Wings Over Iraq

Download a PDF copy of the 2014 QDR, the Defense Department’s QDR Fact Sheet, and read Secretary Hagel’s QDR statement, a summary of the FY 2015 budget proposal, a transcript of the briefing on the FY 2015 budget and 2014 QDR, as well as a transcript of the briefing on the Navy’s FY 2015 budget

Defense Budget

The Pentagon has proposed a $495.6 billion plan for the 2015 budget year, a 0.4% decrease from the budget approved by Congress for 2014. Although a slight decrease, rising personnel costs will require offsetting cutbacks in every branch of the military, encompassing proposals to retire A-10 aircraft, scout helicopters and other aging weaponry. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Republican hawks say 44′s latest military spending request will embolden America’s foes to take aggressive acts, while his Democratic mates offered only tepid support. – Defense News

The Pentagon on Tuesday warned that looming sequestration cuts would lead to a hollow military that risks longer wars and more U.S. casualties. – DEFCON Hill

Last year, the sudden budget cuts known as sequestration forced the Army to cancel crucial training for 78 percent of its combat brigades. The budget request for 2015 buys back a lot of that lost readiness — but not all. – Breaking Defense

US Army officials said Tuesday that as part of its wide-ranging aviation restructuring, the service is preparing to cut three of the service’s 13 combat aviation brigades (CAB) by 2019 – Defense News

The Navy’s 2015 budget request leaves the fate of its eleventh aircraft carrier up in the air and massively reduces five year acquisition plans for the carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. – DOD Buzz

Most of the US Navy’s aviation programs take significant hits in the 2015 budget, including the P-8A Poseidon, F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, and MH-60R helicopter, and plans to buy the MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned shipboard aircraft have been shelved for now. – Defense News

Under 44′s five-year budget plan — which assumes sequester away — the “real buying power” for the Navy and the Marine Corps declines after fiscal year 2016, the Navy Department’s official budget book admits. And the Navy budget director, Rear Adm. William Lescher, told reporters at the Pentagon that if funding stays at sequestration levels, the Navy would lose $39 billion and “would not be able to execute the strategy.” – Breaking Defense

The Pentagon plans to cut weapon purchases slightly in fiscal 2015, but still plans to invest $153.9 billion for new aircraft, ships, satellites, ground systems and other equipment. – Defense News

The US Air Force funded two secondary modernization programs in its budget request in a move clearly made with an eye towards modernizing for the next decade. – Defense News

The Pentagon will request tens of billions of dollars in wartime funding for 2015, despite the expected end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan by December 2014. – DEFCON Hill

The Pentagon is living up to its promise to protect research and development (R&D) money in its fiscal 2015 budget submission, and the Pentagon will be pushing for greater risk taking and big bets, a senior official described Tuesday. – Defense News

The Pentagon plans to reduce the number of its civilian workers from about 755,400 in 2014 to 749,100 in 2015 — a reduction of 6,300 workers, or 1 percent, according to its 2015 defense budget request. – DEFCON Hill

The Pentagon’s new budget released Tuesday says military personnel spending should fall to its lowest point since 2008 as cuts to compensation take effect and the force continues to shrink from its wartime peak. – Military Times

The Pentagon said Tuesday its spending plan for 2015 would begin to reshape the military after more than a decade of war without lessening America’s commitment to support European allies at a time of tension with Russia. – Associated Press

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert spoke to Defense News reporters and editors the day after the budget preview. – Defense News

If unchanged, the document states that wars will be longer and casualties potentially higher. So, too, would our enemies be emboldened and our friends undermined. – AEI Ideas

A senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday that, due to cuts to the defense budget, the Pentagon’s plans to pivot to Asia “can’t happen.” – Defense News

The risk of war in Asia will increase over the next 10 years as U.S. military forces struggle to maintain their edge amid declining budgets and increasing threats, according the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. – Washington Free Beacon

Intelligence

The Central Intelligence Agency’s attempt to keep secret the details of a defunct detention and interrogation program has escalated a battle between the agency and members of Congress and led to an investigation by the C.I.A.’s internal watchdog into the conduct of agency employees. – New York Times

Arms Control

A senior administration official on Saturday signaled the United States was not in a rush to ratify a key arms control treaty. – Global Security Newswire

Cybersecurity

Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, said Tuesday that the leaks by the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden had slowed the effort to protect the country against cyberattacks on Wall Street and other civilian targets. – New York Times

The $496 billion fiscal 2015 budget includes more than $5 billion in spending related to cyber, money that is spread across the various defense components and activities as part of comprehensive DoD plans to ramp up cyber operations. – Defense News

The Pentagon’s latest Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) has emphasized the need to protect science, technology, research and development, specifically cyber capabilities, a key priority of senior defense officials. – Defense News

Foreign Armies East

Russian troops fired warning shots over the heads of unarmed Ukrainian soldiers trying to return to work at a captured airfield here Tuesday—illustrating the potential for escalation of violence in Crimea the longer the tense situation persists. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

NATO members held emergency talks about the crisis in Ukraine on Tuesday and pledged their “solidarity,” but there were signs of division in Europe over how to respond to Russia’s intervention in Crimea. – Washington Post

Syria carried out air raids inside Lebanon on Wednesday close to the Syrian border and near one of the last rebel-held Syrian border towns, Lebanese security sources said. – Reuters

France is preparing to seal a multi-billion-dollar plan to help modernize Lebanon’s armed forces as part of international efforts to stabilize a country hard hit by spillover from Syria’s civil war next door. – Reuters

