The National Governors’ Association met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the weekend at their annual winter get together. The prime topic? Gubernatorial opposition to proposed DOD funding cuts for the National Guard. With the BRAC 2005 wound still festering for many governors, the latest Pentagon gambit must be déjà vu all over again. (We know of at least one that, at year’s end was still pursuing a lawsuit against Rumsfeld.) All the top state executives have signed a letter to President Bush, decrying the proposed cuts included in the 2007 defense budget request. The attention focuses mainly on the Army Guard, but the Air Force also plans to make cuts to the Air National Guard.
Australia’s military will help the Pentagon pursue so-called “air-breathing” hypersonic weapons and more under the U.S.-run Allied Prototyping Initiative, the U.S. Defense Department said Nov. 30. The Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE) initiative “will be essential to the future of hypersonic research and development, ensuring the U.S. and…