Content

Defense Industrialist

Feb 19, 2016

How to kill the Long Range Strike Bomber, part 1

By James Hasik

As Lockheed may soon argue, why not just more stealth fighters and cruise missiles? Early this week, the US Government Accountability Office turned away another contract protest, ruling that the US Air Force had acted reasonably in awarding development of its future Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) to Northrop Grumman. We yet await Boeing’s decision on […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Feb 16, 2016

Economics of the Third Offset, part 1

By James Hasik

Why the shift of billions from procurement to development funding? Funding for American military materiel is set to shift from buying to designing. If the US Congress more-or-less adopts the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2017 budget request, spending on research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) would increase by 5 percent—$6.4 billion—over fiscal 2016 , and procurement would […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Feb 12, 2016

End draft registration

By James Hasik

Rather than mandating that women register, just terminate that useless practice. Should women be registered for the draft? Now that Defense Secretary Carter has removed the exclusion of women from all combat jobs, the Army chief of staff, the Marine Corps commandant, and Senator McCaskill of Missouri want all women registered. The secretary himself says that’s […]

Defense Policy Politics & Diplomacy

Defense Industrialist

Feb 10, 2016

Kein Roboterkrieg!

By James Hasik

iRobot’s sale of its defense division to Arlington Capital indicates that commercial markets will drive innovation in autonomy. On Politico’s Morning Defense today, Jeremy Herb asked some think-tankers what to look for in today’s budget release. Plenty wondered what spending cuts would offset the emerging Third Offset, and even suggested that our New New Thing would […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Feb 4, 2016

Options unconsidered

By James Hasik

Which is the question—should carrier drones be tankers, or should tankers just be seaplanes? Turning the US Navy’s next carrier-based drone into a tanker, as the service announced this week, is probably a reasonable idea. For some time, buddy-tanking F-18 Hornets has been a questionable use of other Hornets, but one  completely necessitated since 2009 […]

Defense Industry Japan

Defense Industrialist

Feb 2, 2016

Think Small

By Steven Grundman

Economies Of Scale Ain’t What They Used To Be. Last month, while the world’s elites were gathering in Davos, Switzerland for Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum (WEF), I was in Washington hosting an address by the acquisition executive of the U.S. Special Operations Command, James “Hondo” Geurts. While the setting for these two occasions could […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jan 26, 2016

On trucks and lawsuits

By James Hasik

Complaints over fairness indicate how hard military procurement can be, and how strategic urgency must sometimes trump procedural justice. In North America in the past several months, three defense contractors have complained to US and Canadian federal reviewers that they’ve been treated unfairly in procurement programs for new military vehicles. Lockheed Martin has complained about […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jan 23, 2016

Newer aircraft, bigger bills

By James Hasik

In the USAF, mission-capable rates are not a matter of age or scale efficiencies.  In Air Force Times this week, Jeff Schogol pulled some descriptive statistics from USAF records to report on “which aircraft are most mission-ready.” His list included the various types of attack, bomber, cargo (including gunship and electronic warfare), fighter, rescue helicopter, tilt-rotor, […]

Defense Industry Defense Technologies

Defense Industrialist

Jan 20, 2016

Recombinant lethality

By James Hasik

What the military departments can learn from SORDAC Yesterday evening, the Atlantic Council hosted James “Hondo” Guerts, chief of the US Special Operations Research, Development and Acquisition Center (SORDAC), for a speech and discussion about what makes his organization different. Uniquely amongst the US acquisition executives, Geurts has integrated responsibility for research, development, procurement, and […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jan 12, 2016

Four questions for the Marine Corps

By James Hasik

Does the future find need for fewer troops, on more ships, in more units, and more focused on small wars? In October 1957, Commandant of the Marine Corps General Randolph Pate sent Lieutenant General Victor Krulak a brief memo with a simple question: “Why does the U.S. need a Marine Corps?” Recalling his work on […]

Load More