Israeli troops shot two Hezbollah fighters who tried to plant a bomb near the fence between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syrian-held territory on Wednesday, the army said. – Reuters

China announced on Wednesday that it would increase its military budget for 2014 to almost $132 billion, a 12.2 percent rise over last year. The rapid growth in defense spending is another sign of the country’s goal of becoming a dominant military presence in the Pacific, with a navy able to project power across the region. – New York Times

China has called on the US to accept its growing security presence in east Asia and warned its neighbours that it would “respond effectively” to safeguard its territorial integrity amid simmering maritime disputes in the region. – Financial Times

North Korea on Tuesday tested a new multiple-rocket launcher with a range long enough to strike major American and South Korean military bases south of Seoul, South Korean military officials said. – New York Times

The War

Africa’s deadliest terror group, Boko Haram, is an enigma wrapped in a paradox. The enigma is that it rarely acknowledges either deeds or goals while killing hundreds of Nigerian civilians. The paradox is that even as it makes itself more feared and hated, its strength appears to increase. – New York Times

The deepening East-West standoff over Ukraine is triggering a shift in political pressures in Washington and adding fuel to a debate over U.S. military spending cuts. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Suddenly, Russian troop movements in Ukraine, which U.S. officials now are calling an invasion, have shuffled the president’s foreign policy priorities and set up what Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary of state, called “the most difficult international crisis of his presidency.” – LA Times’ World Now

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in an interview broadcast Sunday defended the administration’s proposed downsizing of the military in its new budget proposal, arguing that the end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a new military reality. – DEFCON Hill

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) attacked 44′s proposed budget, saying the administration’s plan to shrink the size of the armed forces “guts our defense.” – DEFCON Hill

Chuck Hagel, with his first budget plan as US defense secretary, has managed to do the unthinkable: He has united Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. In short, they hate it. – Defense News

GOP lawmakers say the administration is ignoring history in planning a defense budget that bets there won’t be another protracted ground war in the near future. – DEFCON Hill

Defense hawks are decrying reductions in Pentagon spending, but their budget hawk brethren see more fat to be trimmed. Both sides are gearing themselves up for a prolonged fight over the size and shape of the military as the war in Afghanistan winds down and more sequester cuts loom. – DEFCON Hill

The nation’s governors have banded together to oppose cuts to the Army National Guard as outlined in the Army’s 2015 budget proposal. – Military Times

The top Democrat on the US House Armed Services Committee says sequestration isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. – Defense News

Hardly anything is clear in Washington about what’s happening with the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. Details are embryonic, discussions are just beginning, the whys and wherefores still unclear, memos and specific directions yet to be issued, and sensitivities still raw. – Defense News

The Navy’s controversial Littoral Combat Ship program is in good shape despite a 38 percent cut in the number of vessels the Pentagon plans to buy, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus insisted [Friday] morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And he may be right. – Breaking Defense

The U.S. Navy will request $2.1 billion to continue developing the Littoral Combat Ship and buy three of the vessels in fiscal 2015, one fewer than previously planned, according to defense officials. – Bloomberg

Both the A-10 attack plane and U-2 spy planes will be retired, hard-luck victims the service maintains are necessary to keep other modernization priorities on track in the face of overall budget cuts. The decision would seem to be final, but supporters of one platform can look to the other for inspiration. – Defense News

While last week’s US defense budget preview was dominated by news of what was being cut, one bright spot remains — the US Air Force’s long-range bomber program. And it’s coming sooner than expected. – Defense News

A new Navy ship named to honor 40 passengers and crew killed when their hijacked United Airlines flight crashed as they fought with terrorists during the Sept. 11 attacks was put into service in Philadelphia Saturday. – Associated Press

Editorial: The steep reduction in manpower and equipment is an invitation to unexpected aggression. In his speech, Mr. Hagel insisted that the force levels he envisions would be sufficient to protect the homeland, win a war in one theater, and conduct a successful holding action in a second. But how would a U.S. that found itself in another Gulf War respond if China took advantage of the opportunity to seize Taiwan, or if Russia took Ukraine? The purpose of fielding a large Army is to minimize the temptations for aggression. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

In addition to revealing some budget details, we should speak clearly and forcefully about the realities of our compromised national security posture. Perhaps then Congress will pause from its interminable bickering long enough to understand the devastating, long-term consequences their sequester will have on “the common Defense.” The Budget Control Act of 2011 should be repealed now, before America’s defense death spiral is unrecoverable. – The National Interest

Foreign Armies East

North Korea on Monday launched two short-range missiles into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, South Korean defense authorities said. – Wall Street Journal

Iran is still believed capable of fielding a long-range ballistic missile that could hit the United States by next year. – Global Security Newswire

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Russia on Sunday to stop its military activity and threats against Ukraine, saying Moscow’s action threatened “peace and security in Europe.” – Defense News

U.S. intelligence agencies recently confirmed China’s development of a new intermediate-range nuclear missile (IRBM) called the Dongfeng-26C (DF-26C), U.S. officials said. – Washington Free Beacon

Malfunctioning and aging batteries were the likely cause of fire on an Indian submarine that left two dead this week, reports said Friday, amid warnings that the navy is “on the verge of breakdown”. – Defense News

The War

Two bombs minutes apart struck tribal police assigned to guard polio workers in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing 11, police said. – Associated Press

