Defense Business Briefing: Army’s IED fighter jets leave Middle East; Senate Approves Corporate Purchase Tax; Pentagon invests in black powder factory; More.

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A year after America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, we have yet another example of how the Pentagon’s future priorities will shift away from counterinsurgency.

The Army’s small Dash-8 surveillance aircraft, which have been hunting for roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq for more than a decade, will fly their final mission for U.S. Central Command on July 31, the service announced this week.

Operated by Leidos, a defense company, the ships were equipped with hyperspectral, electro-optical/infrared and high resolution imaging sensors. The Army is now looking to “shift sensor capabilities into other efforts.”

The planes are among the most sought-after assets at CENTCOM, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the military said in a statement.

In recent years, the Pentagon has been moving toward new types of technology to counter China, including weapons designed for counterinsurgency.

The Senate-passed Inflation Relief Act; A smaller version of President Biden’s Build Back Better Social Safety Net includes a 1 percent excise tax on stock purchases. The tax would “encourage large corporations to invest in their employees rather than wealthy executives and shareholders,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who authored the bill.

“An excise tax on stock purchases would thus make returning capital to investors less tax-efficient,” Capital Alpha Partners analyst James Lussier wrote in an Aug. 5 note to investors.

Here’s how much defense firms spent on stock buybacks in the first six months of 2022:

Lockheed Martin: $2.4 billion

Raytheon Technologies: $1.8 billion

Northrop Grumman: $640 million

Total dynamics: 1.1 billion dollars

L3 Harris Technologies: $729 million

Boeing: None.

But don’t expect a big change in share buybacks even with the repatriation tax. “We don’t expect management to come back on these, even with the excise tax on acquisitions,” Capital Alpha Partners analyst Byron Callan said in an Aug. 7 note to investors.

The Senate bill did not Include language that allows companies to write off research and development expenses. But there is still hope that lawmakers will pass legislation later this year.

Substantial bipartisan support remains to restore full spending for 2022, but the provision still needs a legislative vehicle. “The best chance would be a year-end bipartisan agreement on other expired and expired tax “extension” provisions.

The Pentagon said it would invest $3.5 million this week. A Louisiana factory used to propel black powder into weapons.

“A $3.5 million investment by the Department of Defense will allow the facility, owned by Estate Energetics through its Goex subsidiary, to reopen after it halted production due to the disaster,” the Pentagon said. The total cost of the project is $5.3 million over two years and will allow production to resume in Minden, Louisiana in two years or less.

The funding will allow Goex to hire up to 30 more employees, the Pentagon said. Black energy is used in cannons, guns, rockets, pyrotechnics and other weapons.

Northrop Grumman is partnering with Firefly Aerospace. To replace the Russian and Ukrainian-made engines on the Antares rocket with American-made engines. “Through our collaboration, we will first develop a completely domestic Antares rocket, the Antares 330, for commercial delivery to the Cygnus space station, followed by an all-new intermediate-stage launch vehicle,” said Scott Lear, Northrop’s vice president and general manager, launch and missile defense systems. He said in the statement.

Doing activities

Named Aerospace Industries Association Steven Jordan Tomaszewski Senior Director of the National Security Agency. Tomaszewski was previously at the Aerospace Corporation, where he “provided substantive technical advice to senior Defense Department officials in the Office of the Undersecretary for Defense Information and Security,” according to the AIA.

Barry PowellThe founding director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center is leaving the think tank to join the RAND Corporation as vice president and director of the National Security Research Division. Matthew Kroenig The Scowcroft Center will be acting director while a search for a permanent director is conducted, the Atlantic Council said in an email.

Correction: Due to an editing error, last week’s Defense Business Brief incorrectly stated that sales of the 2021 F-35 from Finland had fallen. The web version of the newsletter has been updated.


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