Author: Tim J. Clark

FCS Funding

Army Touts New Technology (Wall Street Journal)…August Cole, June 13, 2008, Pg. 11

With work on the 2009 defense budget expected to continue through the fall, the Army brought the first FCS prototypes, including a 27-ton hybrid diesel-electric, tanklike cannon and other high-tech systems, to lawmakers’ doorstep this week. The White House requested $3.6 billion for the program in 2009.

The Senate Armed Services Committee said it wants to fully fund FCS in order to give the program a chance to succeed. Cuts, even small ones, can have ripple effects that slow development and hurt suppliers. So far, the cuts add up to about $1 billion, Boeing says.

But the House Armed Services Committee wants to slice about $200 million from the program, just as it sought cuts last year.

The Army is counting on Future Combat Systems to give it new networking and communications abilities, as well as more sophisticated ground vehicles and added firepower.

The program has 14 components, including remotely controlled aerial and ground vehicles. Some technologies are already in use while others, like bigger armored vehicles, won’t be ready for a few years. The first Future Combat Systems-equipped brigade is set for 2015.

Detainees – Day in court

Detainees Now Have Access To Federal Court. (Washington Post)…Josh White and Del Quentin Wilber, June 13, 2008
Pg. 4

Defense attorneys for the 270 detainees at Guantanamo Bay said the Supreme Court decision yesterday that granted detainees habeas corpus rights was a watershed moment that will allow the men, some held for as long as 6 1/2 years, to challenge their detentions before a civilian judge.

Robots: Who decides

Getting Robots Of War To Act More Naturally (Philadelphia Inquirer)…Faye Flam, June 12, 2008, Pg. 1

The next generation of military robots won’t just be humanoids like the Terminator.

The robots of the future will likely work in concert, like a swarm of ants. Others may creep like spiders or hover like hummingbirds, if the work at the University of Pennsylvania is an indication.

Most of the more than 5,000 robotic devices now in Iraq are remote-controlled, sniffing out explosives or performing other jobs with constant human instructions.

But in a shift with huge implications for warfare and diplomacy, the military wants robots that act on their own volition. It’s a prospect that promises to save lives, but could also make wars more palatable and easier to start, some experts say.

Iran: Reactions, Positions

Iran Unmoved By Threats On Its Atomic Program
(New York Times)…Steven Lee Myers and Nicholas Kulish

Increasingly tough warnings from President Bush and his European allies have done nothing to temper Iran’s stance on its nuclear program, worsening the confrontation over what American officials and others suspect is a covert Iranian plan to build an atomic bomb.

Case Builds For Military Strike On Iran. (Miami Herald)…Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy News Service

The possibility of a military strike against Iran is getting a new hearing in the face of Israeli pressure and fresh concerns over President Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions.

Bush Won’t Rule Out Iran Attack.  (Los Angeles Times)…Associated Press.

President Bush on Wednesday reiterated the possibility of a military strike to thwart Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons ambitions, though he also repeated that he favored a diplomatic solution.

Iraq: Future Forces

Parties Do Battle Over U.S. Forces’ Future In Iraq
(Washington Post)…Jonathan Weisman, June 12, 2008
Pg. 6

Congressional Democrats yesterday opened fire on comments from Republicans — including presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — that equate the U.S. military’s future in Iraq to the presence of U.S. bases in Germany, Japan and South Korea.

"It’s pretty clear their intentions are that we put in a basing system in Iraq that parallels the Korea-Japan history," said Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), who is pressing the administration to submit the agreements for Senate ratification.

"The difference is, Iraq is not Korea or Japan. . . . The history of every single outside occupation of Iraq over the last thousand years argues against that logic."

Army: FCS Spin Out 1

Future Combat Systems Complete First Major Test
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, June 11, 2008)

Army Evaluation Task Force Soldiers tested FCS Spin Out 1 systems over the course of several weeks within conditions representative of today’s operational environment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Spin Outs are designed to bring Future Combat Systems capabilities into current force modular brigades in support of Army modernization. Spin Out 1 consists of four different, but inter-operable systems.

It was the first time FCS equipment has been tested in continuous operations under stressful, realistic conditions in the hands of Soldiers.

GM: Electrification of the car

GM: Live Green or Die, May 15, 2008. Business Week.

But Lutz is a pragmatist who believes the electrification of the car is the only way to preserve American car culture. "We were agonizing over what to do to counter the tidal wave of positive PR for Toyota," Lutz says. That month, GM came up with the Volt.

No one knew if something resembling supersize cell-phone batteries would work in a car. And GM executives confess the Volt was originally conceived as an image play

By January of this year, the Volt had become the centerpiece of GM’s green strategy.

Despite the tight schedule, Kruse says the batteries will be ready by 2010. "We’re making history," he says. "Fifty years from now, people will remember [the] Volt-like they remember a ’53 Corvette."

Even as the engineers toil to get the science right, Wagoner and Lutz are pushing to change GM’s culture. … That’s a daunting prospect.

…  Had Dr. Seuss depicted the company, he might have drawn a skyscraper in which the CEO hands out an edict from the top floor and a pastel-colored arm reaches out each window, passing the note 40 floors below to the rank and file. Wagoner is not given to cheerleading or, as one executive puts it, "

Afghanistan: Recognition Technology

Marines Return To Afghan Village, Hope To Keep It (New York Times)…Carlotta Gall, June 9, 2008

United States marines pushed the Taliban out of this village and the surrounding district in southern Helmand Province so quickly in recent weeks that they called the operation a “catastrophic success.”

…. When on patrol, the marines carry a small gadget the size of an old Polaroid camera that takes fingerprints, photos and an iris scan of people they meet. It is used to build a database of the residents so they can easily spot strangers, the marines say. The Afghans accepted the imposition without protest.

Observation on the ground, information from the populace and control of key commerce and transportation routes are all ways to prevent the Taliban from seeping back into the area, Col. Peter Petronzio, commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said in an interview.

“You need physically to be there,” he said. “You need to continue to move about the population, let your presence be known, but do it in a way so that you are not smothering and overwhelming. You have got to let life go on.”