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Defense Industrialist

Jul 8, 2016

Tony Stark never sued his customer

By James Hasik

How should the military relate to billionaires who don’t follow its playbook? At the NewSpace 2016 conference in Seattle last month, a questioner in the audience wanted an opinion about “Jeff Bezos, Yuri Milner, Paul Allen, Richard Branson and Elon Musk: all of these billionaires, instead of buying yachts, are investing in space.” As panel moderator Alan […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jul 7, 2016

“We do not agree that hindsight is required.”

By James Hasik

The Chilcot Inquiry usefully recalls the bureaucratic failures of the fight against IEDs. The Chilcot Inquiry, the official British government investigation of the Iraq War, convened in November 2009. Just yesterday, more than six years on, Sir John and his fellow commissioners—Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir Roderic Lyne, Baroness Usha Prashar, and the late Sir Martin Gilbert—published their […]

Defense Industry Iraq

Bremain vs Brexit

Jun 29, 2016

The British Army of the Vistula

By James Hasik

Concerns about the implications of Brexit to European security may be overblown. At the beginning of last week, as everyone else in the commentariat was commenting, I resolved myself not to comment on Brexit. But after a flurry of articles about Britain turning inward, I want everyone to calm down. Just yesterday, US Secretary of […]

Defense Industry NATO

Defense Industrialist

Jun 22, 2016

The USAF’s flying coke machine

By James Hasik

The next attack aircraft may take a total rethinking of ground support. When a senior Air Force official offered me a correction some months ago, a Marine colonel friend of mine suggested that I “tell him to stop bothering you and to get back to trying to kill the A-10.” We may actually now be […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Captains of Industry Series

Jun 18, 2016

Can Aerospace and Defense Avoid US Automakers’ Mistakes?

By Steve Grundman

At the end of 2014, the CEO of naval shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries, Mike Petters, delivered an address at the Atlantic Council entitled, “Playing the Long Game”. In it, Petters made the case for the chief executive’s leadership antidote to what he called “the institutionalization of the short-term”: No. 1: You have to think that […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Captains of Industry Series

Jun 15, 2016

The Battlestar strategy

By James Hasik

The future of Big Space depends on the defensibility of big satellites. If big satellites continue to provide cost-effective and defensible concentrations of functionality, then Big Space will have a defensible position in the market.

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jun 10, 2016

Could Joint Strike Fighters really be a low-cost option?

By James Hasik

If they could just control enough drones, perhaps F-35s could make war affordable again. The Danish fighter competition is over, it would seem, as the parliament has officially approved a program for 27 F-35 Lightning IIs. As I noted last week, the purchase price remains indeterminate, so the Danish Defense Ministry may be seriously unprepared […]

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jun 6, 2016

‘Competitiveness heavily depends upon price’

By James Hasik

The Danish fighter jet procurement decision requires further explanation.   Up front, the Danish Ministry of Defense seemed to have done it all right. In choosing a replacement for the Royal Danish Air Force’s F-16s, the ministry received bids from Eurofighter for the Typhoon, Boeing for the F-18E and -F Super Hornet, and Lockheed Martin […]

Defense Industry Northern Europe

Defense Industrialist

Jun 3, 2016

Howitzers on Philippine shores?

By James Hasik

Differing Army and Marine Corps exercises regarding coastal artillery show the continued value of inter-service rivalry. At the AUSA’s “Land Power in the Pacific” symposium in Hawaii last month, Admiral Harry Harris of US Pacific Command told an audience that he wants the US Army in the coastal artillery business. Specifically, he wants the Army […]

Defense Industrialist

May 31, 2016

State secretaries on supply and demand

By James Hasik

Learnings on comparative defense-industrial strategy during lunch two NATO defense ministry officials Last week the Atlantic Council hosted senior defense-industrial officials from Germany and Turkey for discussions about their evolving plans. Taking the time to reread their biographies, we remembered that some of NATO’s member states are clearly finding accomplished people to run military materiel […]

Defense Industry Germany
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