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Equation

Lieutenant General
Gary Cohn Says, He Will Resign as Trump’s Top Economic Adviser....

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"Gary D. Cohn, President Trump’s top economic adviser, said on Tuesday that he would resign, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the Trump administration".

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Another Trump administration bites the dust.
 

supercat

Major
Proof that 5th gen. fighter is much easier said than done:

Japan backs out of plan to develop fighter jet on its own

Japan is moving to scrap plans to domestically develop a new advanced fighter jet due to staggering costs and anticipated engineering pitfalls.

The Defense Ministry initially had three possible alternatives for the fighter jet that would replace the F-2 fighter-attacker that will be gradually mothballed from around 2030.

But with China and Russia showing greater military assertiveness in the region, Defense Ministry officials faced the key task of replacing the F-2 with a fighter with more advanced capabilities.

The ministry decided its options were to fully develop the next-generation fighter jet domestically, develop it jointly with other nations, or extend the life of the F-2 through various modifications.

It initially leaned toward domestic development as it was deemed to "be important in maintaining Japan's fighter jet technology," according to a high-ranking defense official.

There were expectations that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. would play a leading role in developing the fighter jet. This was before a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries ran into difficulties developing the Mitsubishi Regional Jet passenger aircraft for commercial production.

Finance Ministry officials eventually urged caution, citing the huge costs that domestic development would entail.

The government began to realize that domestic development of the next-generation fighter jet carried enormous risks.

Against that background, the Defense Ministry will not seek funding for domestic development of a next-generation fighter jet when requests are compiled this summer for the fiscal 2019 budget, sources said.

Tokyo is expected to sound out Washington as early as this week on the prospects of joint development of the next-generation fighter jet.

A decision on how to proceed will likely be formally made between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2023 as that is the period covered by the Mid-Term Defense Program that will be put together before the end of the year.

It is still possible that Japan will place additional orders with the United States for the advanced stealth F-35A fighter jet manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp. as the replacement for the F-2.

The government has already decided to purchase 42 stealth fighters to replace the F-4.

In light of pressure being applied by the Trump administration on allies to "Buy American," government officials may also decide to acquire the F-35A as the successor aircraft for the F-2.

The ASDF now has around 200 F-15 fighter jets, 50 F-4s and 90 F-2s. One F-35A fighter jet has been delivered.

The F-2 was jointly developed with the United States and deployed in fiscal 2000.

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Japan's Scraps Domestic Development of 5th Generation Stealth Fighter Jet
Japan is slated to discontinue the development of an indigenous stealth fighter jet.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) is expected to discontinue work on a domestically designed fifth-generation fighter jet due to budgetary concerns and critical capacity shortages in the country’s military aircraft industry, The Asahi Shimbun newspaper
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on March 5.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense will purportedly not seek funds for the development of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ experimental fifth-generation fighter technology demonstrator X-2 “Shinshin” (formerly the ATD-X) when requests by agencies and ministries are compiled this summer for the fiscal 2019 defense budget.

As of this writing, Japan’s MoD has not publicly commented on the March 5 report.

The X-2 prototype was intended to serve as the basis for the development of Japan’s first indigenously designed fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, designated the F-3. Japan is now expected to collaborate with the U.S. defense industry and other international partners to either jointly develop a next-generation stealth fighter jet or purchase jets directly from a foreign vendor.

The decision to scrap the program was not unexpected for Japan defense watchers. As I
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, Japan had three options for procuring for the new aircraft: “First, develop an indigenous air superiority fighter. Second, partner with a foreign defense contractor and license-produce a new aircraft. Third, import or upgrade an existing platform.” The first option now appears to have been nixed.

Interestingly, U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin has been involved with the F-3 program in some unknown capacity and is a possible candidate for a future collaborative partnership. The recent news that Japan is interested in procuring at least 20 additional ready-to-fly F-35A stealth fighter jets from Lockheed Martin could be a first sign of an emerging Japan-Lockheed Martin partnership in that regard.

“The follow-up order of 25 F-35As could perhaps be part of a Japanese strategy to convince Lockheed Martin and the U.S. government to share fifth-generation aircraft technology with Japan’s defense industry,” I
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last month. “Japan now, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin and other international partners, could aim to build a (pricier) domestic variant of the F-22.”

Japan originally intended to procure Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, but the U.S. government refused an export license, forcing Japan to initiate its own stealth fighter jet program in the 2000s. The Japanese MoD plans to induct up to 100 fifth-generation fighter jets by the 2030s. A contract, estimated to be worth over $40 billion, was initially expected to be awarded this summer, but there has been no official progress report on the tender so far in 2018 and the decision will most likely be postponed.

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to various sources, the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) is also interested in purchasing the F-35B – the U.S. Marine Corps variant of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter capable of vertical or short takeoffs and vertical landings without requiring a catapult launcher. JSDF would deploy the aircraft on Japanese islands skirting the East China Sea and aboard Izumo-class helicopter carriers, which will make the acquisition of such platforms a politically sensitive subject in Japan.

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timepass

Brigadier
Pakistan's anti-terror operations reduce terrorism: US intel chief...

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WASHINGTON: Director US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Lt Gen Robert P Ashley has said that Pakistan's counter-insurgency operations and border management efforts have reduced the menace of terrorism in the country.


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Equation

Lieutenant General
US general says efforts to combat Russian meddling aren't going well

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Despite the Mueller investigation
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13 Russian nationals who ran social media accounts across multiple
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to interfere with the 2016, the US has no unified multi-agency strategy to protect against Russian cyberattack. That's
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to the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, in a meeting with the the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

"I don't believe there is an effective unification across the interagency, with the energy and the focus that we could attain," Scaparrotti told the committee, according to Reuters.

And despite the US spending over a year peeling apart Russia's influence on the 2016 presidential election, Scaparrotti wasn't satisfied with the US government's understanding of the country's cyber infrastructure. "We're getting a better understanding of it, (but) I would not characterize it as a good picture at this point, not satisfactory to me," he said.

Without comprehending the full scope of Russian capabilities, there continues to be surprise when the country does things like
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the Olympics, which the White House
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. But the country's online meddlers didn't just infest social media -- they slipped into forums like
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and collected personal
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on US citizens, too. Without a coordinated strategy, this infiltration could be repeated during the 2018 midterm election, which is just eight months away.

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