Archives
Recent
August 2010
One of the more remarkable decisions by President Obama has been to maintain the historically high level of defense spending bequeathed to it by the outgoing Bush Administration. For fiscal year 2010, the administration requested some $534 billion for defense or three percent more than the preceding
. . . Read more
Date:
8/31/2010
In seeking to change the way the Department of Defense works, Secretary Robert Gates has had to make a lot of promises to a lot of people. To the President he promised to provide the Administration the credibility on national security affairs that it appeared to lack. In addition he promised to
. . . Read more
Date:
8/30/2010
At one time, the United States Navy had an offensive sea mine warfare capability and it was pretty good. During World War Two, U.S. offensive mine warfare made a major contribution to the defeat of Japan. Delivered by aircraft, surface ships and submarines, U.S. mines blocked Japanese harbors, blocked
. . . Read more
Date:
8/27/2010
The Army has decided to cancel its request for proposals (RFP) for a new armored combat system, the ground combat vehicle (GCV). This is a stunning development given that GCV is the Army’s sole new major vehicle program and that awards for the first round of contracts was anticipated within weeks. Although
. . . Read more
Date:
8/26/2010
The official mission of the Marine Corps as established in the National Security Act of 1947 is to be trained, organized and equipped for offensive amphibious employment. This means doing Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Inchon. The Marine Corps is also to be a “force in readiness” which
. . . Read more
Date:
8/25/2010
It is time the United States developed a long-term strategy for the inevitable military competition with China. Competition does not mean conflict. It means a struggle with China for power, influence, security and for the United States, access to East Asia. China is competing with the United States
. . . Read more
Date:
8/24/2010
For more than two years now the Obama Administration has been seeking to redefine the role of private sector support of the Federal government. It has done so under various guises: the claim that inherently governmental work was being performed by private contractors, the assertion that private
. . . Read more
Date:
8/23/2010
The only absolute rule we observe at the Lexington Institute is not to observe the rules we make. Hence, despite the earlier posting that we were taking a break from blogging for the week, events dictate a change in plans. So consider this a non-blog blog.
The event that triggered my decision
. . . Read more
Date:
8/16/2010
There's a school of thought that says big government wasn't possible in America until air conditioning was invented. Before air conditioning came along it was just too hot to get anything done in D.C. during the summer, so America had a part-time government that deserted the city for much of the
. . . Read more
Date:
8/13/2010
Very shortly, the Army will announce the winners of initial contracts to build its new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV). The GCV program was the Secretary of Defense’s consolation prize to the Army when he cancelled the manned ground vehicle portion of its Future Combat System (FCS) program. Gone are
. . . Read more
Date:
8/13/2010
America came of age and the U.S. aircraft industry became a recognized force to contend with when Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris in 1927. The Spirit was based on the Ryan M-2 mail carrier modified to increase its range. The Spirit of St. Louis
. . . Read more
Date:
8/12/2010
There are two basic ways you can look at the $50 billion trade deficit that America managed to accumulate in June. Either the U.S. economy has ceased being competitive in the items that consumers most want, or our trading partners are not playing fairly. Either way, the fact that the trade imbalance
. . . Read more
Date:
8/12/2010
This week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced a series of decisions intended to begin the process of reining in the explosion of overhead costs in the Department of Defense. Among other decisions, Gates said that he was taking the unprecedented step of actually eliminating one of ten unified
. . . Read more
Date:
8/11/2010
Anybody who has read my commentaries on the economy knows how concerned I am about the decline of American manufacturing. It upsets me to find only Asian electronics in the Best Buy, or to see a row of German cars sitting in the parking lot at the McLean Giant. In fact, it upset me so much that
. . . Read more
Date:
8/11/2010
Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held a news conference to lay out his much anticipated plans to wring costs out of the Defense Department’s overhead activities as part of an effort to find $100 billion of savings to be applied to investments in future capabilities. He is freezing senior
. . . Read more
Date:
8/10/2010
As defense budgets decline, it appears increasingly likely that the U.S. military will be required to cut force structure and capabilities. As a result the U.S. will need to emphasize all the instruments of security policy in order to minimize the risk of regional instability and even direct attacks
. . . Read more
Date:
8/9/2010
Last week saw another round of semi-hysterical speculation about China's new Dong Feng missile, which supposedly has the accuracy required to attack U.S. aircraft carriers from 900 miles away. Prof. Toshi Yoshihara of the Naval War College told the Associated Press that the new missile signals
. . . Read more
Date:
8/9/2010
There is an urban legend which can trace its roots back to the 1930s that the bumble bee with its large body and relatively tiny wings was an aerodynamic impossibility. As some observers commented, the bumble bee flew because it did not know that it was scientifically impossible for it to do so.
. . . Read more
Date:
8/6/2010
When a Defense Business Board task force recommended last month that the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) eliminate its networking and information integration secretariat, it signaled just how far from grace the notion of network-centric warfare has fallen. The secretariat was established
. . . Read more
Date:
8/6/2010
A report that Iran had acquired several firing units of the much talked about Russian-built S-300 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, allegedly from Belarus, sent a small shudder through the international defense community. Some commentators went so far as to claim that the presence of the S-300
. . . Read more
Date:
8/5/2010
On July 31 the USS Missouri, seventh vessel in the Virginia class of nuclear-powered attack submarines, was commissioned at the naval submarine base in Connecticut. A crowd of 3,000 people attended the ceremony, including defense secretary Robert Gates and his wife Becky, House Armed Services Committee
. . . Read more
Date:
8/5/2010
Even as Secretary Gates and Under Secretary Carter conduct civilized exchanges with leaders of defense industry, the undeclared war by the Department of Defense (DoD) on the private sector continues. This war has focused particularly on the role of private companies in providing logistics and sustainment
. . . Read more
Date:
8/4/2010
In most ways, the United States is safer today than at any time in nearly a half century. Nothing on the list of serious threats to U.S. security compares with that once posed by the Soviet Union with its tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. There is concern in the near-term about the potential
. . . Read more
Date:
8/3/2010
General Dynamics is arguably the most investor-conscious company in the defense business. Under the leadership of industry legend Nicholas Chabraja, GD remade itself from a run-of-the-mill military contractor into a consistent earnings performer deploying capital across a diverse portfolio of businesses.
. . . Read more
Date:
8/3/2010
Supporters of integrating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the National Airspace System (NAS) recently gained new ground with the release of a study on the job market impact of such an initiative. The report, requested by Rep. Buck McKeon, co-chairman of the Congressional Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
. . . Read more
Date:
8/3/2010
Last Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other DoD officials held the second in a series of meetings with leading figures from defense industry. The subject was getting more from industry in an era of reduced real defense spending. Secretary Gates told the audience that he expected the
. . . Read more
Date:
8/3/2010
Defense secretary Robert Gates issued a friendly but firm warning to the leaders of the defense industry in a private meeting last week: either get with the program on becoming more efficient, or live with the possibility of more draconian measures coming from outside the Pentagon. The Thursday
. . . Read more
Date:
8/2/2010