Category: Content Series

Atlantic Council Explores Islamic Law and Human Rights in the Middle East

WASHINGTON, DC – The international media frequently features stories of Arab states and non-state actors committing human rights violations allegedly in the name of Islam. The application and understanding of Islamic jurisprudence is varied and controversial, whether such readings of the faith result in institutionalized state laws or actions committed by non-state actors, such as the […]

Who should own the rights to the software in the JSF?

By James Hasik

The economics of intellectual property rights in weapon systems make for challenging managerial problems, and mandate some detailed legal work. Who owns the intellectual property rights to weapon systems? Who should? In a notable essay in Foreign Affairs on “The End of the Military Industrial Complex,” former Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn once wrote of […]

How to man the unmanned

By James Hasik

With enthusiastic recruits, from all corners, and with a lot of cash. In the New York Times this past Tuesday, Michael Schmidt wrote of how the the US Air Force, “Running Low on Drone Pilots,” is turning to contractors to reconnoitre battlefields. Many of these are “former drone or fighter pilots who are making double or […]

On earnings and cash

By James Hasik

Do the compensation schemes for top management teams in the defense industry incentivize the right goals? Federal contracts lawyer Jim McAleese recently covered the briefing by Phebe Novakovic, CEO of General Dynamics, at the Jefferies Investors Conference on August 9. His first point: “General Dynamics’ senior team is paid based on ‘earnings and cash,’ which […]

The inelegant mess

By James Hasik

If software is making the world indecipherable, how can the military manage its development? Psibernetix, it seems, has built an artificial intelligence smarter than a fighter pilot. As I mentioned here at the beginning of the month, the company hatched at the University of Cincinnati has developed software for a Raspberry Pi machine that has defeated […]

Reforming the acquisition mindset

By Steven Grundman

Defense innovation requires the impulse of investors, not consumers. In what may be his last act to shape defense authorizations, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is pulling out all the stops to remake the Pentagon. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) is advancing a National Defense Authorization Act for 2017 that would make […]

Energizing Ties in the Eastern Mediterranean

By Gina Cohen

Offshore natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean have created critical opportunities for cooperation among countries in the region, especially Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey. Of these five countries, Cyprus and Israel have discovered more gas than either can consume over the next thirty years. Turkey and Jordan have no indigenous gas and need […]

Remarks by General James L. Jones, Jr. at the Dubrovnik Three Seas Initiative Presidential Roundtable

By Atlantic Council

Madam President, on behalf of the Atlantic Council and its entire leadership team and board of directors, I would like to thank you for hosting the Dubrovnik Forum and leading the Three Seas Initiative. I applaud the leadership you have shown in organizing this summit in Dubrovnik for the second straight year. Madam President, you […]