The Pakistani Taliban announced a monthlong cease-fire on Saturday and urged the government to revive peace talks that broke down last month. – New York Times

Violence across Iraq in February killed 703 people, a death toll higher than the same period a year before as the country faces a rising wave of militant attacks rivaling the sectarian bloodshed that followed the American-led invasion in 2003, the United Nations said Saturday. – Associated Press

Al-Qaida’s Afghanistan leader is laying the groundwork to relaunch his war-shattered organization once the United States and international forces withdraw from the country, as they have warned they will do without a security agreement from the Afghan government, U.S. officials say. – Associated Press

The trial of the alleged al Qaeda spokesman—who appeared alongside bin Laden in a video the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—is the first of three marquee terrorism cases slated for the federal courthouse in coming months. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Amid unusually tight security, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law goes to trial Monday on charges he conspired to kill Americans in his role as al-Qaida’s mouthpiece after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. – Associated Press

Radical fighters staged a strategic retreat from a key Syrian town on the Turkish border Friday amid growing tensions with rival rebel factions that threaten to erupt in a new war. – Washington Post

An al Qaeda splinter group in Syria has denied it was behind the killing of a prominent al Qaeda figure last week and appeared to reject an ultimatum from rival fighters to accept mediation or face all-out assault. – Reuters

Fighting in the Damascus district of Yarmouk have interrupted aid distribution to thousands of besieged Palestinian refugees, the United Nations said on Monday. – Reuters

Nuclear Weapons

A high-profile U.S. Senate critic of nuclear-weapons spending on Friday introduced a bill that would cut $100 billion over the next decade in arsenal outlays. – Global Security Newswire

Developmental updates to a U.S. nuclear gravity bomb include “significant” alterations to key weapon components, says a new independent report. – Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Air Force is moving to simplify its program for ensuring that personnel with nuclear-weapons responsibilities are fit to perform their jobs. – Global Security Newswire

The dramatic uncertainty that will result from an Iranian nuclear capability or a North Korean weapon, not to mention fears about a stronger nuclear China and Russia, will make strategic vulnerability at home once again at the forefront of security planning. Political leaders today must start thinking again how nuclear weapons fit into the larger mosaic of America’s security plans in an increasingly uncertain future. – Forbes

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is trying to do more than just lay out the Pentagon’s spending priorities for the coming fiscal year. He’s trying to mark America’s passage into a new postwar era — though not exactly peacetime. – Politico

The Pentagon has a detailed five-year spending plan that adheres to federal defense spending caps should sequestration return in 2016. Just don’t expect to see it anytime soon. – Defense News

The Pentagon will take steps next year to retire an aircraft carrier in case Congress does not lift sequestration by 2016, a top defense official said on Wednesday – DEFCON Hill

Here’s a look at what he said the military will look like in 2016 if Congress doesn’t reverse the Budget Control Act – Defense One

Thirty-seven percent of the public says the U.S. spends too much on the military and 28 percent says it spends too little, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. The remaining group says the current levels are about right. – DEFCON Hill

The administration has spent the last 48 hours insisting they would not in good conscience submit a Pentagon budget that kept under current spending caps, that national security simply needs more money…Republican Randy Forbes, a top contender to replace HASC’s outgoing chairman, was most positive on the administration’s chances. – Breaking Defense

The size of the Navy’s aircraft carrier fleet remains dependent on whether Congress repeals sequestration even though the Pentagon found a way to maintain plans to keep the $6 billion refueling of the USS George Washington on track. – Military.com

Navy leaders say the service will re-examine the future of its Littoral Combat Ship in light of recent Pentagon direction to halt the buy at 32 ships and not acquire the full amount of 52 planned vessels. – DOD Buzz

The Air Force intends to issue a request for proposal (RFP) on its new long-range strike bomber this fall, according to the service’s top civilian official. – Defense News

US Sen. John McCain says he wants to block two nominees for high-level Pentagon jobs — but the Senate’s “maverick” is about to find out a hold isn’t what it used to be. – Defense News

F-35 activities planned to take place after the program’s development phase ends in 2016 could slip by up to six months, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, program executive officer for the stealthy fighter. – Aviation Week

The Navy has ordered 16 additional P-8A Poseidons under a $2.4 billion contract. This will boost total orders of P-8As to 53, as manufacturer Boeing shifts from preliminary low-rate production to full production. – Defense News

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is protesting the US Coast Guard’s Feb. 11 award of design contracts for the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) program, reportedly citing questions about the grading criteria. – Defense News

Missile Defense

Ambassador Robert Joseph, Uzi Rubin, Thomas Karako, Paula DeSutter, and Rebeccah Heinrichs contribute to the AFPC’s Defense Dossier – American Foreign Policy Council (PDF)

The War

An al Qaeda splinter group has demanded that Christians in a Syrian city it controls pay a levy in gold and curb displays of their faith in return for protection, according to a statement posted online on Wednesday. – Reuters

A special panel recently authorized by Congress to review the FBI’s efforts to reform itself in the aftermath of the 9/11 Commission report will examine the case of a mole the agency had in direct contact with Osama bin Laden during the early 1990s, a key congressman said Wednesday. – Washington Post

Put an asterisk next to the prizes for the Associated Press for its 2011 series on the New York City Police Department’s search for terrorists. The stories suggested that police monitoring of Muslim communities threatened civil liberties and might not stand up in court. Federal Judge William Martini has now ruled otherwise. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Foreign Armies East

