Archives
Recent
January 2012
The defense department's proposal to drastically reduce the rate at which F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will be built over the next five years may set a new land speed record for federal bureaucrats. Who would have believed it was possible to develop the nation's most important new weapons program this
. . . Read more
Date:
1/31/2012
Today the U.S. Army will lose one of its finest general officers. The Vice Chief of Staff, General Peter Chiarelli, is retiring after some forty years in uniform. The Vice Chief is the Army’s chief of operations, responsible for the day-to-day management of the Army. This was no small task in a period
. . . Read more
Date:
1/31/2012
Like my colleague Dan Goure, I believe that the military cuts proposed last week by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta are a reasonable reconciliation of competing security and budgetary objectives. I'm not sure I see the logic of killing the long-range Global Hawk unmanned aircraft and delaying submarines
. . . Read more
Date:
1/30/2012
No sooner had Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta presented the details of the budget priorities and choices that accompanied the new defense strategy, than critics began to pick his presentation apart. Interestingly, much of the criticism was of the strategy’s decision to reduce Army and Marine Corps
. . . Read more
Date:
1/27/2012
The Obama Administration's blueprint for retooling the nation's defense posture was unveiled yesterday, and senior Pentagon officials say that any tinkering with the particulars could throw the whole plan out of whack. We better hope that's wrong, because long-term plans almost never stay on track
. . . Read more
Date:
1/27/2012
At the time Leon Panetta was nominated to replace the extremely powerful and public Robert Gates as the 23rd Secretary of Defense, there were many observers who worried about the fate of the Department of Defense (DoD). Given his extensive experience on budget matters in Congress and the executive branch,
. . . Read more
Date:
1/26/2012
In a move that seems to contradict the Obama Administration's recently announced Asia-Pacific strategy, the Pentagon has decided to mothball its longest-range surveillance drones and rely instead on shorter-range U-2 spy planes. The move is a victory for U-2 maker Lockheed Martin, which argues the
. . . Read more
Date:
1/24/2012
In the opinion of many defense analysts, the Pentagon's new defense strategy severely disadvantages the U.S. Army. The strategy both rejects the idea of future protracted, large-scale stability operations and shifts the focus of security concerns to the Asia-Pacific region where air and sea forces are
. . . Read more
Date:
1/24/2012
With America's military posture and strategic focus pivoting to the Western Pacific, it's a good time to ask how vulnerable the centerpiece of our naval force structure is to attacks by China. The centerpiece, of course, is large-deck aircraft carriers. There has been much discussion of late about
. . . Read more
Date:
1/23/2012
Retired Lockheed Martin Senior Vice President Robert H. Trice was so incensed by the errors he saw in recent accounts of the global arms trade that he wrote this rebuttal, describing the real situation. Trice spent much of his career at Lockheed Martin and other defense companies marketing U.S.
. . . Read more
Date:
1/23/2012
The new U.S. defense strategy requires the Department of Defense to address in a serious way the anti-access/area denial (AA/AD) threats that have emerged in East Asia and the Persian Gulf regions. In both regions, U.S. forces face prospective adversaries employing large numbers of relatively simple
. . . Read more
Date:
1/23/2012
The current debate over the timing of the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Iraq is misplaced. The retention of a relatively small number of U.S. troops in that country would not have measurably affected its political stability. Conversely, the withdrawal of those forces will not particularly incentivize
. . . Read more
Date:
1/20/2012
This week the Lexington Institute released a study I wrote detailing how the performance of industrial functions by military depots, arsenals, shipyards and logistics centers may be detrimental to national economic competitiveness. It argued that such facilities drive up the fixed costs of the
. . . Read more
Date:
1/20/2012
In his latest masterpiece, Civilization, historian Niall Ferguson attributes the success of the West (by which he means Western Europe and its overseas offspring) to six "killer apps.” Ferguson defines these applications as complexes of institutions and associated ideas and behaviors. The
. . . Read more
Date:
1/19/2012
Big weapons systems attract controversy, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is no exception. Critics complain about many aspects of the program, but in the political arena all these particulars boil down to one question: Is the plane worth what the Pentagon proposes to pay for it? The case for
. . . Read more
Date:
1/19/2012
National security isn't just about military capabilities. It's also about having a strong economy that can sustain those capabilities. Regrettably, the U.S. share of world production and trade has gradually declined as economic globalization has progressed in the new century. That trend is unlikely
. . . Read more
Date:
1/18/2012
The past ten years have seen an explosion in aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) support of military operations. The skies over Iraq and Afghanistan became crowded with both manned and unmanned platforms providing overwatch for maneuvering ground units, surveying lines of
. . . Read more
Date:
1/18/2012
The Department of Defense is facing the prospect of massive spending cuts beginning next January as a result of the Budget Control Act. The law mandates automatic cuts to military spending beyond the $490 billion already planned because a special congressional committee failed to identify $1.2
. . . Read more
Date:
1/17/2012
Seventy years ago almost to the day the first American military personnel, liaison officers and strategic planners arrived in Europe. They were the vanguard of the millions that would eventually follow to liberate the continent,
. . . Read more
Date:
1/13/2012
Bloomberg News yesterday released a thoughtful analysis of how Persian Gulf developments are impacting global petroleum trade that puts U.S. security operations there in a new light. Reporters Indira A. R. Lakshmanan and Gopal Ratnam found that while America is leading military efforts to keep
. . . Read more
Date:
1/13/2012
When wars end, weapons programs get cut. Sometimes the cuts are straightforward, and sometimes they are more subtle. The Clinton Administration's approach to national-security space programs -- both military and spy satellites -- fell into the latter category. Even though it funded a series of
. . . Read more
Date:
1/12/2012
The Obama Administration’s new defense strategy envisions the reshaping of the U.S. military to reflect changing geostrategic challenges, emerging threats and new technologies. It will not be enough for the Department of Defense merely to shed irrelevant, excess and obsolescent systems and organizations.
