As 2012 winds to a close, so too does the time remaining for Congressional leaders and the President to reach a bargain on the fiscal cliff.
One of the major concerns is the prospect of $500 billion in automatic cuts to defense spending set to go into effect as part of the sequestration.
After the jump is a batch of links detailing how the sequestration will likely impact the larger defense community (Pentagon-both civil and military, defense industry, and defense lobbyists).
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Monday, December 31, 2012
Monday, July 2, 2012
SCOTUS UPHOLDS OBAMACARE - WHAT DOES IT MEAN? (AFRICA 1)
Earlier today I was a guest on Radio Africa 1's Journal des Auditeurs (JDA), hosted by Francis Laloupo, to discuss the US Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. We talked about how the decision came to be, the moral and ideological context in which the decision lies, and its potential political and electoral consequences.
Click here to listen to the full audio (Radio Africa N1)
Click here to listen to the full audio (Radio Africa N1)
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
CAPITAL BRIEF - OBAMA'S IMMIGRATION SHAKE-UP
Here is the second issue of Capital Brief, from June 19, focusing on the consequences of Obama's executive order announcing a halt to deportation proceedings for certain young people.
Click below to read the Brief.
Friday, January 15, 2010
NEW MOMENTUM FOR US EXPORT-REGIME CONTROL REFORM?
On January 13, it was reported that Secretary Gates, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, and Acquisitions chief Ash Carter met with Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a top trade lobby comprised of leading defense industry executives (including those of Lockheed and Boeing), to discuss the future of government/industry collaboration.
The meeting comes in the days leading up to the conclusion of the administration's review of export regime controls, commissioned in August 2009 and due for release later this month.
Gates praised the industry for rapidly meeting the Pentagon's needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, including prompt provision of drones and mine-resistant vehicles. He pledged to secure growth in the Defense budget, arguing that the task would be greatly facilitated by an industry that vigilantly cuts costs and delivers provisions on-time.
Gates also threw his full support behind AIA-backed export-regime control reforms. Typically opposed by the Pentagon, Gates' reversal gives new hope to proponents of acquisition and export-control reform. Though he is not the first official to favor the idea - in September 2009, Secretary Clinton and other senior officials (like assistant SecStates Andrew Shapiro and Ellen Tauscher, as well as NSA James Jones) called to remake the notorious ITAR regulations.
The meeting, coupled with the administration's commitment to reshape export controls, raises a few questions:
- How commercially-driven will the White House allow export-regime reform to become?
- How implicated will America's allies be in redrawing the US Munitions list?
- How will the Administration explain any eventual reforms in order to mitigate critics who call the administration weak on national security and seek to damage the White House's credibility in the lead-up to midterm elections?
Also, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to introduce legislation in late January (around the time of the release of the White House strategic review) calling for a Congressional conference that will likely raise the topic of easing restrictions on communications satellite exports.
Prior to its meeting with Gates, the AIA gave President Obama a letter calling for reform on the basis that the current regulations cost US exporters billions in annual sales and weaken defense-related industries that are implicated in the construction and production of new technologies. The list of goods on the US Munitions List is outdated and includes many banal items while excluding far more threatening technologies such as stealth and night vision.
The AIA outlined four key areas for reform, elements to which Gates has now voiced his support:
1. Updating the US Munitions List and commodity jurisdiction
2. More efficient, clearer division of responsibility between government agencies in caseload management
3. Placing decision-making on technology release in the hands of the Defense Department
4. Treatment of drones as a Category I item in the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime
- Amy Greene
The meeting comes in the days leading up to the conclusion of the administration's review of export regime controls, commissioned in August 2009 and due for release later this month.
Gates praised the industry for rapidly meeting the Pentagon's needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, including prompt provision of drones and mine-resistant vehicles. He pledged to secure growth in the Defense budget, arguing that the task would be greatly facilitated by an industry that vigilantly cuts costs and delivers provisions on-time.
Gates also threw his full support behind AIA-backed export-regime control reforms. Typically opposed by the Pentagon, Gates' reversal gives new hope to proponents of acquisition and export-control reform. Though he is not the first official to favor the idea - in September 2009, Secretary Clinton and other senior officials (like assistant SecStates Andrew Shapiro and Ellen Tauscher, as well as NSA James Jones) called to remake the notorious ITAR regulations.
The meeting, coupled with the administration's commitment to reshape export controls, raises a few questions:
- How commercially-driven will the White House allow export-regime reform to become?
- How implicated will America's allies be in redrawing the US Munitions list?
- How will the Administration explain any eventual reforms in order to mitigate critics who call the administration weak on national security and seek to damage the White House's credibility in the lead-up to midterm elections?
