Experts

Fellow

Michelle Kholos Brooks

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Security & Defense

Fellow

Max Brooks

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management National Security

Fellow

August Cole

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Fellow

Steven Grundman

Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Fellow

Adam Hammer

Nonresident Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Content

Defense Industrialist

Feb 28, 2017

The 75 percent solution

By James Hasik

The Marine Corps should move towards a mix of attack aircraft tailored for two classes of enemy, in wars small and large. In the short term, that means buying fixed-wing gunships. In the mid-term, it means buying tilt-rotor gunships, including drones. Both aircraft types are better suited for the small wars in which the Marine Corps has been engaged for most of the post-Cold War era. For now, that might seem to destroy Marine Aviation, but to save it in the long term for the big wars.

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Defense Industrialist

Feb 13, 2017

Make it so.

By James Hasik

Standing up a new military organization is hard institutional work, but work worth the effort over time. A proposal for a Space Force proposes short-term turmoil, but eventually better morale, stability, and focus after separation from the Air Force.

Defense Policy Space

Emerging Defense Challenges

Feb 1, 2017

Grundman Quoted by Inside Defense on Defense Contractors and the Trump Administration

By Steven Grundman

Read full article here.

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jan 26, 2017

Keep that hiring freeze short

By James Hasik

Really reducing the Pentagon workforce will be a challenging task, because every office needs to be effectively searched for who’s not doing a great job, and who’s not doing a job that really needs to be done. It’s also an important job, because the layering-on of people and offices over the years has created a bureaucratic monster in which simple decisions can take months to effect. So here’s one bit of advice to the new administration, in the interests of efficient administration of defense. Make no small plans at the OMB. Get to work on that plan for eliminating the deadwood, the unimportant, and the sclerotic. Just don’t let this hiring freeze linger. Because until fresh hiring can resume, you’ll get none of the new talent you need.

Defense Policy Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Jan 23, 2017

The USAF needs more than 300 light attack aircraft—now.

By Dave Foster

Lowering flight-hour costs later in the long war isn’t the main issue.

Defense Industry Iraq

Defense Industrialist

Jan 21, 2017

The high beta presidency

By Steven Grundman

What does the Trump Administration portend for defense policy? I hew to the simple refrain, “Anything could happen.” Or, as an investor put it to me, “Trump’s promises to be the ‘high-beta’ presidency.” Beta is the measure of a stock’s volatility against the market as a whole, though the analogue to molecular biology and the treatment of hypertension may be equally apt. Of one thing we do know for sure: Donald Trump is a master of the political narrative, and the story about public policy counts far more than those of us with a deductive train of mind might care to admit.

Afghanistan Defense Industry

Defense Industrialist

Jan 21, 2017

To get revolutionary in procurement, get radical on requirements

By James Hasik

In the US system, sketching out what the forces need is a task for military officers, upstream from the responsibilities of the under secretariat for AT&L. Ensuring they make sense and don’t excessively overlap amongst the services is supposed to be the job of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, which impanels the vice chairman of the joint chiefs and the vice chiefs of the individual services. However, in its 20-year history, the JROC has rarely seen a requirement it didn’t usher through the process with minimal change. In the long run, radically rethinking requirements requires radically rethinking the process of setting requirements. And that’s where the big money is to be found.

Afghanistan Defense Industry

Emerging Defense Challenges

Jan 20, 2017

Grundman in Aviation Week: Under ‘High-Beta’ Trump Presidency, Anything Could Happen

By Steven Grundman

Read full article here.

Defense Industrialist

Jan 12, 2017

The tether of fuel—a brief counterpoint

By David Foster

Unless troops live off the land again, energy efficiency can only yield so much.

Conflict Defense Policy

Defense Industrialist

Jan 11, 2017

“Unleash us from the tether of fuel”

By Greg Douquet

Mattis put his faith in the 3rd Marine Air Wing’s ability to defeat Saddam’s formations surrounding Baghdad, and accepted the risk that his force might not achieve its objectives before running out of fuel. In later testimony, Mattis reflected back on the compromising situation of the “March Up,” as well as on the cost of increased fuel demand during the counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the future, he stated, the military must be “unleashed from the tether of fuel.” Mattis had seen the future imperative to change our sources of energy for military operations.

Afghanistan Conflict
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