News

Van D. Hipp, Jr.
Fox News
February 10, 2012

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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Roxana Tiron
Washington Post
January 24, 2012

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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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA-U5DhtO1w&context=C3601f45ADOEgsToPDskJkRGqi-R-y6oOUEiknMM9z

David Lerman
Bloomberg Government
January 17, 2012

(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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By Nathan Hodge
The Wall Street Journal
January 10, 2012

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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