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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

Defense Industrialist

Aug 11, 2016

A modest arms sale of obsolete aircraft to India?

By Danny Lam

There may be more to Lockheed’s made-in-India deal than first meets the eye. The US Air Force and those of other NATO countries are phasing out F-16s much sooner than anticipated. This implies that performance of F-35s has met expectations, and that there are no obvious show-stoppers to ramping up production as fast as budgets […]

China
Defense Industry

Defense Industrialist

Aug 8, 2016

Don’t let pre-decisional become the enemy of good enough

By James Hasik

Early discussions between the military and industry are essential for finding financially sustainable ways of war. It’s a pretty big mess when the service secretary hasn’t heard about the latest procurement programs—which means that they’re maybe not really procurement programs. They’re at best, as Deborah James recently said with that awkward Washingtonian word, “pre-decisional.” As […]

Defense Industry
Drones

Defense Industrialist

Aug 3, 2016

A Franco-Polish-German tank

By James Hasik

The Polish Defense Minister’s interest in a trilateral development program is sound in many dimensions. For Defense News today, Aaron Mehta, Pierre Tran and Jaroslaw Adamowski report how the Polish Army is edging closer to getting new tanks. During an interview back on July 22, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz told the reporters that his […]

Defense Industry
Europe & Eurasia

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