North Korea fired four short-range missiles toward the sea off the country’s east coast on Thursday, a media official at South Korea’s Defence Ministry said, while providing no information on the purpose of the firing. – Reuters

India’s naval chief resigned on Wednesday after a Russian-made Indian submarine caught fire off the coast of Mumbai, injuring seven officers and leaving two missing. It was the 10th accident involving an Indian warship in seven months. – New York Times

A meeting of allied defense ministers opened Wednesday with a renewed warning to Afghanistan that without a signed security agreement the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will withdraw its forces by the end of the year, and a promise to help Ukraine to push ahead with democratic reforms. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Hezbollah threatened Wednesday to retaliate against Israel for carrying out an airstrike against one of the group’s positions in Lebanon for the first time in eight years, raising the stakes in Syria’s steadily expanding war. – Washington Post

Syrian troops ambushed and killed at least 150 rebels east of Damascus on Wednesday in one of the deadliest single attacks against opposition fighters, according to state media, opposition groups and human rights activists. – Washington Post

The [Pentagon] is proposing to reverse a four-year slide in its weapons-buying and research spending, lifting prospects for higher revenue at hard-hit military contractors – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel renewed his warning to Congress on Monday that shrinking defense budgets mean a smaller military and cuts to popular programs — but that a return to sequestration would be even worse. – Politico

When it comes to the US Army and Marine Corps, there were no real surprises in Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s peek today of the 2015 defense budget. – Defense News

The Navy is advancing a plan to temporarily lay-up half of its cruisers, freeing crews to plus-up other hulls and dollars to build new ships and subs, according to a budget outlined Monday by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. – Military Times

The Pentagon leadership doubled back Monday on its direction for the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, returning to where things stood at the beginning of the year: End procurement at 32 ships — 20 short of the previously planned goal — and begin work on development of a new small surface combatant. – Defense News

Congress and others in the defense community pushed back on Pentagon plans to cut 120,000 personnel from the active and reserve Army ranks, retire entire fleets of Air Force aircraft and sideline Navy ships. – Defense News

Calling the Air Force’s decision to retire the A-10 combat jet a “serious mistake,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., is pledging to fight the retirement in Congress. – Defense News

The Pentagon on Monday proposed the deepest and most far-reaching cuts to military compensation in the 40-year history of the all-volunteer force, explaining that such cuts are necessary in order to pay for more modern gear and high-tech weaponry. – Military Times

The Pentagon’s proposed 2015 budget, unveiled Monday, includes a surprise proposal to raise health care fees for active-duty family members which, if approved, would mark the first increases in health care costs for those beneficiaries since Tricare was established nearly 20 years ago. – Military Times

Veterans groups that fought the retirement inflation changes took only a brief celebratory rest before gearing up the week of Feb. 17 for another round of personnel program cuts and legislative headaches. They anticipate that debate would start Feb. 24, as the Pentagon begins to release details of its fiscal 2015 budget proposal. – Military Times

US House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon wants to finish the last Pentagon policy bill of his career with less of the political drama that nearly killed the last one. – Defense News

Not long after the uprising in Syria turned bloody late in the spring of 2011, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency developed a battle plan that featured a sophisticated cyberattack on the Syrian military and President Bashar al-Assad’s command structure. – New York Times

Foreign Armies East

South Korea said Tuesday a North Korean warship strayed into South Korean waters late Monday, in the first reported maritime incursion of 2014. – Wall Street Journal

Pakistani jets bombed what were believed to be militant hide-outs in Waziristan on Tuesday morning as the cabinet met to consider possible broader military action in the volatile border region, officials said. – New York Times

Iran has signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million, according to documents seen by Reuters – a move that would break a U.N. embargo on weapons sales by Tehran. – Reuters

Air raids on rebel-held towns across Syria killed 26 people on Monday, activists said, two days after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an end to indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks. – Reuters

Israeli warplanes launched two raids near the Syrian-Lebanese border late Monday, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency, raising speculation that Israel might have targeted a weapons convoy to prevent the Syrian government from delivering missiles to its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. – New York Times
 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before the World War II buildup and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets in a new spending proposal that officials describe as the first Pentagon budget to aggressively push the military off the war footing adopted after the terror attacks of 2001. – New York Times

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is set Monday to recommend a limit on military pay raises, higher fees for health-care benefits and less generous housing allowances to prune billions of dollars in benefits from the defense budget, setting up an election-year confrontation with veterans groups and lawmakers. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

The Pentagon is pressing federal and commercial players to yield as much space as they can on the electromagnetic radiation frequency spectrum to help meet the voracious appetite of the U.S. military’s current fleet of drones and its next-generation F-35 stealth jet. – Washington Times

The US Defense Department on March 4 will propose a five-year plan that boosts Pentagon spending by a total of $115 billion over sequestration spending caps, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the plan. – Defense News

Before the budget Hunger Games begin, here are a few key priorities that could be on the chopping block as the Pentagon decides how to cut tens of billions of dollars—and what might escape the ax. – National Journal

The US Defense Department’s latest military strategy review will stress the Pentagon’s commitment to the Middle East, a region that has felt jilted by numerous US actions in recent years. – Defense News

The administration is poised to scale back funding for the US military’s most elite forces, which spearheaded the fight against al-Qaida and embodied the Pentagon’s rapid post-9/11 budget growth. – Defense News

The Air Force has launched a major effort to craft a new strategy and new efforts to better plan how it will spend its money, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said. – Breaking Defense

