Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
Obama’s Final Grade For His Freshman Year: An Encouraging “B+” As the father of twin seventh graders navigating one of the nation’s most demanding public school systems, I see a lot of report cards. In addition to quarterly reports, Fairfax County also sends out interim results midway through each grading [Read More...]
As Decade Ends, Will China’s Economic Strategy Falter? Late last year, the National Intelligence Council delivered to president-elect Obama the fourth in a long-running series of global assessments. Entitled Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, the new assessment had a distinctly different tone from previous installments in the [Read More...]
DDG-1000 Destroyer May Have More Of A Future Than Policymakers Imagine When the Navy decided to kill its next-generation DDG-1000 destroyer and continue producing the legacy Burke class during the waning days of the Bush Administration, it wasn’t a big surprise. The new destroyer seemed like a mixed metaphor — equipped [Read More...]
TARP Fund Pay Dispute Has Defense Management Dimension Distressed companies receiving money from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) are resisting restrictions imposed on executive compensation. They argue that the government is less likely to get its money back if the pay and benefits offered to prospective [Read More...]
Christmas Eve 2009: We Are So Lucky To Be Alive Here, And Now Although many Americans have lost touch with the historical origins of the holidays that are celebrated around the winter solstice, we probably spend more time reflecting on our lives in this season than any other. We are at home more, [Read More...]
Army Trucks: Scenes From A Procurement Fiasco Last summer, the U.S. Army awarded a contract for 23,000 trucks and trailers to a company that has never made the vehicles before, because it bid below the price proposed by a competing company that has made them for 17 [Read More...]
Airbus Subsidies Have Destroyed Thousands of U.S. Jobs In a few days, the world’s two major producers of commercial transports (jet airliners) will release their order and delivery results for 2009. The results will show that European champion Airbus delivered slightly over 50% of all planes built, while [Read More...]
Drone Intercept Illustrates A Drawback Of Netcentric Warfare The Wall Street Journal’s December 17 revelation that militant Shiites in Iraq have intercepted surveillance feeds from Predator drones highlights one of the drawbacks in information-age warfare. Everybody has access to new innovations emerging in the commercial marketplace, so it’s [Read More...]
Energy: America’s Christmas Gift To China Last weekend I took a stroll through the seasonal merchandise section of my local arts and crafts store. The artificial Christmas trees and wreaths were made in China. So were the tree lights and ornaments. And the Christmas cards. I [Read More...]
Sources Confirm $100B Add To 2011-2015 Defense Plan Although a week remains before the details of the Obama Administration’s fiscal 2011 defense spending request are wrapped up, the broad outlines of the plan are becoming clearer every day. Well-connected sources confirm Defense News was correct in reporting this [Read More...]