U.S. Defense Department concerned about impending budget cuts in March; China sends fighter jets to the East China Sea after the report of after Japanese aircraft following a Chinese plane
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    • According to reports, The U.S. Defense Department is preparing to ground military aircraft and call ships back to port should the Pentagon get hit with nearly $50 billion in budget cuts in March. Senior defense officials appear to be losing hope that congressional leaders and the White House will be able to come up with a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan before the spending cuts are enacted. the U.S. Defense Department is concerned about the nearly $50 billion budget cuts in March. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during a January 10 briefing at the Pentagon “[W]e have no idea what the hell’s going to happen.” He added, “All told, this uncertainty, if left unresolved by the Congress, will seriously harm our military readiness.” Panetta is still hopeful that the Congress will remedy these fiscal issues. However, the DoD is preparing itself to meet the emerging budgetary challenges and in this connection Air Force and the Navy has been asked to cancel maintenance on its aircraft and ships in the third and fourth quarters to meet the fiscal targets. 1
    In another development, according to reports, China has sent fighter jets to the East China Sea after Japanese aircraft followed a Chinese plane in a territorial dispute. China’s official Xinhua news agency said that two J-10 fighters flew to the East China Sea on January 10 to monitor two Japanese F-15 fighters that had trailed a Chinese Y-8 aircraft. The two countries are at odds over the small, uninhabited islands controlled by Tokyo as the Senkakus but claimed by Beijing, which calls them Diaoyu. 2

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