DefNewsDump

Defense News Dump is designed to share key stories about the defense industry. We will link you to the stories you don't get with your morning coffee and will search magazines, blogs, dailies and weeklies to find you that defense/national security story you might not see otherwise.

[stoweboyd]

We are moving from a world of problems, which demand speed, analysis, and elimination of uncertainty to solve, to a world of dilemmas, which demand patience, sense-making, and an engagement of uncertainty.

- Denise Caron (via stoweboyd)

Totally:)

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Stowe Boyd: At Large In The Post-Normal: Beyond Futurism (futureof.biz)

via Stowe Boyd: The Future Impact Of Big Data In 2020? (futureof.biz)

[explore-blog]

You can say smart, interesting, complicated things using short sentences. How long is a good idea?

Several Short Sentences About Writing – an unusual and indispensable collection of writing advice (via explore-blog)

[infoneer-pulse]

Leaving home while carrying a phone, an iPad and a laptop might also mean lugging along several tangled power cords. Now add radios and GPS devices. Now strap them to your person and wrap the cords around your body beneath your 30-pound armored vest. Oh, and you’re on patrol in Afghanistan, which means there’s no place to plug in when your phone’s batteries start to die. This explains why the Pentagon is keen on eliminating those cables with wireless chargers, and now wants to boost the range to more than 50 feet.

The plan involves spending $5-6 million using the branch’s research and development centers to “increase the efficiency of power transfer over longer distances,” according to an Army statement. If successful, it means that soldiers — instead of being limited to recharging their gadgets when returning to base, or by plugging into their vehicles — could go cordless. That means recharging by a wireless battery attached to their body — no plugs. The Army also hopes to build wireless transmitters on bases, allowing soldier gear to recharge passively, without having to plug anything in. And one day, it might be used on drones.

» via Wired

[theatlantic]

Suicide Has Killed More Troops Than the War in Afghanistan This Year

154 active duty troops have committed suicide in the first 155 days of the new year—a rate alarmingly close to one per day. The number dead from suicides eclipses the U.S. forces killed in Afghanistan by about 50 percent.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: AP]

[inothernews]

A bird stood on a tombstone at the Colleville American military cemetery, in Colleville sur Mer, France, Wednesday, on the 68th anniversary of D-Day. (Photo: Remy de la Mauviniere / AP via The Wall Street Journal)

[shortformblog]

Today in the U.S. losing patience (part two): While Hillary Clinton was toughening up her stance against Bashar al-Assad, Leon Panetta was getting similarly tough on Pakistan, which he claims is ”allowing terrorists to use their country as a safety net in order to conduct their attacks on our forces.” Panetta has been tough on Pakistan in the past, particularly their inaction regarding fighting terrorism, despite the U.S. giving the country billions of dollars in aid. Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S. was recently strained when they jailed a doctor who helped American forces find Osama bin Laden. (Above: Panetta with Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak, via the Secretary of Defense’s Flickr page)

[dodlive-blog]

The U.S. Navy flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, demonstrate choreographed flight skills during the annual Joint Service Open House.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Todd Frantom  /Released) (DVIDS)

[thirdwaythinktank]

The Department of Defense is the largest consumer of liquid fuels in the world, and as this digest makes plain, its fuel costs are rising at an alarming rate.

Fuel efficiency is a national security priority. Without it, DOD will spend an ever-increasing percentage of its budget on fuel at the...

[dodlive-blog]

SP4 Leslie H. Sabo Jr. distinguished himself May 10, 1970, in Se San, Cambodia, while serving as a rifleman in Company B, 3d Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division.

Members of B. Co. were ambushed by a large enemy force. While conducting a reconnaissance patrol, 22-year-old Sabo, charged an enemy position, killing several enemy soldiers.  Immediately thereafter, he assaulted an enemy flanking force, successfully drawing their fire away from friendly soldiers and ultimately forcing the enemy to retreat.

