The Insider

The Aerospace Industries Association is lending its member CEOs' clout to the White House's ongoing review of the export control process.

As Inside the Pentagon reported in October:

The U.S. government is beginning a complicated review of export controls guided by three principles, Anthony Aldwell, deputy director of the Defense Technology Security Administration, said last week, adding it will be “a very complex and contentious process.”

“It is not going to be easy,” Aldwell told an audience of several industry executives during an Oct. 3 conference on defense cooperation held in Arlington, VA. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met recently with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, he said, noting consultations must also occur with lawmakers or the effort will “go nowhere.” Consultations with the defense industry are also key, he noted.

To that end AIA, in a letter sent this week to President Obama, "strongly endorses the view that the current system must be updated to address both the national security challenges we face today, as well as the evolving technology and competitive landscape. We have long advocated for a more predictable, efficient and transparent technology control regime that advances our national security interests. An effective export control system must safeguard critical technologies, as well as facilitate collaboration with our closest allies and international partners. The review you have called for holds the potential to generate significant progress toward that end."

According to AIA, the White House could take "early action" on several potential reform initiatives that would not need new laws, including:

1. Establishment of transparent and specific criteria to identify those militarily critical and sensitive defense and space technologies that must be subject to the most rigorous controls
2. Facilitation of timely technology flows between the U.S. and our closest allies and partners, particularly in support of defense and national security programs important to the U.S. government
3. Adoption of procedures to ensure any required Defense Department reviews associated with a proposed release of U.S. technology properly balance both policy and technical considerations, and are completed in a timely and consistent manner
4. Update of the treatment of the next-generation of aerospace and defense technologies, such as Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), under U.S. and multilateral export control regimes
5. Review of export control compliance requirements to improve comprehension and implementation, particularly among small and medium-sized firms, as well as a review of resource requirements to raise confidence in the effectiveness of U.S. enforcement efforts.

Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), in a letter sent today, is calling on the Obama administration to adopt the Missouri National Guard's model to stabilize Afghanistan.

According to the missive, sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the National Guard Agriculture Development Teams have been extremely successful in Afghanistan. Though the Missouri Guard sent the first ADT team to Afghanistan in February 2008, there are now 10 other states with teams of their own, Bond writes.

"It makes sense to utilize further this already successful National Guard model to serve as a vital bridge between the military capabilities of the Department of Defense and the civil capabilities of the State Department," he adds.

Furthermore, Bond attaches a proposal from the Missouri National Guard's adjutant general that backs establishing a "civil branch" of the National Guard as a pilot program and supports establishing the Missouri Regional Training Institute at Ft. Leonard Wood to serve as a "center of excellence" to train civilians, among other recommendations.

The proposal "uses existing, proven, and cost-effective National Guard assets to achieve stability in troubled areas based on the successful State Partnership Program and the Agriculture Development Team concept," Bond concludes, urging Gates and Clinton to review the proposal.

After President Obama's speech on the way ahead in Afghanistan last night, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen today threw his support behind the U.S. strategy. According to a statement on the Alliance Web site, Rasmussen "confirmed" plans to send "at least 5 000 more soldiers and probably more" from NATO members and partners to Afghanistan during 2010. (The statement makes no mention from where these troops would come.)

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning, Defense Secretary Gates said Washington is seeking 5,000-7,000 additional forces from NATO.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also testified today, said she will speak with Alliance foreign ministers in Brussels tomorrow to discuss details.

Northrop Grumman's threat yesterday to abandon its bid for the KC-X airborne tanker competition "is merely a posturing move," according to a research note issued this week by Credit Suisse analysts Robert Spingarn and Julie Yates.

Northrop wants to opt out of the competition unless the Pentagon makes significant changes to the draft request for proposals, which, Spingarn and Yates write: "((A))ppears to favor the smaller tanker likely to be offered by BA ((Boeing)). We suspect partner EADS endorsed NOC’s ((Northrop's)) strategy. Frankly, we agree, as our recent visit to the annual USAF Airlift/Tanker Convention suggests that the recently adopted pass/fail nature of the evaluation process favors a smaller aircraft that meets minimum hurdles."

The Credit Suisse analysts further write:

Simply a Ploy: We see NOC’s letter as part of a negotiation process because NOC has concluded it would have to bid the current RFP at a massive loss in order to win, as the extra capabilities offered by its Airbus 330-based tanker will not receive credit unless bid prices are within 1 percent of one another. This “negotiation” needs to be wrapped up soon because the Secretary of Defense may see this as an issue that impacts his legacy.

NOC’s Objectives: (1) To alter the new pass/fail evaluation method in order to favor a premium technical solution/capability at a justifiable price premium (2) To re-introduce proposal risk to differentiate maturity of the two candidate aircraft, where BA’s “frankentanker” suffered last time (3) To re-introduce past performance which penalized BA in the prior contest.

