– Aviation Week – As budget-cutters swipe at major Pentagon programs and sequestration threatens to tighten the leash on expected expenses, the U.S. Navy remains focused on building its future surface warfighting fleet, and the service is pinning its hopes on futuristic ships like the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

– Wall Street Jouranl – The U.S. is planning a major expansion of missile defenses in Asia, a move American officials say is designed to contain threats from North Korea, but one that could also be used to counter China’s military. The planned buildup is part of a defensive array that could cover large swaths of Asia, with a new radar in southern Japan and possibly another in Southeast Asia tied to missile-defense ships and land-based interceptors.

– Washington Post – Gwenyth Todd had worked in a lot of places in Washington where powerful men didn’t hesitate to use sharp elbows. She had been a Middle East expert for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. She had worked in the office of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the first Bush administration, where neoconservative hawks first began planning to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But she was not prepared a few years later in Bahrain when she encountered plans by high-ranking admirals to confront Iran, any one of which, she reckoned, could set the region on fire.

– Defense News – A new, high-powered effort to boost development of the littoral combat ship (LCS) is kicking off, intended to help implement numerous proposals and suggestions to integrate the new ship type into U.S. Navy operations.