The Insider

U.S. and British military leaders are meeting this week at National Defense University to discuss "common strategic policy challenges and develop lasting relationships between the enduring military partnership of the US and UK," according to a statement issued by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

"This is the inaugural meeting of the UK-US Military Leaders Forum and is being held from 6-10 April 2014," the statement reads, adding:

Envisioned last year by General Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Sir Nicholas Houghton, the UK Chief of Defence Staff, this will be the first annual meeting of senior British and American military leaders. It is being held by the US National Defense University in cooperation with the British Royal College of Defence Studies. Twenty-four British and American senior officers will attend, representing all branches of each nation's armed forces.

The group will use this opportunity to discuss common strategic policy challenges and consider emerging trends in the Middle East and North Africa regions, particularly the implications of rapid social and political change across the region. The group will study the issues together through a series of lectures, discussions and exercises. Following the forum, participants will brief their findings to the US and UK Combined Chiefs Conference in June.

The US and UK Combined Chiefs Conference is annual meeting of the heads of the UK and US Armed Forces. It follows last year's historic gathering of UK and US service Chiefs in Washington, DC for the first time since 1948. This year's meeting will be held in the UK.

More than 30 organizations are calling on the Federal Aviation Administration to speed up efforts to develop rules that will allow unmanned aircraft systems' operations in U.S. skies.

In an April 8 letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the Air Traffic Control Association and 31 other groups said the time has come to develop these rules.

"The time for resolution has come, and we cannot afford any further delays," the letter states. "The technology is advancing faster than the regulations to govern it."

The letter writers -- organizations that represent a range of interests, from photographers to realtors -- note that FAA has taken a number of steps to help integrate UAS into the national airspace. But more needs to be done, according to the letter.

"The publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for small UAS remains a missing and critical piece of the puzzle," the letter states.

The UAS advocates who signed the letter extol the potential benefits of small drones, claiming the introduction of the unmanned systems will help create more than 100,000 jobs and $82 billion in "economic impact" in the first decade. They call on FAA to enable some limited UAS operations "subject to the secretary of transportation's safety determination, before the small UAS rule is finalized," the letter continues.

The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Raytheon Missile Systems a contract modification worth nearly $37 million to continue performing Standard Missile-3 Block IB "sustaining engineering support," according to a statement released late this afternoon.

InsideDefense.com reported this week that the Pentagon had decided to delay a full-rate production review of the SM-3 Block IB program pending an investigation of a September failure that could lead to the modification of a component also used in the deployed Block IA variant of the missile:

The review, scheduled for fiscal year 2014, is being pushed off until FY-15, the Defense Department revealed in a March 24 response to a draft Government Accountability Office report. GAO published the final report, which included the Defense Department response, on April 1.

At issue is the failure of one of two SM-3 Block IB missiles fired during a first-ever salvo of the interceptors on Sept. 18, 2013, during Flight Test Standard Missile (FTM)-21 against a short-range ballistic missile target. After one of the missiles hit the target, the Missile Defense Agency and Raytheon declared the event a success (DefenseAlert, Sept. 19, 2013). No mention of the failure that afflicted the other missile was disclosed at the time; the intercept was credited toward operational test and evaluation.

Cybersecurity may be "transcendent," but it has yet to gain traction on Capitol Hill, Inside Cybersecurity reports this morning:

Calling cybersecurity a matter of "transcendent" importance, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) last week reiterated his call for creating a congressional special committee on the issue and for the executive branch to consider a reorganization that leads to better coordination among federal agencies.

McCain, at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, said he has spent "many hours" discussing cyber legislation and that the discussion continues "in a circular fashion."

"One problem is so many committees have jurisdiction," he said, adding that he counts "30 pieces" of cybersecurity legislation in the current year and "none of them is going anywhere."

A special committee on cybersecurity would certainly help address one issue: Homeland security, armed services, commerce, intelligence, judiciary, banking and other committees all have jurisdictional claims on important aspects of cybersecurity policy.

And all have multiple other issues on their plates.

For more, check out InsideCybersecurity.com.

A group of 20 retired Marine Corps generals is highlighting concerns about the Defense Department's current 30-year shipbuilding plan.

In a March 25 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK), the generals write:

The challenges of diminished ship material readiness and the declining numbers of amphibious warships are interrelated and have cumulative effect on the nation's ability to support strategic imperatives. To address this we recommend that the Congress provide supplemental Overseas Contingency Operations funding to provide improved material readiness and reset for today's surface warships and funding for the proven LPD-17 design in the future LX(R) construction.

The Pentagon yesterday announced the details behind its ninth Joint Strike Fighter low-rate initial production lot, which will include heavy international participation.

The $698 million contract award to Lockheed Martin will fund long-lead parts, materials and components for 57 aircraft, of which 34 are intended for the U.S. military. The Air Force will buy 26 F-35A conventional-variant jets, the Marines will buy six short-takeoff F-35Bs, and the Navy -- which slowed its acquisition ramp-up this year -- wants just two carrier-capable F-35Cs.

The remaining 23 aircraft are to be split between a number of Joint Strike Fighter partner nations and foreign military sales customers. On the FMS side, Israel and Japan will fund the procurement of their first F-35s, with Israel buying seven in LRIP 9 and Japan purchasing two. Among the countries that contributed to the F-35's development costs, Norway will receive six A-model jets; Italy is buying one F-35A and one F-35B; and the United Kingdom will procure six B-model short-takeoff platforms.

Those aircraft will be manufactured at Lockheed's Fort Worth, TX, production facility. The contract announcement says work should be done in May 2015, though that likely covers only long-lead work.

Regardless, the international investment in LRIP 9 is good news for DOD, and especially the Air Force and Marine Corps. As order quantities increase, the price of each aircraft built decreases, so the two services -- by far the biggest JSF buyers so far -- stand to enjoy a slight discount.

JSF contracting is run through Naval Air Systems Command.