Industry

President Obama’s former national security adviser has joined forces with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of K Street’s biggest names. 

Gen. Jim Jones’s consulting firm, Jones Group International, will provide advice and counsel to Akin Gump’s clients on international and national security policy under what Akin Gump calls “a strategic alliance.” 

Jones was Obama’s first national security adviser and had a distinguished career in the Marine Corps, serving as supreme allied commander of Europe and commander of the U.S. European Command, as well as 32nd commandant of the Marine Corps.

A bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Monday urging the Pentagon to end its relationship with a Russian arms firm that provides weapons to Syria.

The 17 senators said the Pentagon should stop doing business with Rosoboronexport, a Russian company that has a Defense contract supplying helicopters to the Afghan army.

They wrote that Russia reportedly sold Syria $1 billion worth of arms in 2011, and continued shipments this year in the midst of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on opposition forces.

The United States and the European Union both claimed victory in the long-running dispute over subsidies to aircraft manufacturers.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is ripping Mitt Romney as "irresponsible" for his attacks on President Obama's Iran policy.

A leading defense and aerospace industry group released a report Wednesday that looks to make the fight about sequestration a jobs debate.

With the defense industry staring down the threat of $500 billion in cuts to the Pentagon budget in January 2013, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) released a report touting the economic impact the defense and aerospace industry has in the United States.

The report, which AIA commissioned Deloitte to conduct, gives a state-by-state breakdown of the industry’s economic boost, finding that overall the industry had $324 billion in sales in 2010.

The Justice Department dropped its case Tuesday against 22 defendants who were caught in a sting operation where FBI informants pretended to represent a defense minister from Gabon.

The Justice Department filed to dismiss the case in federal court on Tuesday, after the first two trials resulted in a hung jury for seven defendants and acquitted three.

The Iraqi government detained several hundred foreign contractors during Iraq’s first weeks of sovereignty after U.S. troops left last month, The New York Times reported Monday.

The contractors were mostly held for not having proper visas and paperwork at the Baghdad airport and other checkpoints in the city, the Times reported, in detentions that lasted from a few hours to almost three weeks.

The defense-aerospace firm announced last week it will close its Wichita facility, shocking officials across the state.

The new head of EADS North America faces an uphill battle in executing his primary charge as chairman: expanding the firm’s sales to the U.S. military.

Defense analysts and sources spoke highly of Sean O’Keefe after EADS announced he would take over permanently as the chairman of its North American division. One said O’Keefe has “an unsurpassed stature in Washington.”

But each made clear O’Keefe, who also will remain the division’s CEO, will face major challenges in expanding EADS’s U.S. military and government business.

EADS executives have named former Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe the new chairman of its North American business unit.

O’Keefe, also EADS North America’s CEO, will replace Ralph Crosby, who recently retired, the company said in a statement. O’Keefe has been serving as both CEO and chairman since Jan. 1, and a spokesman said he will retain both jobs.

“EADS North America just concluded a remarkable year in 2011, having successfully expanded our product portfolio in the U.S., increased the company’s recognition with our federal and military customers, and extended our record of within budget and on time deliveries of the UH-72A Lakota Light Utility Helicopter to our U.S. military customers,” O’Keefe said in a statement.