Also, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to introduce legislation in late January (around the time of the release of the White House strategic review) calling for a Congressional conference that will likely raise the topic of easing restrictions on communications satellite exports.
Prior to its meeting with Gates, the AIA gave President Obama a letter calling for reform on the basis that the current regulations cost US exporters billions in annual sales and weaken defense-related industries that are implicated in the construction and production of new technologies. The list of goods on the US Munitions List is outdated and includes many banal items while excluding far more threatening technologies such as stealth and night vision.
The AIA outlined four key areas for reform, elements to which Gates has now voiced his support:
1. Updating the US Munitions List and commodity jurisdiction
2. More efficient, clearer division of responsibility between government agencies in caseload management
3. Placing decision-making on technology release in the hands of the Defense Department
4. Treatment of drones as a Category I item in the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime
- Amy Greene
Saturday, December 19, 2009
MOUNTING US CRITICISM OF POSSIBLE FRANCO-RUSSIAN ARMS SALE
The Cable has an interesting piece about growing US opposition to a potential French arms sale to Russia. The item in question is the Mistral, an assault ship and currently the second largest in the French Navy. If completed, the transaction would be the first major deal between a NATO country and Russia.
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee) has introduced a bill to oppose the sale and has called on US leaders to oppose the deal until Russia withdraws entirely from Georgiam territory and implements human rights and rule of law reforms. Some US critics argue that this proposed sale would trigger a chain reaction of sales to Russia in order to bolster Europe's industry, protect its domestic defense jobs, and compensate for its sagging defense budgets. Russia has already been in talks with Spain and the Netherlands for helicopter carriers.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have all expressed worry, especially noting the symbolic implications a potentially-threatening sale originating from a fellow NATO member. While the Baltic States are assured NATO security guarantees, Georgia is not. The concern that the sale would render Georgia vulnerable to Russian military force, this time with implicit NATO consent, was made more real after a Russian Naval Commander remarked that a Mistral would allow Russia to take Georgia in minutes rather than weeks.
Paris insists that no sale is imminent, that a request made by Moscow is being considered, and that any Mistral sold would be a stripped down model. The Cable quotes Prime Minister François Fillon saying that arms deals with Russia are key to peace and stability and an important part of a strategic partnership: "It would be impossible to call for continental stability in partnership with Russia if we refuse to sell armaments to Russia. A refusal would amount to contradicting our own discourse."
Besides the payment of a hefty sum and the guarantee of jobs, what does Paris expect from this deal in the middle- and long-term? Is it prepared to hand over significant sea power to the Russians, quite possibly at Georgia's expense, all while depending on Georgia's contributions to key NATO missions? And symbolically, does Paris want to reward a Russia that has publicly vowed to use this technology against Georgia in what could be a reprise to the 2008 crisis which France's own Sarkozy helped to halt? And more, where lies the pragmatic, new realist balance between normalizing relations, exercising diplomatic short-sightedness, and stoking old Cold War-era fears?
- Amy Greene
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee) has introduced a bill to oppose the sale and has called on US leaders to oppose the deal until Russia withdraws entirely from Georgiam territory and implements human rights and rule of law reforms. Some US critics argue that this proposed sale would trigger a chain reaction of sales to Russia in order to bolster Europe's industry, protect its domestic defense jobs, and compensate for its sagging defense budgets. Russia has already been in talks with Spain and the Netherlands for helicopter carriers.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have all expressed worry, especially noting the symbolic implications a potentially-threatening sale originating from a fellow NATO member. While the Baltic States are assured NATO security guarantees, Georgia is not. The concern that the sale would render Georgia vulnerable to Russian military force, this time with implicit NATO consent, was made more real after a Russian Naval Commander remarked that a Mistral would allow Russia to take Georgia in minutes rather than weeks.
Paris insists that no sale is imminent, that a request made by Moscow is being considered, and that any Mistral sold would be a stripped down model. The Cable quotes Prime Minister François Fillon saying that arms deals with Russia are key to peace and stability and an important part of a strategic partnership: "It would be impossible to call for continental stability in partnership with Russia if we refuse to sell armaments to Russia. A refusal would amount to contradicting our own discourse."
Besides the payment of a hefty sum and the guarantee of jobs, what does Paris expect from this deal in the middle- and long-term? Is it prepared to hand over significant sea power to the Russians, quite possibly at Georgia's expense, all while depending on Georgia's contributions to key NATO missions? And symbolically, does Paris want to reward a Russia that has publicly vowed to use this technology against Georgia in what could be a reprise to the 2008 crisis which France's own Sarkozy helped to halt? And more, where lies the pragmatic, new realist balance between normalizing relations, exercising diplomatic short-sightedness, and stoking old Cold War-era fears?
- Amy Greene
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