. . . Read more
Date:
1/12/2012
Reuters reported on January 10 that Textron, Inc. has initiated a review of strategic options that might result in the sale or spinoff of its defense businesses. While management clearly would like to retain the company's current multi-industry character, it has been under pressure behind the scenes
. . . Read more
Date:
1/11/2012
There are only three times when most general-election voters pay close attention in a presidential race, and one of those times is right around the corner for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. As a new national figure emerges to secure his party's nomination for president, the window opens
. . . Read more
Date:
1/11/2012
There is nothing new about anti-access and area denial (AA/AD) threats. They have been part of modern warfare since at least the Battle of Britain. There are important lessons for modern defense planners in prior efforts both to pursue such a strategy and to counter it. Technologies change but operational
. . . Read more
Date:
1/10/2012
The Kansas congressional delegation is angry that Boeing has decided to close its aircraft plant in Wichita, and it should be. Throughout a decade-long struggle to secure the Air Force's next-generation tanker contract, the delegation vigorously supported Boeing's bid because the company said it
. . . Read more
Date:
1/10/2012
Last week President Obama took the unusual step of going to the Pentagon to announce a new defense strategy. In doing so he did more than put his personal stamp on the new document. Obama also was drumming up support for the budget cuts ($480 billion over ten years) that had necessitated the reductions
. . . Read more
Date:
1/9/2012
Pentagon policymakers were smart to wait two weeks before disclosing the program changes that will accompany the administration's new national security strategy. The political system needs some time to assimilate the emerging strategic framework before it hears what revised military priorities
. . . Read more
Date:
1/6/2012
This time the defense drawdown will be different. In his remarks at the unveiling of the new defense strategy, President Obama stressed that an important goal of his plan was to avoid the mistakes made in previous downsizings that resulted in the so-called “hollow force” of the late 1970s and early
. . . Read more
Date:
1/6/2012
There were no big surprises in President Obama’s announcement today of his new defense strategy. The President made a lot of promises in his brief address. “As commander in chief, I am determined that we meet the challenges of this moment responsibly and that we emerge even stronger in a manner
. . . Read more
Date:
1/5/2012
The Obama Administration's decision to put more emphasis on East Asia in national security strategy is timely and necessary. After ten years of distraction in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington needed to reassure allies in the Western Pacific of its commitment to the region. However, the administration's
. . . Read more
Date:
1/5/2012
Tomorrow, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will unveil the Pentagon’s new defense strategy. Whatever its merits, it is clear that the new strategy is driven not by substantive changes in the international security environment but by the shrinking U.S. defense budget. Whatever Panetta puts forward
. . . Read more
Date:
1/4/2012
If you open the widely-read Value Line Investment Survey to pages 170-171, you will find corporate profiles of Navistar International and Oshkosh Corporation facing each other. This apparently has given billionaire investor Carl Icahn an idea: merge the two companies into a $20 billion behemoth
. . . Read more
Date:
1/4/2012
According to The New York Times, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is poised to reveal the Pentagon’s new leaner but not meaner defense strategy. As expected,
. . . Read more
Date:
1/3/2012
As the Republican candidates for president slug it out, one of the issues which divides them is whose philosophy represents the true legacy of Ronald Reagan. In addition to desiring to wear the mantle of most Reagan-like, I am sure that each of them wishes that he or she had the Great Communicator’s
. . . Read more
Date:
1/2/2012
It tells you a lot about how the Obama Administration views overseas arms sales that it announced Boeing's $30 billion fighter deal with Saudi Arabia on Christmas Eve. The ambivalence that Democratic administrations once had about selling weapons overseas has been replaced with a recognition that
. . . Read more
Date:
1/2/2012