Category: Content Series

The Globalization of the Defense Industry

Please join us on July 8, 2014 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. for a discussion with William J. Lynn III, CEO, Finmeccanica North America and DRS Technologies Inc. on how private-sector technologies and international markets can revolutionize the defense-industrial base and existing strategies.

Battlestar Google, Part 2

By James Hasik

DARPA Needs Cylons—Just not from Google. As I was asking last week, how ever will it build its Cylons (er, rescue robots) if Google keeps buying all the promising suppliers? Boston Dynamics and Tokyo’s SCHAFT looked very promising, so Google hoovered them up. Suppose Houston’s TRAC Labs looks good in the next round—will Google simply […]

Four Questions on the LRS-B, Part 4

By James Hasik

Can it Meet its Cost and Schedule Objectives?  Weeks later, we are still awaiting that RFP for the LRS-B, the one that was supposed to be available “within days” back in mid-June. Early on, I had formulated four questions that I thought any policymaker ought to ask about the program. It is entirely possible that a classified […]

Battlestar Google

By James Hasik

How is DARPA supposed to build its Cylons if Google is buying all its contractors? Schaft and Boston Dynamics are the two robotics companies that recently took first and second place in the penultimate round of the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Both were bought by Google last December, and with an announcement from the new parent company […]

Russian Military-Industrial Complex 1, USA’s 0.

By James Hasik

Dmitry Rogozin’s people got jets and pilots to Iraq yesterday. In yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen, David Pugliese quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as finding yet another way to blame the collapse of his army on the United States. His new F-16s are not due to arrive until the autumn, and he asserts that “if we had air […]

Four Questions on the LRS-B, Part 3

By James Hasik

Does it really need a nuclear capability? “Within days,” Air Force Assistant Secretary Bill LaPlante told us at the beginning of the week, but we’re still awaiting that RFP on the LRS-B. So, I continue to prematurely work through the four questions that I believe policymakers should want answered if the program is to proceed. To recap […]