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March 2010
The Administration’s FY 2011 defense budget request asks for $57 million for the Mine Warfare Mission Package (MWMP). Intended primarily to be deployed on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the MWMP is at the heart of the Navy’s effort to develop a new organic mine countermeasure capability. The Navy
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Date:
3/31/2010
The collapse of the Soviet Union continues to pay dividends in terms of the security of the Free World. The core of that world -- North America, Western Europe and Japan -- continues to be relatively secure from threats to their liberty and survival. Yes, proliferation of ballistic missiles and
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3/30/2010
Last weekend, NATO’s Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told Europe’s NATO members that Europe risked becoming a paper tiger unless it invested more in its own defense. Struggling under the weight of the kind of social spending programs that the Obama Administration is determined to impose
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3/30/2010
Former Representative Tom Campbell has produced two public polls in recent days with small leads over California Senator Barbara Boxer. One of Campbell's primary opponents, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, also appears close to overtaking Boxer. Campbell is ahead in the GOP primary, but it is close.
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3/29/2010
There were numerous media reports last week that Airbus parent-company EADS might bid alone against Boeing in the Pentagon's pending tanker competition. It's a tough call for EADS managers, because the company's prospects have dimmed significantly since partner Northrop Grumman dropped out of the
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3/29/2010
The Obama Administration’s program of insourcing critical functions now performed by private contractors has merit. Those activities represent inherently governmental functions which are critical to the ability of the government to manage its bureaucracy or private contractors and should be done by
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3/26/2010
During the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force acquired a diverse fleet of electronic-surveillance and intelligence-gathering aircraft based on the Boeing 707 transport (the same airframe used for the KC-135 aerial-refueling tanker). The best known of these is the E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System,
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3/26/2010
The age of American hegemony is ending. Without question the United States will remain a great power, possibly even the most powerful country in the world. But both as a necessity and as a matter of good policy, it is important that our friends and allies take a greater role in providing for their own
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3/25/2010
The sweet scent of government reform is in the air in Washington. The problem of health care has been solved. A new financial reform scheme will prevent future market fluctuations and the scourge of downturns in the economy. On the agenda are saving the environment and solving the illegal immigration
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3/24/2010
The World Trade Organization report condemning European subsidies to Airbus contains a section detailing how the A330 widebody transport was developed using practices banned by current trade agreements. Airbus parent-company EADS has proposed the A330 as a candidate for the Air Force's next-generation
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3/24/2010
The World Trade Organization's confidential final report on European commercial-aircraft subsidies sides with the United States in finding that much of the aid Airbus has received is banned under current trade rules. The report thus confirms a preliminary finding in September that low-cost or no-cost
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3/23/2010
The term “inherently governmental” applies to those positions and activities that are central to the exercise of the responsibilities of government and which by law or high policy must be performed by permanent federal employees. These positions or the work they entail cannot be conducted by private
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3/23/2010
Friday, a report in the Washington Post described an incident in which one agency of the U.S. government attacked another one and, in the process, an allied country. This was not a case of friendly fire. Rather, virtually the entire security apparatus of the United States including the Departments
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Date:
3/22/2010
I sure felt lonely two years ago when I was defending the bailout of U.S. auto companies. To me it was obvious that the circumstances driving General Motors and Chrysler to the brink were a unique combination of record fuel prices and credit-market collapse unlikely to be repeated in my lifetime.
