Defense
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, an aide confirmed to The Hill. – DEFCON Hill
Despite mounting budget pressure that could slash $17 billion from the service’s 2013 budget — and long-term funding cuts already programmed into future year funding — the U.S. Army is working to move its Rapid Equipping Force (REF) into the base budget beginning in 2015, according to REF director Col. Pete Newell. – Defense News
Two decades later, the U.S. is entering another round of deep defense cuts. As Washington debates “sequestration” — automatic budget cuts that threaten to slash $600 billion from the Pentagon budget by 2023, beginning March 1 — the defense industry, and cities relying on it, know sequestration isn’t half the problem. – Defense News
The head of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program plans to retire, ending a decade-plus run in charge of the most expensive weapon program in DoD history. – Defense News
The military’s top leaders are warning Congress that automatic spending cuts looming in March would force the Pentagon to slash operating budgets, weakening the armed forces and possibly forcing furloughs of 800,000 civilian employees. – Associated Press
Big automatic cuts in federal spending are fast approaching again, alarming the defense sector but generating little activity in Congress to avoid them. – Reuters
Robbin Laird writes: If the US fails to innovate in its re-shaping of its forces in the Pacific, it cannot effectively play the crucial role which is essential to a strategy focused on our allies. Without innovation, the US cannot protect its interests in the Pacific, ranging from the Arctic to Australia, and will lose the significant economic benefits which presence and protection of our interests provide. – AOL Defense
Nuclear Weapons
Vice President Joseph R. Biden will discuss arms control Saturday with Russia’s top envoy, a meeting that could shed light on President Obama’s unguarded comment last year that he would have more “flexibility” to negotiate with the Russians after his re-election. – Washington Times
NATO
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fosh Rasmussen on Jan. 31 expressed deepening unease at a growing disparity in defense spending between the United States and European allies due to economic pressures on eurozone governments. – AFP
The War
The military judge overseeing the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other detainees accused of aiding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ordered the government on Thursday to disconnect the technology that allows offstage censors — apparently including the Central Intelligence Agency — to block a public feed of the courtroom proceedings at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. – New York Times
Foreign Armies East
China’s future bomber aircraft requirements appear murky as Western analysts — stuck with reading tea leaves in an opaque pond — battle over what it all means. – Defense News
French troops homed in on Kidal, the last significant population center under Islamist militant rule in Mali’s vast north, and France urged Mali’s government to open up a new, political front in its effort to regain authority over the desert region. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
