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November 2010
The latest round of State Department cables released by Wikileaks have hardly been surprising to anyone who follows foreign affairs. North Korea is a crazy state that everyone in the region wishes would collapse. Iran is the problem that dominates the security concerns of all its neighbors. State Department
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Date:
11/30/2010
The November issue of the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine contains an important article about the future of amphibious warfare by Navy under secretary Robert O. Work and longtime military analyst Frank Hoffman. The vision of future warfare it provides is deeply flawed because it
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Date:
11/30/2010
North Korea’s unprovoked shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, following less than a year after the sinking of that country’s frigate Cheonan, is a surprise but not an unexpected one. These seeming random acts of violence are an integral part of the North’s approach to negotiations. For years
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11/24/2010
Just when you thought it was okay for the United States to slash its defense budget and withdraw from its international security commitments, reality rears its ugly head. North Korea, that paragon of stability and reasonableness, launches a surprise artillery strike on South Korea. This comes at
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11/23/2010
There is no more strategically agile, operationally responsive and tactically flexible platform in the U.S. arsenal than the aircraft carrier. Properly supported as part of a carrier strike group (CSG) and sustained by the world’s best aerial and sea-based logistics system, the aircraft carrier
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11/22/2010
The following remarks were delivered by Loren Thompson at the Cato Institute on November 19. They acknowledge that defense spending will need to fall in the years ahead, but use four programs favored by deficit panels for cuts to illustrate how slashing weapons
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Date:
11/19/2010
Defense publications are reporting that Russia is considering selling its newest fighter, the SU-35, to China. The SU-35 has enhanced radar, improved avionics, better flight surfaces, a more powerful engine and larger fuel tanks. Aviation experts characterize the SU-35 as a Generation 4+ aircraft.
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11/19/2010
With drug-related violence in Mexico reaching unprecedented levels and continuing high concerns about illegal immigration into this country, now is not the time for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cancel the program to provide state-of-the art surveillance capabilities to the Border
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11/18/2010
The fate of the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) has been hanging by a thread ever since the military services delivered their proposed fiscal 2012 budgets to the defense secretary last Summer. If assembly of the final budget request for submission to Congress in February is following
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11/17/2010
The calls for cutting defense spending are reaching a fevered pitch in Washington. An unlikely concatenation of individuals and groups from libertarian Congressman Ron Paul and his Tea Party-backed son, Senator-elect Rand Paul, to hard left Representative Barney Frank and now the seemingly centrist
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11/16/2010
The Navy has made its latest run against the Marine Corps version of the F-35 joint strike fighter, and for something like the twentieth time, it has been rebuffed. The latest failed assault came after the United Kingdom decided to switch its buy of joint strike fighters from the Marine vertical-takeoff
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11/15/2010
What is it that President George W. Bush’s memoirs and Bob Woodward's book on decisonmaking in the Obama Administration on Afghanistan have in common? It is the extent to which both administrations confronted a "revolt of the generals." Whether it was how to cope with the rising tide of violence
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Date:
11/15/2010
One way that the Department of Defense (DoD) is attempting to reduce the costs of overhead and support activities is by bringing into the government work done by private contractors. Over the past two years, the military services have repeatedly cancelled well-performing contracts with private companies
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11/12/2010
The chairmen of the bipartisan deficit-reduction commission have done the political system a big favor by illustrating the kinds of budget cuts that will be needed to bring federal expenses into closer alignment with fiscal resources. They have also removed any illusions that defense spending will
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Date:
11/12/2010
You'd think that after cutting $330 billion of unnecessary weapons spending out of the Pentagon budget last year, defense secretary Robert Gates would have claimed almost all of the low-hanging fruit. Well, guess again: the military services still are buying all sorts of exotic gadgets that aren't
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11/10/2010
Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter is continuing his drive to improve the efficiency of buying weapons systems and services. On November 3 he published a memorandum to provide specific implementation guidance directed at achieving better buying power through greater efficiency and productivity
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11/9/2010
The U.S. defense industry was waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the competition to build the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The original Navy plan had been to build a squadron or more of each of the two designs, one by a Lockheed Martin-led team and the other by a General Dynamics-led team.
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11/8/2010
The Army did something brave this Summer without even visiting a war zone. It retracted a request-for-proposals on its future Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) because senior leaders decided the requirements were too demanding. The reason that was a brave thing to do is because anytime a solicitation
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Date:
11/8/2010
When the Pentagon released its latest cost estimates for the tri-service F-35 joint strike fighter program, many outsiders were aghast at the projected price-tag for the planes. Everyone knew it was the defense department's biggest development program, but the per-plane costs were a good deal higher
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11/5/2010
President Obama’s upcoming trip to India clearly reflects the growing importance of that country as a U.S. trading partner and an economic force in the globalized world. Equally important is the growing position of India as a military power in South Asia and the potential for a strong relationship with
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11/4/2010
Republicans made major gains in Tuesday's midterm elections by promising to rein in federal spending. You can understand why voters might be concerned about spending, because the federal government is borrowing a billion more dollars every six hours just to make ends meet. But during the election
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11/3/2010
One of the consequences of the big Republican election victory yesterday could be the creation of a roadblock to ongoing DoD and intelligence community efforts to reduce service and support contracts and insource work done by the private sector. One of the clear messages to emerge from election night
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Date:
11/3/2010
On the heels of its recently released defense review, the new British government has moved aggressively to restructure its strategic relationships both with Washington and its allies in Europe. As part of a new agreement on defense cooperation, Great Britain and France will substantially deepen their
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Date:
11/2/2010
There doesn't seem to be much doubt which political party will control the U.S. House of Representatives over the next two years. It will be the Republicans, generally considered to be stronger supporters of defense spending than the Democrats. In the run-up to election day, many Republican candidates
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Date:
11/1/2010
While still trying to get the New START Treaty ratified, possibly during the lame duck session, the Obama Administration has its sights set on the next round of reductions. The new negotiations would take the U.S. strategic arsenal down to levels not seen since the early 1950s, possibly as low as
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Date:
11/1/2010