The US defense aerospace industry’s technological and production expertise results from many years of investment and experience that couldn’t be reconstituted if destroyed by the looming defense cuts under budget sequestration, said Aerospace Industries Association President Marion Blakey on Tuesday. “We can deal with fluctuation in part of the business, but our long term reserve of expertise and our ability to innovate for the future is seriously threatened by sequestration,” stressed Blakey in her speech at a National Aeronautical Association event in Arlington, Va. “One last time, while we continue to draw near to the cliff, I would ask our leaders in Congress and the Administration to please put your differences aside [and] get the job done,” she said in highlighting the devastating effects of these cuts, which kick in starting in January unless Congress acts to prevent them. “Do it for America’s leadership in the world, for our ongoing ability to protect our men and women who put their lives on the line and deserve to come home safely,” she summed in her Dec. 11 address. (See also Sequester . . . and the Hangover.)
Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, warned that Russia would remain an enduring threat to NATO and global security, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine.