NATO Wants Dutch in Afghanistan: NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Dutch officials in Brussels Monday that it is time to end the squabble that prohibits some 1,400 Dutch troops from joining other alliance forces in southern Afghanistan. De Hoop Scheffer must be feeling the pain personally, as a former Dutch government official himself, but he cites the importance of fulfilling this mission to NATO’s standing in the world community fighting terrorism. The alliance is preparing to increase the size of its security force from 9,000 to 15,000, as it expands its peacekeeping operations into the restive southern region. And, we thought the problems were just France, Germany, and Spain.
Space Systems Command recently awarded Viasat a contract with a $450 million ceiling to design and field a mission operations center for the command’s burgeoning Space Data Network.