Hagel has surrounded himself with a team of experienced managers tasked with reshaping the Pentagon as defense spending declines following more than a decade of war, experts say. – Defense News

Cracks on an F-35B’s primary support structure found last year are more extensive than previously thought, triggering a halt in ground-based durability testing until the fourth quarter of this year. – Aviation Week

The Air Force has substantially driven down its acquisition costs for the second year in a row, doubling its success in cutting cost estimates from $7 billion last year to $13.4 billion this year. But not all is rosy in acquisition land. Schedule problems continue to mount, getting a “poor” rating from the service, with more than 102 months added to major programs between September 2012 and September 2013. – Breaking Defense

A military and national security establishment increasingly dependent on “big data” analysis and technology risks “potentially crippling security violations” from outdated and inadequate software, according to a recently released Pentagon document. – USA Today

The Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSAP) system will have electro-optical sensors and be based in near-geosynchronous orbit, drifting below and above the geo belt. The US Air Force will be able to control the movement of the constellation, made up of two satellites, in order to position its “neighborhood watch” surveillance. – Defense News

The Marine Corps is experimenting with a new unmanned ground vehicle that can patrol installations and detect intruders or potential enemy forces nearly a mile away. – Military Times

Hagel has told his senior officers, service secretaries, and other senior civilians that he expects they’ll keep it zipped until the budget is unveiled. But that hasn’t stopped the leaks. – Foreign Policy’s The Complex

The upcoming QDR will propose an inadequate force structure and a modernization plan built around a budget that continues to distribute a static and relatively equal amount of resources to each service. – National Interest

The War

The former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan said Friday the U.S. military should start scripting the end of wars before generals plan an invasion. – Military.com

A top commander of the Pakistani Taliban was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on Monday in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan, security sources and family members in the tribal region told Reuters. – Reuters

Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal said Friday the latest resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq should be considered a “warning” if the United States pulls all troops out of Afghanistan later this year. – DEFCON Hill

Taliban insurgents overran an Afghan National Army base near here on Sunday morning, killing 21 soldiers in their bunks in what appeared to be the worst single blow to government forces since 2010, according to both government and insurgent officials. – New York Times

Militants shot down a helicopter on Saturday and briefly occupied a town, in an escalating turf war with Iraq’s government that has killed at least 25 people in two days, police said. – Reuters

The Syrian army on Friday intensified its aerial bombardment of southern Syria as opposition fighters were preparing to launch a wide offensive in a province bordering Jordan, activists said. – Associated Press

Intelligence increasingly shows al Qaeda is encouraging American and other western fighters in Syria to undertake special training to prepare them for possibly returning to their home countries to carry out attacks, U.S. officials told CNN. – CNN’s Security Clearance

A high-ranking jihadist operative who was sent to Syria by Ayman al-Zawahri, the head of Al Qaeda, to mediate conflicts between fighters was killed there on Sunday in a suicide attack by another extremist group, activists said. – New York Times

Turkey has become a principal financial hub for terrorists under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has helped Iran skirt sanctions, supported jihadi groups in Syria, and provided financial backing to Hamas, according to a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). – Washington Free Beacon

Foreign Armies East

India imported $1.9bn of military kit from the US last year, making it the biggest foreign buyer of US weapons, according to research from IHS Jane’s. – Financial Times

A top American military commander said Saturday that the United States Army was working to start a formal dialogue and exchange program with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army before the end of the year. – New York Times

In the last few days, the extremely active Chinese aircraft enthusiasts have documented the ground activity of the third prototype of the J-20 “Mighty Dragon” stealth fighter jet. – The Aviationist

In the early morning along a barren stretch of beach here last week, Japanese soldiers and American Marines practiced how to invade and retake an island captured by hostile forces. Memo to Beijing: Be forewarned. – New York Times

An outspoken intelligence officer for the U.S. Pacific Fleet has ruffled feathers in Beijing and Washington by warning publicly that the Chinese military is training for a “short, sharp” war with Japan and planning to establish an air defense identification zone over the disputed South China Sea this year or next. – WSJ’s China Real Time

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday reportedly determined that a Cuban-North Korea arms deal, discovered in 2012, violated sanctions on Pyongyang. – Global Security Newswire

A year ago, North Korea vowed nuclear attacks to retaliate for U.S.-South Korean war games. But the start of this year’s joint military drills Monday comes as Pyongyang allows wrenching reunions of elderly Koreans separated since the Korean War. – Associated Press

Establishing a second air defence zone – this time over the South China Sea – was in China’s long-term interest, a senior People’s Liberation Army researcher said – South China Morning Post

The battles over next year’s defense budget are far from settled. They will be perhaps the most contentious yet, and for the military, the stakes will be higher than ever. The Defense Department is running out of ways to cushion the blow from budget cuts, and this time, the ax will fall closer to the core. – National Journal

Questions about whether the Navy should continue to maintain 11 aircraft carriers or drop to 10 for budget reasons are still lingering as the Pentagon gets ready to unveil its 2015 budget proposal. – DOD Buzz

On-the-ground stress testing for the U.S. Marine Corps version of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet may be halted for as long as a year after cracks were found in the aircraft’s bulkheads, Pentagon officials said. – Bloomberg

The Air Force has launched a major effort to craft a new strategy and new efforts to better plan how it will spend its money, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said. – Breaking Defense

The Air Force needs its new long-range strike bomber, even if it can’t give details. That was the message of a panel held Thursday at the annual Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. – Defense News

