The year 2012 is shaping up to be a big year for the United States as far as increased national security threats are concerned. No, I’m not talking about Iraq or Afghanistan. I’m talking about the almost constant and ever increasing threats to U.S. national security from Iran, North Korea and China.

When you consider former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ words of wisdom that the U.S. has never “gotten it right” when it comes to predicting the next conflict, one thing’s for sure – the U.S. has to have the right national security strategy in place and it can’t afford to gamble.

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Defense contractors Lockheed Martin Corp., General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Co. spent a combined $33.4 million on lobbying in Washington last year, a 10 percent increase from 2010, as Congress and the Obama administration weighed cuts in the Pentagon budget.

A review of lobbying disclosures filed with the Senate by a Jan. 20 deadline showed Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense company, led such spending last year with $15 million for lobbying, a 19 percent increase.

Pentagon contractors face an era of limited government spending after an impasse on how to cut the federal budget left open the prospect of $1 trillion in defense cuts over a decade. Even with future cuts looming, defense companies focused their lobbying last year on protecting contracts and programs from immediate cuts, according to Michael Herson, president of American Defense International, a defense lobbying and business- development firm in Washington.

“The contractors were focused on their programs in fiscal year 2012 — that was the more certain problem at hand,” Herson said in an interview yesterday.

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(Bloomberg) — After a year consumed by talk of deep budget cuts, defense companies and their lobbying firms will disclose this week how much they spent trying to protect vulnerable weapons programs.

The fourth-quarter disclosure reports, due on Jan. 20, will tote up how much contractors spent lobbying to avert defense cuts as a congressional “supercommittee” tried — and failed – - to cut future spending by $1.2 trillion over a decade.

That failure triggered automatic cuts to most defense programs, which, when combined with already planned cuts, would reduce future spending plans by almost $1 trillion over the next decade unless Congress overturns the plan.

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Brazilian-based aircraft manufacturer Embraer SA won an important victory in late December, when the U.S. Air Force picked one of its planes to equip Afghanistan’s military.

But Embraer’s foothold in the U.S. defense market is now in question: rival Hawker Beechcraft Corp. is fighting in court to keep the Air Force from moving forward with the project. Defense analysts and observers say the legal tussle over the warplanes underscores how difficult it can be for foreign-based firms to crack the U.S. military market.

At stake is a contract worth $355 million to Embraer and its Nevada-based partner, lead contractor Sierra Nevada Corp., to deliver a fleet of 20 Embraer Super Tucano single-engine, turboprop planes that will fly training missions for Afghanistan’s nascent air force and attack insurgents on the ground.

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Builders of naval vessels led by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. and makers of surveillance aircraft such as Northrop Grumman Corp. may benefit once President Barack Obama’s new military strategy is translated into dollars.

The strategy presented by Obama and military leaders at the Pentagon yesterday emphasizes “the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at a news conference. Specifics won’t come until Obama presents his budget proposal next month, the first step in an effort to cut Pentagon spending by almost $490 billion through 2021.

The approach is likely to place a premium on naval power and drones, radar, tactical missiles and aircraft in order to thwart any effort by nations such as China or Iran to deny U.S. access to strategic regions including the South China Sea or the Persian Gulf, according to Jim McAleese of McAleese & Associates, a government-contracts consultant in Sterling, Virginia.

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WASHINGTON – The more than $1 trillion in federal budget cuts that could come in January 2013 would slash Massachusetts’ research funding, Medicare payments to hospitals, and contracts for defense companies – all vital sectors of the state’s economy.

The state stands to lose more than $680 million in federal research funding, about 9 percent of what it is estimated to receive. Hospital officials warn of longer wait times, fewer physicians, and an overall reduction of services at certain hospitals.

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The end of the supercommittee is just the beginning for Washington’s lobbyists.

The debt panel’s inability to reach an agreement on the deficit won’t trigger reductions in defense and healthcare spending until 2013, giving those powerful sectors and their lobbyists at least a year to wriggle away from the budget ax.

The panel’s failure could also make for a busy holiday season on Capitol Hill, since the agreement from the 12-member committee was considered a likely legislative vehicle for a number of expiring programs and tax breaks.

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Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) — Republicans on the U.S. House and Senate defense committees say they’ll work to block $500 billion in defense budget cuts threatened by the failure of the deficit supercommittee to reach agreement yesterday.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said he will introduce legislation to prevent the cuts. President Barack Obama said he’d veto any attempt to void the automatic cuts.

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