Roll Call cites the Atlantic Council for hosting an event with William J. Lynn III, the CEO of Finmeccanica North America and DRS Technologies Inc.:
William J. Lynn III, the former No. 2 man at the Defense Department, compares the state of the defense industry to the car business from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. “It was basically unpatriotic to drive a European or an Asian car,” he said Tuesday. “Look what’s happened now. Of the top 10 most American-made cars now, five have foreign name plates.”
Conditions for the defense industry these days are such that Lynn said at the Atlantic Council that three things need to happen: there needs to be more consolidation among defense contractors; the Pentagon needs to adopt more commercial technology; and the industry needs to become more globalized.