Morning Joe: The Death of the F-22 in Context

Stories we're following today:

The Remarkable Vote to Kill the F-22 and What it Means for America's Military Future - Fred Kaplan in Slate [link]

• Rather, it was a vote that reflected corporate contracts. The floor leaders of the faction in favor of more F-22s were Sens. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, where the F-22 is assembled, and Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, where parts of the plane are built. Joining this strange couple were such erstwhile doves as Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, which also hosts several F-22 contractors.
• Maybe it takes a Republican defense secretary to usher in a new era of defense politics. Are we in fact on the verge of such an era? There are many reasons to be skeptical (the annals of history among them), but what happened today might be a harbinger of something genuinely new.

F-22 victory about more than just a plane - Max Bergman in Democracy Arsenal [link]

• It is sometimes easy to overstate the significance of a fight over a particular weapon system. But in this case I think it is fair to say that this is a huge huge victory for Obama and Gates and is a big step forward toward instituting a strategic shift within the Pentagon.
• Also posted at Huffington

The Significance of the F-22 Vote - Nukes of Hazard [link]

• The F-22 vote was also significant because it provided an opportunity for DOD and Armed Services Committee chairman Levin to rev up their vote counting operations. They set up procedures to count noses, persuade the undecideds, and win over those who started out supporting the F-22.
• This vote counting operation, co-operated with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA), will be vital when the Senate gets to later votes on a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on agreement and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Clinton Hints at ‘Defense Umbrella’ to Deter Iran - New York Times [link]

• “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment that if the U.S. extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf,” Secretary Clinton said, “it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon.”

Donald Report - Arms Control Wonk [link]

• After the USAF shipped four Minuteman III nosecones to Taiwan, SECDEF Robert Gates asked Admiral Kirkland H. Donald to investigate the “facts and circumstances surrounding the accountability for, and shipment of, sensitive missile components to Taiwan.”
• Thanks to the wonders of FOIA, Arms Control Wonk.com has obtained a copy of the Donald Report, aka "Investigation into the Shipment of Sensitive Missile Components to Taiwan". We've uploaded the whole document. It is almost 200 pages.

Gingrich Is Ranting About EMPs Again - Armchair Generalist [link]

• I don't understand what makes Newt Gingrich tick, but he's at it again - telling us all that the EMP threat is going to drive America back into the pre-Colonial days.
• [Steven Younger, former director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency] says, "Contrary to media reports, it is not true that an EMP attack from a typical strategic weapon would completely shut down the electronics within a country."
• Nod to Danger Room's "Five for Fighting".

Comets of Mass Destruction

Amateur astronomer spots Earth-size scar on Jupiter - The Guardian [link]

• An amateur Australian astronomer looking through his backyard telescope has discovered that a large comet or asteroid has crashed into Jupiter, creating a hole the size of the Earth in the planet's atmosphere.