Path Forward: (1) We think the final solution must allow Sec. Gates to deliver a new tanker at savings of at least several hundred million dollars to the taxpayer vs. the ‘08 contract (2) Given that USAF Air Mobility Command & OSD are now refusing to pay a premium price for additional technical capability (beyond KC-135 performance), NOC must explain why it’s a/c is a better solution (3) To achieve a more balanced RFP, we think NOC must be prepared to make concessions that have an equally favorable benefit for BA.

If NOC refuses to accept concessions, Secretary ((Robert)) Gates might go ahead with an uncontested award, but Congress remains an unpredictable factor.

The formation of a Defense Department-wide task force on improvised explosive devices last month suggests there is still sand in the wheels of the counter-IED bureaucracy.

We asked Kenneth Comer, the new deputy director for intelligence in the Joint IED Defeat Organization, what he thinks the move means, aside from the high-level talk of "breaking down stovepipes" within DOD, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has put it.

The task force was set up "because JIEDDO does not have all of the authority or oversight or coordination capability over all of the things that are done in countering IEDs," Comer said.

"We don't make MRAPs, for example," he added, using the acronym for the blast-proof trucks. Another example of limited "oversight" on JIEDDO's part, he added, is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance -- both in terms of the ISR Task Force as an organization and ISR goings-on in general.

Maybe -- and that's a big maybe -- the new task force could lead to new "authorities" for JIEDDO in the area of social network analysis, the secretive craft aimed at understanding the inner dynamics of extremist networks, according to Comer.

"Vehicle armor, ISR task force, ISR in general, social networks and social dynamics and non-kinetic measures, and having JIEDDO at least having more of a coordinating role with any or all of those would be something that will be open to discussion," he said.

Earlier this afternoon, the White House held an on-background, curtain-raiser briefing featuring "senior administration officials" regarding President Obama's plan for a 30,000-troop build-up in Afghanistan.

According to one official in the transcript released by the White House:

In his speech tonight at West Point the President will begin by reaffirming the core goal of the United States in the region, which comes -- draws from the March 2009 strategic review. And just to be clear, that goal is to disrupt, dismantle and eventually defeat al Qaeda and to prevent their return to either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

In order to achieve that goal we have subordinate goals for first Pakistan and then Afghanistan, which I'll outline briefly before getting to your questions.

In Pakistan we need to sustain our focus on al Qaeda and we need to help the Pakistanis stabilize their state. That second part, stabilizing Pakistan, really has three dimensions: a political dimension, an economic dimension and a security dimension. The Pakistanis require help across all three of these aspects, in particular on the security front where they face internal extremists, the Pakistani Taliban, if you will, who actually threaten their state. But also on the political and economic front, the Pakistanis require our assistance, and our long-term aim with Pakistan is to establish and then sustain a strategic partnership, which helps them bring stability to their state; in turn, to the region.

Let's shift to Afghanistan. There, our goal is to prevent the return of the Taliban -- I'm sorry, of al Qaeda -- and to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Afghan government. The President tonight will announce a new approach as to how we will accomplish those goals in Afghanistan. The concept that he'll describe is to surge American forces to do several things: first, to reverse the Taliban's momentum, which has been building steadily over the last three or four years; to secure key population centers, especially in the south and the east; to train Afghan forces, and then as quickly as possible transfer responsibility to a capable Afghan partner.

Just to review the bidding, in terms of what that means for troops, today there are just at 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan; 33,000 of those were committed this year, in 2009. The President will announce tonight that those 68,000 will be joined by an additional 30,000 Americans by next summer, by the summer of 2010. He will also announce that this surge, if you will, will be for a defined period of time. For more details on the timelines and so forth, you should tune in to the speech tonight.

Now, what will these troops be doing? They'll have the following military mission. First of all, they aim to degrade the Taliban in order to provide time and space to develop Afghan capacity. Most directly, the Afghan capacity we're developing are the Afghan security forces, so the army and the police. They also want to degrade the Taliban for a second purpose, and that is so that as we begin to hand off responsibility to the Afghan army and police, those emerging security forces are able to handle the Taliban because it's at a diminished strength.

The other key task for the military, this additional 30,000 over the coming months, is to train and partner with the Afghan security forces to accelerate their development. The broad aim here is to open a new window of opportunity for Afghanistan and to create conditions to begin to transfer to Afghan responsibility by a date which the President will specify in his speech.

A new version of the joint operating concept for irregular warfare is in the works and could be released as soon as next month, according to a document obtained by InsideDefense.com.

The current version, 1.0, is dated September 2007. And version 2.0 could be out in December, the document states -- but it could also slip as far as February.

Two key reviews are approaching. The first, slated for Dec. 19, is a meeting of the three-star service operations deputies. After that will be a senior-level Tank review, which is not yet scheduled, the document states.