Despite being canceled in 2009 by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, bits and pieces of the US Army’s $20 billion Future Combat Systems (FCS) program keep hanging around. – Defense News

The US Army is planning to buy new transport ships to replace dozens of its decades-old fleet of watercraft. – Defense News

The U.S. Navy is starting a 26-month test and technology integration phase for the recently christened USS Gerald R. Ford, the first in a series of next-generation Ford-class aircraft carriers slated for commissioning in 2016. – Military.com

Gen. Mark Welsh announced that the KC-46A has been dubbed “Pegasus” during his keynote address at the Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. – Defense News

The Air Force is reorganizing how the Air Staff handles operations, the service’s top officer announced Thursday. – Defense News

The War

A Saudi detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, pleaded guilty on Thursday before a military commission to terrorism-related offenses involving a 2002 attack by Al Qaeda on a French-flagged oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. The plea deal will give him a specific sentence and a prospect of leaving the American military prison, where he has been held in indefinite detention. – New York Times

A U.S. government warning this week to airlines about possible shoe bombs represents a credible threat linked to al Qaeda, officials told CNN. Recent intelligence points to tactics believed to be tied to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its master bomb-maker Ibrahim al Asiri, a federal law enforcement official said. – CNN

Former deputy CIA director Mike Morrell on Thursday said he’s worried about the new threat of terrorists attacking airlines with shoe bombs. – The Hill’s Briefing Room

Troops injured by bomb blasts — who absorb the full brunt of a shock wave, are hit by flying debris or even exposed to bomb-making chemicals — are at higher risk for developing long-term health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, persistent headaches and some skin conditions, a panel of top scientists says. – Military Times

An intense debate has broken out among western law enforcement officials, intelligence agencies and academics about who or what today constitutes al-Qaeda. It is an important debate because AQ – the network and the ideology – remains a potent force and still one of the greatest threats to global stability. – Financial Times

The USS Taylor, one of two Navy ships deployed to the Black Sea to provide security assistance for the Olympic Games, ran aground and is in port in Turkey, the Navy announced Tuesday. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

An Army general who in the past criticized senior Army leaders for dereliction during the Vietnam War has been promoted and will likely pin on a third star later this year. – Washington Free Beacon

The Pentagon’s contract awards dropped 66 percent from December to $8.44 billion, the lowest level in at least 22 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The previous low during that period was $12.1 billion in January 2013. – Bloomberg

Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle will be the new deputy director of the Defense Department’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren announced Tuesday. – DEFCON Hill

In recent years AFA Orlando, as it’s commonly referred to, has been one of the many defense shows hit hard by sequestration. While the major industry players will have booths there, expect them to be relatively small, with few, if any, major announcements. – Defense News

The War

Congressman Duncan Hunter is calling on the Pentagon, in consultation with the State Department, to appoint a civilian leader to coordinate U.S. efforts to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only prisoner of the Afghan War. – DEFCON Hill

The al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed a twin bomb attack in Beirut on Wednesday, saying such attacks would continue until Hezbollah forces withdrew from the fighting in Syria and its own fighters were released from Lebanese jails. – Reuters

Moktada al-Sadr, the influential anti-American Shiite cleric, reaffirmed in a speech in Najaf on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from Iraqi politics, telling his followers in Parliament to continue to serve but not on his behalf. – New York Times

A new wave of car bombs ripped through commercial areas in the Iraqi capital and areas to the south Tuesday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens in the latest coordinated militant assault, officials said. – Associated Press

Pakistani Taliban fighters opened fire at an army car and killed a senior officer on Tuesday in an attack certain to destroy any prospects of meaningful peace negotiations between the government and the insurgents. – Reuters

American advisers and commanders here say that Afghan forces have performed surprisingly well and are capable of fighting on their own even as critical coalition support has been withdrawn. – USA Today

New video footage shows U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan coming dangerously close to a 500-pound bomb — allegedly dropped by fellow service members who mistook their position for the enemy. – Military Times

A shadowy Islamist militant group based in the remote Sinai desert is emerging as a major threat to Egypt’s stability, and there are no signs that the army-backed government has devised an effective strategy to contain it. – Reuters

The United States is opposed to the supply of shoulder-fired missiles, capable of taking down warplanes, to rebel forces in Syria, a senior Obama administration official said on Tuesday. – Reuters

A fierce battle erupted between government and rebel forces in an oil-rich part of South Sudan on Tuesday, in the most significant violation of the cease-fire that was supposed to help bring peace to the fractured young nation. – New York Times

Malian rebels agreed on Tuesday to confine members of their armed groups to barracks in U.N.-led preliminary talks in the capital, according to sources who attended and a copy of the agreement seen by Reuters. – Reuters

Foreign Armies East

A senior defense official forecasts a stronger UK presence in the Asia-Pacific over coming years as the region rebalances with the economic and military growth of China and India. – Defense News

China has long trained for an amphibious invasion of Taiwan during military exercises but has expanded its training to include a similar attack on Japanese holdings in the East China Sea, according the chief of intelligence of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLEET). – USNI News

Nuclear Weapons

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration is opting to postpone work on a controversial interoperable warhead, Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor reports. – Global Security Newswire

The Pentagon is decreasing the number of F-35 fighter jets it intends to buy in 2015, according to Bloomberg News. – DEFCON Hill

