WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) – A powerful laser aboard a converted Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) 747 failed to shoot down a mock enemy ballistic missile in its second botched test in a row, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said on Thursday.

Preliminary indications are that the so-called Airborne Laser Test Bed tracked the target’s rocket exhaust plume but did not hand off to the “active tracking” system as a prelude to firing the high-powered laser, said Richard Lehner, an MDA spokesman.

“The transition didn’t happen,” he said. “Therefore, the high-energy lasing did not occur.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates scaled back the multibillion-dollar program into a kind of science experiment last year.

Previously, it had been under development as a potential part of a layered U.S. ballistic missile shield against weapons that could be fired by countries such as Iran and North Korea. The technology is now being tested for its potential applications to missile defense in other configurations.

The United States has been spending about $10 billion a year to build a bulwark against missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

The MDA said in a statement on its website that officials would investigate to pin down the cause of the Airborne Laser system’s “transition failure” in the latest test, which took place late Wednesday off the Southern California coast.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Defense Department cheered what it called Britain’s ability to go on playing a top role in global security despite newly announced plans to cut its army, navy and air force to cap a record budget deficit.

“We are confident that the U.K. will continue to have the capacity to provide top-tier fighting forces in Afghanistan and other future missions in defense of our shared interests and security,” Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement on Wednesday, a day after British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled sweeping cutbacks.

“We are pleased that the U.K. clearly intends to maintain its historical role as a leading nation that shapes global security, and the fourth largest military budget in the world,” Morrell added.

Britain’s armed forces review, the first since 1998, calls for a military with fewer people, fewer ships, fewer aircraft, fewer nuclear warheads and a smaller budget.

The Ministry of Defense’s budget of 36.9 billion pounds will be cut by 8 percent in real terms over the next four years, far lower than the average of 25 percent cuts faced by other British government departments.

Senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had fretted publicly that military cutbacks could undercut Britain’s ability to help U.S. forces in conflicts worldwide, a factor that may have helped minimize the cuts.

Morrell said the British military had distinguished itself with valor and professionalism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Defense Department aims to tighten ties with its cyber security contractors to help thwart mounting threats to sensitive networks, the Pentagon’s top official for cyber policy said Wednesday.

The department’s use of top-level system integrators and entrepreneurs will continue to grow along with the need for so-called “active” defenses that scan incoming code to shield network perimeters, Robert Butler, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, told reporters at a breakfast session.

“And as we thread those together, what we want to do is a very very tight partnership with industry,” he said.

One key goal, Butler said, was to cut the lag between development of new protective technology and its deployment. He said the department also wants to promote supplier diversity, partly to guard its information technology supply chain against compromise.

The Pentagon’s biggest suppliers — including Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, BAE Systems Plc and Raytheon Co — each have big and growing cyber-related product and service lines for a market that has been estimated at $80 billion to $140 billion a year worldwide, depending on how broadly it is defined.

Butler declined to comment directly on newly expressed concerns by U.S. lawmakers about buying telecommunications

hardware from companies such as Huawei Technologies Co, a Shenzhen, China-based network equipment maker founded by a retired Chinese military officer.

WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has waived a Tiananmen-era sanction so that Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) C-130 military transport planes may be permitted to land in China to help respond to oil spills.

The waiver has put the White House on the defensive amid questions about its timing, who requested it and any unannounced agenda related to the anti-China sanctions overall.

Obama said on Friday he was lifting the curb in the U.S. national interest. His decision, sent to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, cleared the way for the U.S. government, on a case-by-case basis, to issue “temporary munitions export licenses” for C-130s to be used in oil spill response operations at sea.

A senior administration official who asked not to be named said the waiver was granted at the request of an unidentified European company that operates the aircraft, a four-engine turboprop military transport. The request was part of contingency planning so that the planes could be landed in China if necessary for oil spill work, the official said.

Various C-130 models are flown by European countries, including Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.

As much as 600,000 metric tons of heavy crude could have been spilled into China’s northeast coastal waters after an explosion at the port of Dalian on July 16, the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace has said.

The senior administration official said any C-130s sent to China would be operated by U.S. crews to help safeguard sensitive technology from prying eyes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s administration announced steps Wednesday to boost civil-military coordination against cyber threats said to be mounting against sensitive U.S. computer networks.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spelled out fresh arrangements between their departments to synchronize their response to a wide range of threats.

A memorandum of agreement signed by the two secretaries and made public Wednesday puts Defense Department cyber analysts within the Department of Homeland Security-led National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.

It also sends a full-time DHS leader to the Defense Department’s super-secretive National Security Agency, or NSA, along with a support team comprised of DHS privacy, civil liberties and legal personnel. NSA is responsible for protecting U.S. national security systems and intercepting communications overseas.

The agreement will facilitate the NSA’s intelligence-sharing with Homeland Security, which retains the lead responsibility for protecting vital systems like power grids, financial services and water purification, a senior Defense Department official said in a conference call.

The pact also will make sure that requests for support are “clearly communicated and met,” Gates and Napolitano said in a joint statement.

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn has said more than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are attempting to break into U.S. networks. Some “already have the capacity to disrupt” U.S. information infrastructure, he wrote in the September/October issue of the journal Foreign Affairs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fifty-seven of the 535 members of the Senate and House of Representatives urged a commission looking for ways to balance the federal budget to recommend substantial cuts in Defense Department spending.

