy to make tough trade-offs and cut total ship numbers.