[J]ust last year, the Marines effectively killed the Marine Personnel Carrier, explicitly to free up funding for the ACV. Just weeks ago, however, Marine Corps Commandant James Amos decided he had to reverse course, postponing ACV indefinitely while reviving MPC as a quick and partial fix– after the Marines had already submitted their 2015 budget. – Breaking Defense

44 has nominated Rear Adm. Jan Tighe to head the Navy’s arm of U.S. Cyber Command, the Pentagon announced Feb. 14. – Defense News

Iran’s infiltration of a Navy computer network was far more extensive than previously thought, according to officials, and the officer who led the response will likely face questions about it from senators weighing his nomination as the next head of the embattled National Security Agency. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two years. – Associated Press

Foreign Armies East

Iran said on Monday it would send forces into Pakistan to free five border guards said to have been kidnapped by militants if Islamabad did not take measures to secure their release. – Reuters

The sudden replacement of the Free Syrian Army commander is the strongest sign yet that the rebel group is restructuring to address concerns of its Western backers that it fight both the regime and extremist opposition factions. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

The War

In an effort to free American captive Bowe Bergdahl before the bulk of U.S. forces leave Afghanistan this year, the Obama administration has decided to try to resume talks with the Taliban and sweeten an offer to trade Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the Army sergeant, current and former officials said. – Washington Post

The bombing of a tourist bus in Egypt by suspected Muslim militants marks a strategic shift to soft targets that could devastate an economy already reeling from political turmoil. – Reuters

The Islamist militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has told tourists to leave Egypt and threatened to attack anyone who stays in the country after a deadline of February 20. – Reuters

The U.S. Army’s top officer said the service should have at least 450,000 active-duty soldiers or it may not be able to adequately respond to conflicts around the world. – DOD Buzz

Rep. Walter B. Jones called for a congressional oversight hearing on the Marine Corps’ recent decision to remove the newsmagazine Marine Corps Times from its newsstands at the front of its commissaries and exchange stores, and place it in less prominent locations. – DEFCON Hill

The Senate voted resoundingly Wednesday to repeal the planned reductions to annual cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, in military retirement pay, approving a bill passed Tuesday by the House that will offset the roughly $6 billion the COLA caps would have saved by extending automatic cuts to Medicare funding by one year. – Military Times

Legislation reversing a $6 billion cut to military pensions won’t affect the pensions of future service members, raising complaints from veterans groups. – DEFCON Hill

Rep. Paul Ryan’s bid to kick off an overhaul of military compensation is backfiring — instead highlighting the perils of scaling back entitlement programs. – Politico

The Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian said the U.S. Navy needs more ships with the protection and firepower to survive an advanced adversary, not just “niche platforms,” weeks after she ordered cuts in the $34 billion Littoral Combat Ship program. – Bloomberg

The big four in the cabinet look more like the big three with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel being nearly invisible. – Bloomberg

Some of the reform proposals the U.S. Air Force is weighing for its strategic missile corps already were attempted five years ago. – Global Security Newswire

Senior US officials and lawmakers are sending new signals that a fledgling cadre of military spies is a done deal, despite no real substantive public debate. – Defense News

In short, Work will face considerable challenges as he undertakes the role of chief operating officer of the world’s largest single government agency. His record is one that promises he will have a fighting chance to succeed. – Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government

The War

From his cell in the heavily guarded prison at Guantanamo Bay, the presumed chief architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist plot is offering to be a key defense witness in what probably will be the only trial in New York of someone charged in connection with the World Trade Center attacks. – Los Angeles Times

An effort by a powerful U.S. senator to broaden congressional oversight of lethal drone strikes overseas fell apart last week after the White House refused to expand the number of lawmakers briefed on covert CIA operations, according to senior U.S. officials. – LA Times’ World Now

Lebanon’s army on Wednesday arrested a senior al Qaeda-linked militant described by officials as a “mastermind of car bombs” hitting Shi’ite areas in recent months, triggering a major security sweep in the country. – Reuters

A roadside bomb killed at least 12 policemen in Pakistan’s volatile southern port city of Karachi, as attacks continued to punctuate peace talks between Taliban militants and the government. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Two people wearing Afghan security forces uniforms opened fire on American-led coalition soldiers in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two of the soldiers, officials said. – New York Times

Growing numbers of French youths are leaving to fight with Islamist rebel groups in Syria as a first wave of volunteers returns home and steps up a recruitment drive for jihad, a top anti-terror judge said on Wednesday. – Reuters

At least 17 civilians and soldiers were killed in car and roadside bomb attacks across Iraq on Wednesday, police and medics said. – Reuters

A series of daring but little noticed breakouts from Iraqi prisons has freed hundreds of hardened militants who are now among the leaders and foot soldiers of the radical Sunni groups operating in neighboring Syria and, increasingly, in Iraq itself. – New York Times

Gunmen from Islamist sect Boko Haram killed 51 people in an attack on a town in northeast Nigeria, witnesses said on Wednesday, in a region where President Goodluck Jonathan’s troops are struggling to contain its insurgency. – Reuters

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said he believes the United States needs to leave behind a residual force in Afghanistan, in order to continue crucial military institution building and a counterterrorism mission there. – DEFCON Hill

The 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, could soon be up on the silver screen. The rights to an e-book on Benghazi have been optioned as a movie, its authors announced. – DEFCON Hill

Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at a Libyan television channel in Tripoli early on Wednesday after storming the building, forcing out workers and damaging equipment, journalists at the channel said. – Reuters

