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February 2011
In his last major speech to the U.S. Army Corps of Cadets at West Point, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates continued his habit of using such addresses to prod a service into thinking seriously about its future. The previous time it was the Navy. In a speech last year to the Navy League the Secretary
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2/28/2011
Within minutes after the Air Force announced that Boeing had won the tanker competition yesterday, Politico put a story on their web-site suggesting that the main reason many people thought Boeing would lose was my frequent predictions of an EADS victory. The story may have over-estimated my
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2/25/2011
The defense department has done a masterful job of keeping its tanker deliberations under wraps, so nobody should assume they know what will be announced today at 5:00. EADS expects to win and Boeing does not, but their expectations were confounded the last time such an award was made, and the same
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2/24/2011
China has been reporting annual growth rates of 8-10 percent for as long as anyone can remember. Those are the highest growth rates in the recorded history of economics, and while they have been met with some skepticism at the Federal Reserve Board and in financial markets, they are duly recorded
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2/23/2011
The Air Force will announce the winner of the $35 billion KC-X tanker contract on Thursday, February 24 after financial markets close. Judging from the frequency with which Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter has been talking up the notion of a "globalized" defense market recently, European
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2/22/2011
While the storms of protest engulf the Middle East and North Africa could be portents of good things for the populations of countries such as Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, they may signal difficult times ahead for the U.S. military. Starting in the late 1970s with the U.S.-brokered Egyptian-Israeli
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2/22/2011
The jet engine General Electric and Rolls-Royce are developing for the F-35 fighter suffered a major setback last week when the House of Representatives voted to deny funding for fiscal 2011. In doing so, the House followed the advice of defense secretary Robert Gates, who has argued since 2007
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2/22/2011
For the last several months, defense acquisition chief Ashton Carter has been using the example of consumer electronics to illustrate how inefficient the Pentagon's weapons suppliers are. While makers of smart phones and tablet computers routinely achieve double-digit gains in functionality and
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2/21/2011
The Obama Administration has acquired an unfortunate reputation for neglecting U.S. allies and not standing up to troublemakers. This year the administration will have a number of chances to improve its image and at the same time enhance U.S. relations with friends and allies. How, you ask? The
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2/18/2011
Pentagon insiders say there are growing signs that defense secretary Robert Gates will make good on his plan to depart public service this year. President Obama will probably make one more push to convince Gates to stay on through the 2012 presidential elections, but Gates has already served much
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Date:
2/18/2011
In his appearance yesterday before the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates took issue with efforts by some lawmakers to try and reduce the current budget deficit on the back of defense. "I would tell you, with a $1.6 trillion deficit, if you cut the Defense Department
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2/17/2011
The country has just finished an impressive celebration of Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. It was an appropriately uplifting series of events and discussions in honor of the Great Communicator.
Yet a low fog crept in on the birthday party as President Barack Obama announced his latest federal
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Date:
2/16/2011
Afghanistan now stands as the longest war in U.S. history. Between Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. Army has been fully committed for more than eight years. As a result, it has had to address the problem of maintaining an adequate forward deployed force while providing a rotational system to ensure
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Date:
2/16/2011
Here's a surprise: the V-22 Osprey has turned into the safest, most survivable rotorcraft the U.S. Marine Corps operates. The Osprey had its first fatal accident in ten years last April during a combat mission in Afghanistan, when an Air Force version hit the ground at high speed. But because
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2/16/2011
Discussions of the defense department fiscal 2012 budget submission have focused on the top line and on the distribution of gain based Gates’ efficiency savings. Most commentators were disappointed by the lack of news given the Secretary’s January press conference. At $553 billion the overall budget
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2/15/2011
The biggest weapons program in the Pentagon budget is a single-engine plane called the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It's a crucial program, because it will replace aging Cold War jets operated by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps with a stealthy combat plane that can preserve America's global
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2/15/2011
The announcement that China has surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest economy is only one reason to pay renewed attention to the Asia-Pacific region. While not unexpected, the rise of China to superpower status economically is still a major event, one with significant implications for the
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2/14/2011
Defense secretary Robert Gates today unveils his last budget request before departing public service. It's a good time to be going, because as the fiscal 2012 request reflects, increases in the buying power of the military budget are over. The budget proposed by Gates would spend $553 billion
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Date:
2/14/2011
Army General Raymond T. Odierno has emerged as the most likely officer to succeed General James Cartwright of the Marine Corps as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some Pentagon insiders say Cartwright is maneuvering to become Chairman and others say he has already decided to retire,
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2/11/2011
On February 9, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter delivered some friendly remarks to an audience of investors about how the Pentagon would view proposed mergers in the defense sector. Carter acknowledged that the defense marketplace is changing, and many participants will want to adjust by
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2/10/2011
GOP presidential primary voters tend to prefer long-distance runners for their nominees. Successful candidates often have to run multiple times to win recognition from these discerning voters. Think Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., Dole and McCain.
