Defense
Republicans are increasingly open to new federal revenues as Washington seeks a vast deficit-reduction deal before tax cuts expire and deep spending cuts would kick in. Yet, the Republican idea for raising those funds is vastly different than that of the Democrats. – Defense News
Heavy turnover threatens to end the bipartisan camaraderie that has long defined the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), defense industry insiders and congressional aides say. – DEFCON Hill
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been a magnet for problems for years, but the new warplane’s developers are slowly making progress toward deployment. – CNN’s Security Clearance
Boeing will begin production this week on the refueling boom for the KC-46, the company’s next-generation tanker. Production of the boom marks the first movement out of the design phase and into actual construction for the plane. – Defense News
The War
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out the terrorism conviction of a high-profile former detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni who served as Osama bin Laden’s driver and bodyguard and whose case led to a landmark 2006 Supreme Court ruling striking down the Bush administration’s first version of military commissions. – New York Times
Americans have an “irrational fear” of terrorism and are more likely “to be killed by a dog than a jihadi terrorist,” according to a left-leaning national security expert who rejected the notion that al Qaeda is alive and well despite the terror group’s recent murder of a U.S. ambassador in Libya. – Washington Free Beacon
During Tuesday’s debate, 44 tempered his claims about U.S. success in fighting al Qaeda, jettisoning his oft-repeated campaign-trail claim that the terrorist organization is “on its heels.” – The Cable
NATO
We should celebrate all that the European Union has done, and the Nobel Peace Prize committee clearly wanted to send a signal that European leaders cannot let the current economic crisis lead to an unraveling of what their predecessors achieved. But peace in Europe has not simply been the result of greater prosperity, it has also been the prerequisite for economic growth. U.S. leadership of NATO helped make both peace and prosperity possible. – International Herald Tribune
New Deployments
The 44th administration has sent more than 20 Defense and Homeland Security officials to Burma, London’s Guardian newspaper reports, marking the strongest U.S. overture in decades to a military force that ruled the country until 2010 and prompting concerns from human-rights activists. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
