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Defense Industrialist

Dec 31, 2015

Will the bomber always get through?

By James Hasik

The long-term survivability of the LRS-B is a known unknowable. Will the US Air Force’s new stealth bomber be sufficiently survivable? Naïve calculations sometimes presume, to quote Stanley Baldwin’s 1932 speech in the House of Commons, that “the bomber will always get through.” History has proven otherwise, and at the start of a ten-year development […]

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Defense Industrialist

Dec 30, 2015

LRS-B: Too big to lose?

By James Hasik and Rachel Rizzo

Does building big bombers concentrate too much power in a single platform? Writing in Forbes two years ago, Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute argued that about $550 million would be cheap for a new bomber. The price of the LRS-B may be about half again as much as an A380 jetliner, and the latter need […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Dec 18, 2015

Why we need those little crappy ships

By James Hasik

Ash Carter’s emphasis on aircraft and quality over ships-in-quantity may be the wrong call on technology and strategy. Defense Secretary Ash Carter just told the Navy to spend less money on ships and more on jets. In a memorandum this week, he directed Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to cap purchases of Independence– and Freedom-class ships […]

Maritime Security Missile Defense

Defense Industrialist

Dec 17, 2015

Artificial strategy

By James Hasik

Are even the computers smart enough for the gray zones? General Joseph Votel, head of US Special Operations Command, is worried about “gray zones.” As he told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities back in March, he is vexed by today’s “ambiguity on the nature of the conflict, the parties involved, and the […]

Defense Policy Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Dec 10, 2015

“Not hesitant to use this power for corporate advantage”

By James Hasik

Just how politically problematic is concentration in the defense industry? Back in September, Under Secretary of Defense Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s procurement chief, took the trouble to make a rather forceful on-the-record statement about Lockheed Martin’s then-pending purchase of Sikorsky. He admitted that the deal posed no classical anti-trust concerns, but he worried about how even […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Dec 10, 2015

Is the LRS-B urgently needed?

By James Hasik and Rachel Rizzo

The new bomber isn’t coming soon, but some stopgaps should be. Seven years ago, Robert Haffa and Michael Isherwood of Northrop Grumman’s Analysis Center argued that the US Air Force urgently needed a new bomber—indeed, by 2018. Enemy missiles, they thought, could shut down the remaining forward airfields from which American fighter-bombers could fly. Those […]

Defense Industry Defense Technologies

Defense Industrialist

Dec 2, 2015

Bayonets, pistols, and JLTVs

By James Hasik

What three recent cases tell us about relative burdens in military procurement. Just the other day, I noted how outgoing Air Force procurement chief Bill LaPlante has been insisting that the Pentagon’s business of buying weapons has been improving over the past few years. Not everyone, however, is equally moved. On 18 November, at our […]

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Defense Industrialist

Nov 30, 2015

“We used to suck, and now we don’t suck as much.”

By James Hasik

Testing Bill LaPlante’s hypothesis of improving military acquisition The Lexington Institute’s Dan Gouré says that the much-ballyhooed Third Offset “will fail unless it first defeats the DoD’s acquisition system.” The department has again missed its goals for competing enough contracts. I myself have lamented how broken the acquisition system is. But as a retired Air […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Nov 24, 2015

Image and Indoctrination

By Blake Franko

Russia is laying the groundwork for further professionalizing its military. Russia’s military intervention in Syria illustrates that in the minds of Kremlin planners, the primary criterion for great power status is military might. Further cruise missile strikes and bomber sorties continue to showcase the depth of Russian military modernization. However, if Russia wants to remain […]

Russia

Defense Industrialist

Nov 23, 2015

Planes or train?

By James Hasik

Just “how can Canada best” contribute to the fight in Iraq and Syria? The Americans are bombing. The French are now bombing by the score. The British are slinging Brimstone. The Canadians will train the Peshmerga. That’s right—making good on a campaign promise, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau still intends to withdraw the six F-18 […]

Iraq Syria
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