New Australian F-35 Facility

06/22/2012
Northrop Grumman F-35 Supplier Quickstep Opens New Facility BANKSTOWN, Australia, June 22, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ Northrop Grumman Corporation's largest F-35 Australian supplier--Quickstep Technologies Pty Ltd.--opened a new facility in Bankstown, Australia. Quickstep supplies composite skins and subassemblies for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter center fuselage that is…

The Norwegian F-35 Decision: Understanding the Impact of Weapons Integration

06/21/2012
6/21/12: by Robbin Laird A key element of the F-35 decision by Norway was the acceptance of the integration of a new Kongsberg missile onto the F-35 itself. Through the development of the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), the Norwegian Armed Forces has established KONGSBERG and other Norwegian industry in the…

Iraq New Dawn: The Challenge of Sectarian Divisions

06/19/2012
6/19/12: by Richard Weitz In addition to these strains between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites, three sources of Arab-Kurdish tensions exist despite their shared Iraqi Sunni background: territorial disputes, constitutional disagreements, and diverging foreign policy orientations. Since 2003, Iraqi Kurds have simultaneously been creating an autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in…

Brazil’s Military Role in Haiti

06/19/2012
6/19/12: by Kenneth Maxwell The "Folha de Sao Paulo" reported on Monday, June 11th, 2012, that Brazil has spent almost R$2 billion in Haiti between June 2004 and May 2012. What began as an emergency military operation to provide security for six months with a cost estimated at R$150 million, reached almost R$…

A Marine Corps Perspective on the F-35: Getting on With It

06/17/2012
At a roundtable on the F-35 and allies held at the Heritage Foundation on June 7, 2012, Colonel Kevin J. Killea
provided a Marine Corps perspective on the program. Currently, he is the head of Aviation Weapons Requirements branch for headquarters United States Marine Corps.  He’s a graduate of both the…

A Congressional Staffer Perspective on the F-35: “Build Planes and Get Them into the Hands of the Warfighters”

06/15/2012
A key member of the panel at the Heritage Foundation event on the F-35 and allies was Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski, 
Military Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK).  Lazarski is a former USAF officer with operational experience in several type model series of aircraft, and a very knowledgeable practitioner…

Japan to Purchase First 4 F-35As, June 2012

06/15/2012
Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister of Defense, Shu Watanabe, revealed at the House of Representatives Security Council that Japan and the U.S. would seal a contract to purchase first four F-35s before June 30. Both Governments have almost agreed on the unit price 10.2 billion JPY, 300 million JPY higher than the…