When a grenade landed nearby a wounded comrade, Sabo picked up the grenade threw it away while shielding his buddy with his own body, thus absorbing the brunt of the blast and saving the man’s life.

Seriously wounded by the blast, Sabo, nonetheless, retained the initiative and single- handedly charged an enemy bunker that had inflicted severe damage on the platoon.  He received several serious wounds from withering automatic weapons fire in the process. Despite being mortally injured, he crawled towards the enemy emplacement and, when in position, threw a grenade into the bunker.  The resulting explosion silenced the enemy fire, but also ended Sabo’s life.

Learn more about Sabo’s story by going to www.army.mil 

[defnewsdump]

[infoneer-pulse]

Bandwidth on Navy ships is a scarce, expensive commodity. For sailors using non-essential systems, like recreational computers? Dial-up speeds — if they’re lucky. But by the end of the year, for the first time, the Navy will put a 4G LTE wireless network aboard some of its ships, giving a whole new communications tool to sailors and Marines: their smartphones.

By the end of 2012, the Navy confirms, three ships will receive a brand-new microwave-based wireless wide area network (WWAN): the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Kearsarge, the amphibious transport dock U.S.S. San Antonio and the dock landing ship U.S.S. Whidbey Island. The ships’ communications systems won’t operate on the network — their connectivity will continue to come from satellites. Instead, Android smartphones operated by individual sailors would run on the network, something currently impossible out at sea.

» via Wired

[cvn70blogspot]

Information Systems Technician Seaman (SW/AW) Dee Xiong, assigned to the Combat Systems Department’s CS-3 Division, poses for a portrait in an internal network server space aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). Carl Vinson and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 are on their way home from a deployment to the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3nd Class Timothy A. Hazel/Released)

[shortformblog]

[Iran’s] continuing violation of international rules and norms and inability thus far to convince the world community that it is not pursuing the weaponization of nuclear power is of grave concern to all of us. We’re hopeful we can resolve this issue in a peaceful fashion with respect to Iran that recognizes their sovereignty but also recognizes their responsibilities.

President Obama • Speaking on Iran’s nuclear program, which many in the international community believe  to be attempting weapons production. The timeline for such a weapon, if Iran is actually or would actually pursue it, is yet two years from completion, as we’ve touched on before. The remarks were made at the G-8 summit (the “Group of Eight,” for the uninitiated) at the Camp David presidential retreat, and were made while Obama stood beside British Prime Minister David Cameron and newly-minted President of France, Francois Hollande. The short-term takeaway from this? Continued economic sanctions, and more tension leading up to next week’s meeting with Iranian officials at a world leader summit in Baghdad. source (via • follow)

[defnewsdump]

[dodlive-blog]

Royal Canadian Mounted Police assigned to a Marine Security Emergency Response Team debark from the HMCS Ville de Quebec (FFH 332) to conduct boarding operations during Exercise Frontier Sentinel 2012 May 8, 2012 at sea off Sydney, Nova Scotia. Exercise Frontier Sentinel is a combined interagency exercise involving Joint Task Force Atlantic, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy Fleet Forces Command. The exercise is designed to continue to develop and validate the existing plans, treaties and standard operation procedures for a bilateral response to maritime homeland defense and security threats.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernesto Hernandez Fonte / Released) (DVIDS)

[defnewsdump]

[dodlive-blog]

U.S. Marine Cpl. Kleber Villalva, a section leader with Echo Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, cooks tuna with his makeshift kitchen during an overnight mobile post here, April 26, 2012.

Villalva, a 22-year-old Houston native currently serving his third combat deployment, has been committed to a Meal Ready-to-Eat free diet since arriving in southern Helmand in October 2011. He substitutes tuna, chicken, cereal and other food items he’s received in care packages from his family and his wife, Lauren, for the pre-packaged contents of MREs. 

(Photo by Marine Cpl. Alfred V. Lopez)