And those voters have a habit of picking candidates
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Date:
2/10/2011
There has been a tendency among defense officials, news outlets and defense analysts to blame industry for most of the acquisition problems and program failures that have occurred over the last several decades. Defense companies have been accused of being too expensive, restraining competition,
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2/10/2011
The newly-released National Military Strategy (NMS) begins with this ominous statement: “The ongoing shifts in relative power and increasing interconnectedness in the international order indicate a strategic inflection point.” Although the NMS hews to the line that the United States will
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2/9/2011
Ten years after China joined the World Trade Organization, the Director of National Intelligence is launching an interagency assessment of what the rapid erosion in U.S. manufacturing capabilities means for the nation's security. The first decade of the new millennium has proven to be a disaster
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Date:
2/9/2011
It is always risky to raise the subject of legislation, particularly appropriations bills, in conversation or a blog. There are few people even in Washington who understand the basics of the budget process and how an appropriations bill gets constructed and passed. What is the difference between
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Date:
2/8/2011
I argued in a posting here last Friday that recent overseas surprises are likely to shift the vector of demand for defense goods. My reasoning was that unrest in the Middle East will make it harder to sell weapons there, but China's military buildup will force policymakers in Washington to pour
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Date:
2/8/2011
After September 11, the Iraq invasion, Katrina and the BP oil spill the government conducted major investigations to fix responsibility and identify lessons to learn in order to avoid a repeat. It has almost become a ritual in Washington. Yet, when a major defense program collapses and is cancelled
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Date:
2/7/2011
Two contradictory trends will dominate U.S. decisionmaking on defense spending over the next several years, perhaps longer. The first is the need to radically reduce the current $1.5 trillion budget deficit. So called deficit hawks have asserted that all parts of the budget, including defense spending,
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Date:
2/4/2011
A year ago, the future scale and composition of demand in the defense sector seemed pretty clear. Pentagon spending on technology and technical services was expected to soften in response to waning involvement in overseas contingencies, oversized deficits and Democratic Party control of the White
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2/4/2011
News and commentary on defense and homeland security issues focus largely on the big companies and programs. This is reasonable and even logical. This is where the money is. The evolution and outcome of major programs such as the F-35 or Littoral Combat Ship will have a major even decisive impact
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2/3/2011
Now that the decision on an acquisition strategy for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has been taken, the Navy is moving out aggressively to address outstanding issues with the program. One of the most important of these is making sure that mission modules will be available for the ships as they start
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Date:
2/2/2011
An aerospace executive made an interesting point to me a while back about how building planes was similar to the way some nations make strategy. He said when you're in the capital equipment business, you have to think in multi-decade cycles, because that's how long it takes to design, develop and
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Date:
2/1/2011
Even though the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are not over, the U.S. military must start preparing for the next wars. The Marine Corps is trying to reinstitute amphibious warfare training. The Army is returning to practicing for conventional combined arms operations. The Navy and Air Force are
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Date:
2/1/2011