Defense
Turkey Primed To Enter Regional Aircraft Marketplace
Competition is growing among the major nations of the world to enter the commercial aircraft market. The ability to build such aircraft domestically is important both symbolically and practically. Only a handful of countries are home to original equipm ...
Lawmakers Charge U.S. Access To Space At Risk Due To Pentagon Inaction (From Forbes)
A bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers sent Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter a letter on November 5 complaining that recent developments in the launch industry threaten military access to space. The legislators are particularly concerned Air ...
DoD Isn’t Just A Poor Buyer; It Is Also A Bad Customer
The focus of acquisition reform discussion has been on the image of the Department of Defense (DoD) as a bad buyer. That has been the unstated but clearly recognized meme underpinning the Pentagon’s efforts over the past seven years to institute reform ...
21st Century Threats Underscore Importance Of The Next Generation Jammer
In his speech to the Reagan Defense Forum, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter made it official. The prospect for conventional conflict with high-end adversaries was back on the radar screen. Looking to the Future Force, Secretary Carter articulated a c ...
The Third Offset Strategy Will Fail Unless It First Defeats DoD’s Acquisition System
Assault robots, human-machine collaboration and combat teaming, so-called autonomous systems, wearable electronics, the electromagnetic railgun, lasers, new systems for electronic warfare, space operations and cyberspace conflict; yes, even the F-35. T ...
Southern California In Uproar Over Weekend Test Of Military’s Top Missile (from Forbes)
When the U.S. Navy decided to test its Trident II D-5 ballistic missile off the coast of Southern California late on Saturday afternoon, it probably didn't expect the social media uproar that followed. The sun had just set, and as a result the exhaust ...
The U.S. Navy Will Need A Larger Submarine Force
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the United States Navy is being challenged at sea. Recently, Russian attack submarines were reported to be sneaking around the international undersea cable lines that are critical to both our commercial ...
Boeing Protests Bomber Award To Northrop Grumman, Claims Selection Process “Fundamentally Flawed” (From Forbes)
The Boeing Company disclosed on November 6 that it will join with team-mate Lockheed Martin in protesting the Air Force's award of the Long Range Strike Bomber to Northrop Grumman. The companies believe that the government deviated from the process se ...
Retreating Ex-Im Bank Foes Fight Furious Rearguard Action As Defeat Looms (from Forbes)
It appears that efforts by right-wing critics to kill the Export-Import Bank have failed. Both the House and the Senate have now voted by decisive margins to renew the charter of America's only export credit agency. However, Ex-Im's foes in the House ...
Why Is FY2016 NDAA Undermining Real Acquisition Reform?
Under the leadership of Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman John McCain and House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Mac Thornberry, Congress took some major steps forward in reforming the defense acquisition system. Both committees w ...