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Defense Industrialist

Jan 22, 2014

The Pending Demise of the US Rotorcraft Industry Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

By James Hasik

Helicopter program unpredictability and reduced defense procurement have a negative impact on the ability to recruit and retain a qualified and capable aerospace workforce, thereby increasing risk for the helicopter industrial base’s ability to design, build, and support the next generation of manned and unmanned military helicopters. Here in the US, that was the ‘sense […]

Captains of Industry Series

Jan 16, 2014

Ellen Lord’s View from Inside: Opportunities for Multi-Industrials

By James Hasik

Ellen Lord, CEO of Textron Systems, yesterday gave the third address of our Captains of Industry series here at the Atlantic Council, speaking on her “View of Defense from Inside a Multi-Industrial Company”. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the US defense industry largely restructured around large-scale specialists in government contracting. The biggest companies […]

Defense Industrialist

Jan 14, 2014

Whither the EU Defense Internal Market?

By Christina Balis

‘Trading and competing’ is as important as ‘pooling and sharing’ for European defense A guest posting by Dr. Christina Balis, Principal and Director of European Operations for Avascent The EU Council’s conclusions last month on the common security and defense policy (CSDP), an event eagerly awaited since the decision in late 2012 to put defense on the […]

Defense Industrialist

Dec 24, 2013

For Brazil, Just the Right Plane, and at the Right Price

By James Hasik

As has been widely reported, and after what The Aviationist called “ten years of negotiations and speculations,” the Brazilian federal government announced last week that Saab’s JAS-39E Gripen NG had been selected as the next fighter jet of the Força Aérea, beating out Dassault’s Rafale and Boeing’s F/A-18E Super Hornet. The timing of the announcement was unexpected, but the […]

Brazil

Defense Industrialist

Dec 18, 2013

Exelis Gets Ahead of the Curve

By James Hasik, Steven Grundman

This past week Exelis, the former ITT Defense, announced that it would be spinning off its services unit, currently called Exelis Mission Systems, into a new, publicly traded, “global facilities, logistics and network services provider”. The soon-to-be-renamed Missions Systems will be a significant entity all its own, with 7,000 staff in 18 countries and about $1.5 billion […]

Defense Industrialist

Dec 12, 2013

An “Arms-Length” DE&S—Why Not the Same Fix for AT&L?

By James Hasik

With just one bid on his desk, UK Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond had little choice but to give up on a controversial plan to put Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) under a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) model. Instead, procurement will be put at arms length from the rest of the ministry, and given financial and human […]

Defense Industrialist

Dec 7, 2013

Today RQ-180, Tomorrow LRS-B

By James Hasik

News of Northrop Grumman’s stealthy RQ-180 drone aircraft, revealed just yesterday by Aviation Week & Space Technology, may be of more than tactical significance. As our friend Byron Callan argued immediately thereafter in a report for investors, it provides an industrial signal as well: competition in fixed-wing military aircraft is still vigorous in the United States. If Northrop […]

Defense Industrialist

Dec 4, 2013

Not Cheap, but is it Urgently Needed?

By James Hasik

Platforms, Payloads, and the LRS-B The other week I wrote about how the US Air Force’s projected price for its hoped-for Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B)—just $550 million each—might not be believable. We will hear the argument, of course, that whatever the cost, it simply must be paid, as the alternative is an aging and irrelevant bomber fleet. […]

Defense Industrialist

Nov 26, 2013

Why that Long Range Strike Bomber Wouldn’t Be Cheap

By James Hasik

Undeterred by a declining spending, the leadership of the US Air Force has made investment in a new bomber—the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B)—a top priority. Much of the argument rests on the alleged inadequacy of equipping the current but ancient fleets of B-52Hs and B-1Bs with new cruise missiles, to extend their relevance against presumably […]

Defense Industrialist

Nov 25, 2013

A Series of One-Third Problems

By James Hasik

Why Better Buying Power Isn’t Enough At an Atlantic Council event earlier this month, a colleague expressed his opinion that the Pentagon’s buying power will drop by half in the next five years. I was uncertain about that, so I decided to run some numbers. I will note how outgoing Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter says that the […]

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