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December 2009
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 period, so I receive the equivalent of 16 report cards
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Date:
12/31/2009
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 series that
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Date:
12/30/2009
What is happening in the streets of Iran’s cities is as significant as the street demonstrations that brought down the Soviet Union and almost toppled the government of China. Completely internal and spontaneous responses to last year’s fraudulent national elections, the protests are a testament
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12/30/2009
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 with the latest digital sensors and networks, but
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12/29/2009
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that "the system worked." This is the same system that had been warned by the bomber’s own father he posed a threat; had tracked his movements
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12/29/2009
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 hires are too low to compete
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12/28/2009
President Obama’s speech at West Point on December 1 made a very strong case for expanding U.S. and NATO military operations in Afghanistan and for sending 30,000 more troops to that country. After weeks of uncertainty, it seemed as if the president had accepted in principle the recommendations of his
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12/28/2009
One of the centerpieces of the Obama “doctrine” for the pursuit of U.S. national security is placing a greater weight on the non-military elements of national power. Many in or near “Team Obama”, from Joseph Nye and John Hamre to Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton, have long advocated greater use of so-called
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12/26/2009
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, and the weather often keeps us indoors. We see more of our families,
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Date:
12/23/2009
Iran is Weak and Isolated. The seizure last week of a planeload of North Korean weapons bound for Iran created a sensation. Using a Georgian-registered charter aircraft, and a host of front companies to hide the true nature of the shipment, the North Koreans had hoped to conceal the shipment of rocket
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12/23/2009
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 years. Not only was the challenger's bid lower than the price bid by the incumbent,
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12/22/2009
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have presented the U.S. Army -- and to a lesser extent the Marine Corps -- with an enormous number of challenges. In addition to fighting and winning its current wars, the Army must also prepare for an uncertain future. Making the future all the more difficult is the
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Date:
12/22/2009
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 greatly exceeding American champion Boeing in the
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12/21/2009
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
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12/18/2009
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 got to thinking, "Gee, the Chinese do so much for us at this
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12/17/2009
While attention has been focused on President Obama’s decision to deploy an additional 30,000 uniformed personnel to Afghanistan, what has passed unnoticed is the fact that those new troops will be accompanied by a large “surge” in private contractors. According to recent reports, the president’s
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Date:
12/17/2009
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 week that $100 billion was
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Date:
12/16/2009
First we were told the withdrawals would definitely begin by July, 2011 but then we were told that the date did not mean much and we would be supporting the government in Kabul for years to come. Now we are being informed that what has been characterized as a surge is really more like a dribble
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Date:
12/16/2009
According to Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, war is the continuation of politics by other means. Sometimes, politics seems like the continuation of war by other means. President Obama's decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan may be one of those times -- not over there, but
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Date:
12/15/2009
One of the truly revolutionary changes in military logistics over the past two decades has been the institution of performance-based logistics (PBL). Traditionally, the military bought parts or services, much from the private sector but also from its own depots, and attempted to integrate and manage
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Date:
12/15/2009
It is a common misconception that Department of Defense rules for purchasing weapons are impenetrably arcane. That's only half true. Much of the time, the principles being applied trace back to basic constitutional guarantees such as due process and equal protection. So it is in the case of the
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12/14/2009
The U.S. Navy has suddenly discovered it has a must-pay bill of some $80 billion for a next-generation ballistic missile submarine or SSBN. Even with an extension to the service life of the Ohio-class SSBN from 30 to 40 years, the first of these ships will begin to be decommissioned starting in
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12/14/2009
Jason Sherman of insidedefense.com broke a major story on December 9 concerning likely changes to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The story said that pursuant to recent budget deliberations, development may be delayed by "at least a year," the number of planes produced across the 2011-2015
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Date:
12/10/2009
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have transformed modern warfare. The military is concerned about the potential ability of adversaries to shoot down our UAS’s. One of the two principal reasons for employing UAS’s is that they can go in harm’s way without putting lives at risk (the other is their endurance).
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12/10/2009
One of the criticisms of U.S. defense procurement over the last twenty years is that the military continues to buy weapons systems designed for the Cold War that are not relevant to the current era of counterinsurgency campaigns and terrorist threats. So it is interesting, to say the least, when
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Date:
12/9/2009
Noted trade expert and aerospace analyst Joel Johnson thinks I've missed the boat -- or the widebody -- in my recent blog posting on how Airbus subsidies should play in the Air Force tanker competition. He sent us the following point-by-point response to my posting. Johnson has held a number
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Date:
12/9/2009
After lengthy delays, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite program is progressing smoothly without any loss of key performance features. That's important, because new satellites must soon replace the aging Milstar constellation in carrying the most sensitive transmissions
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12/8/2009
Although I generally hate attempts to compare Afghanistan to Vietnam, the analogy might be more apt than I would like to acknowledge. Today’s New York Times reports that the Obama Administration
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12/8/2009
In a speech last July, defense secretary Robert Gates defended his plan to terminate or trim dozens of major weapons programs by noting that, according to some estimates, the United States currently accounts for nearly half of all global military expenditures. Gates presumably was referring to
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12/7/2009
The U.S. military is about to begin one of the most complex operations in its repertoire: the withdrawal of a major portion of its forces from Iraq. The only condition that would render this effort more difficult is if it were being made under fire. So far, however, it appears as if the U.S. will
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12/7/2009
The media loves to synthesize statements on national security policy by presidents into sweeping “doctrines.” The so-called Bush Doctrine, which emerged from various presidential statements after the September 11 attacks, was based on the premise that the intersection of radicalism and technology
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Date:
12/4/2009
An interesting asymmetry has emerged in how the Boeing and Northrop Grumman teams have reacted to the government's release of a draft request-for-proposal in the Air Force tanker competition. The Northrop Grumman team, which is bidding a modified Airbus A330 commercial transport, keeps complaining
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Date:
12/4/2009
Respected aerospace analyst Bill Sweetman dissected my Monday F-35 issue brief in his Aviation Week blog on December 2, and definitely didn't like what he saw. We don't have a comments section at Early Warning, but we do try to run informed dissents from our views, and Bill Sweetman is an
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Date:
12/3/2009
In recent years, Congress has been on something of a crusade to reform the weapons systems acquisition process. Its efforts were sparked by a series of problems with high-profile weapons systems including schedule delays, cost overruns and performance issues. The centerpiece of these efforts is
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Date:
12/3/2009
President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan was a mass of contradictions. On the one hand we were told no less than nine times how serious is the threat posed by the Taliban and its Al Qaeda ally. These groups were, according to him, ruthless, repressive, extreme and radical. They threatened not only
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Date:
12/2/2009
Northrop Grumman President Wes Bush sent a letter to Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter yesterday threatening to withdraw his team from the next round of competition in the Air Force's future tanker program if changes were not made to the acquisition strategy. The letter stated that the draft
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Date:
12/2/2009
It appears increasingly likely that the United States and Iran are heading for a confrontation. The immediate cause is Teheran’s refusal to accept international limits on its allegedly peaceful nuclear program. The White House is moving to impose sanctions, an action which will probably only provoke
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Date:
12/1/2009
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is implementing new rules designed to limit contractor conflicts of interest in a way that will undermine its ability to build the next generation of spy satellites. The recently strengthened rules, covering what the government calls "organizational conflicts
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Date:
12/1/2009