The group, made up mainly of Democrats, said in a letter on Wednesday to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that cutting the $712 billion military budget “must be part of any viable proposal” for deficit reduction.

The letter, which did not cite a specific target, instead called into question the rationale for the extensive military commitment overseas. Five of the signers were from the 100-member Senate.

“Years after the Soviet threat has disappeared, we continue to provide European and Asian nations with military protection through our nuclear umbrella and the troops stationed in our overseas military bases. Given the relative wealth of these countries, we should examine the extent of this burden that we continue to shoulder on our own dime,” the group said.

The Defense Department now accounts for almost 56 percent of all discretionary federal spending, and nearly 65 percent of the increase in annual discretionary spending levels since 2001, said the lawmakers, spearheaded by Representatives Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Ron Paul, a Texas Republican.

Frank, who heads the House Financial Services Committee, said in a conference call with reporters that he approved of the effort by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to squeeze $101 billion from Pentagon overhead from 2012 to 2016. But he said deeper reductions were required, including cuts to weapons programs he did not specify.

“We’re arguing for doing less, not simply doing it more efficiently,” Frank said. He said the deficit commission, which is to make its recommendations in December, offered a unique forum to confront the choices needed to avoid reducing social security, Medicare and other domestic programs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The air forces of China and Turkey have carried out a joint exercise, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday, in what appeared to be the first such drill involving Beijing and a NATO member country.

Turkey assured the United States it would take the “utmost care” to protect sensitive U.S. and NATO technologies, said U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Tamara Parker, a department spokeswoman.

She described Turkey’s government as committed to the NATO alliance and the continuation of strong ties to the United States.

“To the best of our knowledge, U.S.-made F-16s were not involved in the exercise,” Parker said. She referred a caller to the Turkish government for details of the maneuvers.

The office of the Turkish defense attache in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Turkish press reports have said the exercises took place September 20 through October 4 at the Konya air base in Turkey’s central Anatolia region.

Some U.S. experts described the exercise as underscoring China’s capability to operate beyond its territory.

NEW YORK, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Israel signed a $2.75 billion deal on Thursday with the United States to buy about 20 radar-evading Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) F-35 fighter jets, calling it the world’s most advanced combat plane.

Israel is to receive the jets from 2015 through 2017, according to an Israeli statement at a signing ceremony at the consulate in New York. The Jewish state is the first buyer outside the aircraft’s nine-nation co-development group.

The agreement was signed after years of talks on such issues as aircraft price, Israeli industrial participation in F-35 production as well as integration of Israeli capabilities on its own F-35 fleet.

The cost was put at about $96 million per aircraft, including the engine. In addition, the deal includes simulators, spare parts and maintenance — making the total value $2.75 billion, the Israeli statement said.

At least 19 F-35s are expected to be part of the first batch. The total value could be as high as $15.2 billion if all options are exercised, the Pentagon told Congress in an initial notification in September 2008.

“The signing … is an event of great strategic and historic significance,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said in a separate statement.

Describing the F-35 as the world’s most advanced fighter, Oren said it would boost Israel’s ability to defend itself, “by itself, against any threat or combination of threats, from anywhere within the Middle East.”

WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) – U.S. congressional auditors found that U.S. Aerospace Inc (USAE.OB: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) missed a deadline to vie for a potential $50 billion refueling-plane contract against Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Rejecting a formal protest, the Government Accountability Office sided with the U.S. Air Force, concluding that the bidding papers were received after a 2 p.m., July 9 submission deadline at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

U.S. Aerospace, partnered with Ukraine’s Antonov plane maker, has said it submitted a $29.6 billion proposal for the 179-tanker deal. The Air Force said it was delivered five minutes too late.

The ruling lifts the latest question mark over the troubled fleet-replacement process, which began in earnest after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington.

The Air Force plans to pick between the Boeing and EADS offers no later than Dec. 20.

At stake is an order for an initial 179 aircraft that could be worth $25 billion to $50 billion.

This round marks the third time the Air Force has sought to start replacing its Boeing-built KC-135 tanker aircraft that on average are about 50 years old. The purchase has long been listed as the Air Force’s top acquisition priority.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Guarding water wells and granaries from enemy raids is as old as war itself. In the Middle Ages, vital resources were hoarded behind castle walls, protected by moats, drawbridges and knights with double-edged swords.

Today, U.S. national security planners are proposing that the 21st century’s critical infrastructure — power grids, communications, water utilities, financial networks — be similarly shielded from cyber marauders and other foes.

The ramparts would be virtual, their perimeters policed by the Pentagon and backed by digital weapons capable of circling the globe in milliseconds to knock out targets.

An examination by Reuters, including dozens of interviews with military officers, government officials and outside experts, shows that the U.S. military is preparing for digital combat even more extensively than has been made public. And how to keep the nation’s lifeblood industries safe is a big, if controversial, aspect of it.

“The best-laid defenses on military networks will matter little unless our civilian critical infrastructure is also able to withstand attacks,” says Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary William Lynn, who has been reshaping military capabilities for an emerging digital battlefield.

Any major future conflict, he says, inevitably will involve cyber warfare that could knock out power, transport and banks, causing “massive” economic disruption.

But not everyone agrees that the military should or even can take on the job of shielding such networks. In fact, some in the private sector fear that shifting responsibility to the Pentagon is technologically difficult — and could prove counterproductive.