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3/22/2010
President Obama's job approval inverted for the first time today. In other words, in the average of all polls tracked by www.realclearpolitics.com, for the first time more Americans disapprove of the way he is doing his job than approve
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3/19/2010
Although Northrop Grumman employees are deeply disappointed that they could not build a convincing business case for bidding in the Air Force's pending tanker procurement, there is one big advantage to pulling out now. When the World Trade Organization releases its final report on Airbus subsidies
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3/19/2010
This week the normally thoughtful, balanced, even sophisticated journal The Economist published a piece on the decision by Northrop Grumman and EADS to withdraw from the competition for a new U.S. aerial refueling tanker. The headline was “The Best Plane Lost.” The publication asserted that
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3/19/2010
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced this week that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was halting its effort to build a virtual fence along the southern border. Called the Secure Border Initiative Network, or SBINet, this was a program to use electronic surveillance
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3/18/2010
This week's issue of Inside the Navy includes deputy defense secretary Bill Lynn's response to a funding idea I floated before the House seapower subcommittee in January. I had proposed that one way of covering the cost of a replacement for the Trident ballistic-missile submarine without
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3/18/2010
The U.S. military has been thinking very hard about the future of conflict and the missions it will have to perform. Joint Forces Command has just published its Joint Operating Environment 2010 or JOE 2010. Frankly, it is a better analysis of the future than the 2010 Quadrennial Defense
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3/17/2010
On March 16, I had the opportunity to address the senior management of DRS Technologies at its annual leadership conference in Florida. DRS is a well-positioned domestic supplier of defense electronic systems and other military items that was acquired by Italian technology giant Finmeccanica in
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3/17/2010
Last April, the Secretary of Defense canceled the program to acquire a new generation of presidential helicopters. The cost of the program had skyrocketed largely as a result of requirements added on to the program after the contract had been awarded. The vehicles themselves, the US101, based on
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3/15/2010
A centerpiece of the U.S. defense strategy as articulated in the recently published Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is building the security capacity of allied and partner states. This sounds like something this country has been doing since the end of the Cold War in our defense relationship with
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3/12/2010
Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley summarized the outlook for the F-35 joint strike fighter program succinctly on March 2, when he told a group of reporters, "Really, there are no good alternatives to F-35 at this point...This is a program to which we are deeply committed." Donley's service
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3/12/2010
The European media are in an uproar today following Northrop Grumman's decision to pull out of the Air Force's tanker competition. Much of the commentary accepts at face value the charge made by Northrop and European aerospace conglomerate EADS that the solicitation favored Boeing, and then jumps
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3/10/2010
During the late 1990s, at the height of the dot.com boom, the U.S. military was seized with an enthusiasm for networked warfare and all things digital that produced a series of big "system-of-system" development programs. Two of those efforts, the Air Force's Transformational Communications Satellite
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3/10/2010
In 1972, the British Empire collapsed. Yes, it had been in decline certainly since the end of World War Two (some historian’s would say since 1918). Faced with a monetary crisis, a run on the British pound, the government in London decided it had to trade the certainty of one collapse to stave off
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3/10/2010
Northrop Grumman's leaders hated pulling out of the Air Force's tanker competition on Monday. Having spent four years and $200 million positioning their team to be a credible contender, company leaders desperately wanted to fight and win. But they simply couldn't find a solution to the government's
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3/9/2010
As part of its required review of U.S. defense policies and plans, the Department of Defense undertook a series of studies -- the most significant of which was the recently-published 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Among the other studies were a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the first
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3/9/2010
Ten years ago, I was invited to participate in a RAND Corporation project on the presidential transition. Each of the major presidential candidates sent a senior national-security advisor to brief the RAND panel, laying out their contending views of what the future would require. I can't remember
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3/8/2010
In February, President Obama put money behind his commitment to a revitalized U.S. nuclear energy program. The administration has argued that nuclear power must be part of the U.S. energy strategy. The federal government provided $8 billion of loan guarantees for two new nuclear power plants in
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3/5/2010
The Boeing Company released details of its proposed next-generation tanker on Thursday that underscored just how tough it will be for Northrop Grumman to prevail in the next round of competition. Every feature of the Boeing plane seems calculated to maximize its competitive advantage under the
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3/4/2010
The evidence is overwhelming that Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) work and that they provide benefits to both the public and private defense industrial bases. Whatever the temptations there may be to consolidate logistics, sustainment and repair work in the organic base, what is often called
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Date:
3/4/2010
A journalist friend of mine left a message on my voicemail this week requesting comments on the "continuing implosion" of the F-35 joint strike fighter program. The drumbeat of negative stories about the program has become so persistent that many people who aren't paying close attention think the
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3/4/2010
The Obama Administration and the Medvedev-Putin government of Russia approach the issue of strategic arms control from diametrically opposed positions. For the U.S. administration the threats of concern are those posed by the nuclear weapons themselves in the event of crises, their potential for
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3/3/2010
The V-22 Osprey tiltrotor is the “Energizer bunny” of defense programs. It has survived repeated attempts to kill the program. It overcame a series of tragic accidents and initial production problems. Now in full rate production, the V-22 is proving itself to be everything its advocates envisioned
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3/3/2010
What's wrong with this picture? Last year Congress approved tough acquisition reform legislation with the support of top defense authorizers in both chambers. To enforce greater realism in projecting weapons costs, the legislation directed policymakers to rely on estimates provided by the Pentagon's
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Date:
3/2/2010
Most defense blogs, including those at Early Warning, focus on weapons systems, things that do violence. Yet, were it not for an incredibly sophisticated logistics and support system, including specialized vehicles, aircraft and ships, the United States would not be able to wield its military power
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3/1/2010
Seventeen years ago, I found myself riding the Washington Beltway through Tyson's Corner with one very happy defense executive. He was the chief financial officer of General Dynamics, and he had just sold his company's fighter plant in Fort Worth to Lockheed for over a billion dollars. Everybody
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Date:
3/1/2010