Washington Business Journal quotes Brent Scowcroft Center Nonresident Senior Fellow for Defense James Hasik on why AM General did not follow Lockheed in protesting the US Army’s decision to award Oshkosh a contract to build its next-generation tactical vehicle:
AM General’s strategy: help the Army and U.S. Marine Corps modernize and sustain the current 160,000-strong fleet and fight for further recapitalizations of the program. AM General wrote in a statement shortly after the decision that protesting JLTV “would ultimately result in a distraction from our current growth business areas.”
“I have the impression that somebody made the strategic decision that, ‘We’re a Humvee manufacturer and we’re going to be a Humvee manufacturer until the day we die,” saidJames Hasik, resident senior fellow at the D.C.-based Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Defense.
When I spoke with Hasik in September, shortly after the Lockheed protest, he said he wasn’t surprised AM General didn’t jump in because it still has an opportunity with the Humvee.