Foreign Armies East

South Korea has rejected a demand by its northern neighbor to postpone this month’s military drills with the United States to avoid overlap with planned reunions of families separated during the Korean War, an official said on Thursday. – Reuters

Arms Control
The administration has demonstrated a pattern for negotiating agreements that have resulted in great strategic loss for the United States. And so having won reelection, 44 now has the “space” and “flexibility” he wanted. What’s needed now is accountability — for this administration and the Russians. – RealClearWorld

Cybersecurity

This burgeoning industry is making surveillance capabilities that once were the exclusive province of the most elite spy agencies, such as National Security Agency, widely available to governments worldwide. The targets of such attacks often are political activists, human rights workers and journalists, who have learned the Internet allows authoritarian governments to surveil and intimidate them even after they have fled to supposedly safe havens. – Washington Post

The White House on Wednesday announced new policies improving public and private security efforts to protect critical U.S. infrastructures against the growing threat of cyber attacks. – Washington Free Beacon

Plans to permanently retire the USS George Washington and bring the Navy’s carrier-fleet total down to 10 are still being debated in ongoing budget deliberations despite reports the White House has scrapped any plans to reduce the carrier total. – DOD Buzz

In launching a new search for cures to what ails its nuclear missile corps, the Air Force is considering proposals it tried five years ago, according to internal emails and documents obtained by The Associated Press. – Associated Press

An ambitious effort to build a high-tech armored suit for elite U.S. commandos has entered a new phase, as the military prepares to analyze three new prototypes it will receive this summer, the U.S.’s top Navy SEAL said Tuesday. – Foreign Policy’s The Complex

The War

American military officials in Afghanistan complained on Tuesday that Afghan authorities had ordered the release of more prisoners whom the Americans consider to be dangerous insurgents, and said their release would violate agreements between the Afghan and American governments. – New York Times

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that judges had the power to oversee complaints by detainees about the conditions of their confinement at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The ruling was a defeat for the administration and may open the door to new lawsuits by the remaining 155 Guantánamo inmates. – New York Times

Senior US intelligence officials on Tuesday offered a more alarming assessment of al-Qaida than 44′s declaration that the organization is on the run and headed toward defeat. – Defense News

Gunmen tossed hand grenades into the house of a slain Pakistani police officer on Wednesday, police said, killing nine men in an attack coinciding with peace talks between the government and Pakistan Taliban militants. – Reuters

Assailants threw grenades into a crowded movie theater in northwestern Pakistan, killing 13 people, officials said, in an attack that shows the challenges as negotiators face off in talks between the Taliban and the government. – Washington Post

A newly-released email shows that 11 days after the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military’s top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder’s corpse or turn them over to the CIA. – Associated Press

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and fighters from Lebanese ally Hezbollah stepped up attacks on Syria’s strategic border town of Yabroud on Wednesday, activists said, in apparent preparation for a new offensive to flush out rebels. – Reuters

The top U.S. intelligence chief said on Tuesday the war in Syria had created an “apocalyptic disaster” and said he was convinced that documents alleging torture and murder in the conflict were authentic. – Reuters

Al Qaeda core’s break with one affiliate in Syria and its backing of another there may show that the group now views Syria as the primary battleground in the region, a Defense official said at House hearing on Tuesday. – DEFCON Hill

After serving for years as the main conduit for weapons and cash to rebels battling Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia is shifting its policy to contain the spread of Islamist militancy at home, diplomats and figures close to the government say. – Reuters

Yemen has handed to Saudi Arabia 29 al Qaeda militants who were wanted by the Saudi authorities, the Yemeni defense ministry website said on Tuesday, citing informed sources. – Reuters

Fighters from a Sunni extremist group attacked an army unit in a northern Iraqi city on Tuesday, killing 15 soldiers in a rampage of beheadings, shootings and a hanging, security officials said. – New York Times

Foreign Armies East

Iran on Monday said it “successfully” vetted two new missiles, including one with a multiple-warhead capacity typically associated with nuclear payloads. – Global Security Newswire

Iran’s defense minister said on Tuesday that the recent firing of two ballistic missiles was a shot across the bow to the 44th administration, which continues to maintain that the “military option” against Tehran is still on the table. – Washington Free Beacon

The United States is planning to step up training for Iraq forces as it battles a resurgent al Qaeda in the country, a U.S. official said Tuesday at a congressional hearing. – DEFCON Hill

Pakistan on Monday signed deals to supply basic trainer aircraft to the Iraqi Air Force and help train its personnel, sparking hopes it can secure further deals as the Middle Eastern country tries to rebuild its air arm. – Defense News

Israeli defense executives here are eyeing potentially lucrative, US-subsidized sales of advanced border security systems should Secretary of State John Kerry manage to prod Israeli and Palestinian sides toward a two-state peace deal. – Defense News

At this year’s Singapore Airshow, Chinese aviation companies AVIC and CATIC are pushing into the export defense market for Southeast Asia. – Defense News

Missile Defense/Arms Control

The USS Donald Cook arrived in Rota, Spain, on Tuesday morning, the first of four destroyers that will be based there to provide European allies with missile defense. – DEFCON Hill

It is questionable whether the Senate would have approved the 2010 New START treaty had Russian noncompliance with the INF Treaty been aired at the time. Soft-peddling Russian misbehavior avoids immediate friction, but further nuclear accords will be meaningless, even dangerous, if the U.S. doesn’t enforce compliance. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)