Category: Content Series

Technology or Skill?

By James Hasik

What Determines Military Quality, and Why Should Industry care? Battlefield performance may be a rare arbiter of military quality, but when the opportunity arises, it forms an unmistakable signal. So before any military forces and the industries behind them land in that crucible, it’s worth asking what inputs predict which organizations are more likely to emerge […]

Jonathan Faull on Transatlantic Approach to Financial Reform

On October 9, the Atlantic Council hosted Jonathan Faull, director-general of Internal Market and Services at the European Commission, to discuss recent European financial regulatory reforms, EU bank re-capitalization efforts, and the future of the transatlantic economic partnership broadly. The discussion was moderated by C. Boyden Gray Fellow Dr. Chris Brummer, and touched on issues […]

Full, Open, and Unhelpful

By James Hasik

On Paring Back Clearance Lists for ID/IQ Contracts At our inaugural Captains of Industry event last week, Excelis CEO Dave Melcher had a few sound ideas for the folks who run procurement policy at the Pentagon. I’ve been reading over those, and one which stood out concerned the Defense Department’s current approach to indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity […]

Melcher Discusses the Business of Defense in an Age of Austerity

On October 2nd, the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security launched the Atlantic Council Captains of Industry series, a forum for leaders of major defense contractors to discuss their plans for navigating the new realities facing their businesses. The first speaker was David Melcher, CEO and president of Excelis, a $5.5 billion global aerospace, defense, […]

Chinese Anti-Aircraft Missiles for Turkey? Some Implications for Security and Industry

By James Hasik

On Friday, the Turkish government announced that China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC) had won the country’s T-LORAMIDS program for a new, long-range, high-altitude air defense system. The company’s FD-2000, the export version of its HQ-9, appears to have beaten Raytheon’s Patriot, Almaz-Antey’s S-400, and Eurosam’s SAMP-T (with land-based Aster 30 Block 1s) […]

What Do Steve Ballmer and Ray Odierno Have in Common?

By James Hasik

I mentioned Apple and Microsoft the other day, in the context of innovation, and writing that reminded me of another useful comparison in defense.  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced his pending retirement back in August, and in the week thereafter, a slew of periodicals wrote about how his departure couldn’t possibly be bad for the company. Perhaps […]

What to Do with All That Cash? Assuredly, Something with an Incentive Behind It

By James Hasik

For several years now, we’ve been hearing a chorus of laments about how military contractors have been deploying their excess cash. Heck, we’ve probably contributed to that noise on occasion. For some time now, seemingly the reflexive choices have been dividends, special dividends, and share buybacks—all means of returning that cash to shareholders. While this attention […]