Content

Defense Industrialist

Sep 9, 2016

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 […]

Defense Industry Economy & Business

Defense Industrialist

Sep 1, 2016

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 […]

Defense Industry Economy & Business

Defense Industrialist

Aug 31, 2016

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 […]

Cybersecurity Defense Industry

Defense Industrialist

Aug 29, 2016

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 […]

Defense Industry Economy & Business

Emerging Defense Challenges

Aug 22, 2016

Hasik Joins Defense News to Discuss Whether the F-35 Is Ready for Combat

By Jim Hasik

Watch the full interview here.

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Emerging Defense Challenges

Aug 22, 2016

Hasik Joins Defense News to Discuss Lockheed’s 1 Billion F-35 Payback

By Jim Hasik

Watch the full interview here.

Defense Industry Security & Defense

Defense Industrialist

Aug 22, 2016

On cash

By James Hasik

The Pentagon’s billion-dollar cash advance to Lockheed Martin is just a cost of doing business in a trillion-dollar program. Lockheed Martin’s billion-dollar cash advance is by now big news—or not so big news against the backdrop of a bigger program. As Defense News and others reported over a week ago, the Pentagon recently sent its […]

Defense Industry Economy & Business

Defense Industrialist

Aug 19, 2016

The mutually assured destruction of the Airbus-Boeing rivalry

By James Hasik

The ongoing sagas of the KC-46 and A400M are a reminder of how military-industrial hubris is bad for both business and government. On Breaking Defense this morning, Colin Clark notes that Boeing has just won “$2.8 billion for KC-46 tanker low rate production.” That’s good news. As multiple reporters have written this year, the company has […]

Defense Industry Economy & Business

Defense Industrialist

Aug 18, 2016

Supplier of the year, or big supplier of the year?

By James Hasik

The Pentagon’s “Superior Supplier” rankings need an overhaul For Inside Defense, Jason Sherman wrote three articles at the beginning of the month about the “Superior Supplier” rankings at the Army, Navy, and Air Force Departments. The assessments are undertaken “on a contract-by-contract basis” by individuals acquiring the actual goods and services, and thus “reflect customer […]

Defense Industry Entrepreneurship

Defense Industrialist

Aug 17, 2016

On battlecruisers, blockades, and Donald Trump

By James Hasik

Whatever administration takes office, the US needs to better match its procurement plans to its operational strategies. Writing this week for Chatham House, Julianne Smith, Rachel Rizzo and Adam Twardowski find that one military topic on which Donald Trump may offer views significantly differing from those of the other presidential candidates is procurement. In their […]

China Conflict

Experts