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Pentagon
Last month, Army Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno warned the armed services committees in the House and Senate that their service's readiness is rapidly approaching a crisis state. Budget cuts have resulted in cancellation of new depot maintenance work for the next two quarters
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Date:
5/13/2013
One of the most pervasive myths in modern economics is the belief that the free interplay of supply and demand will always produce optimum results. The reality is that government intervention in the functioning of so-called market forces often accelerates progress and prevents excesses. That isn't
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Date:
12/12/2012
If the Department of Defense (DoD) were a country it would be the 18th or 19th largest economy in the world, ahead of developed economies such as Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden. Unfortunately, DoD has less in common with these countries and more with today’s “sick man” of Europe, Greece. Both the
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Date:
11/30/2012
Over the past four years, the relationship between the Department of Defense (DoD) and the industrial base that exists to serve it has devolved into something akin to a Cold War. What began as an effort by the Obama Administration to rationalize DoD’s modernization program, rein in the costs of
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Date:
10/18/2012
In a recent conversation with David Ignatius before a prestigious audience at the Atlantic Council, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), General Martin Dempsey, spoke at length about defense budget issues, international partnerships and future military requirements.* Among the topics
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Date:
12/12/2011
Last week, Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners put out a note questioning the widely-held belief among defense analysts that U.S. military spending occurs in cycles. He suggested that some analysts are too tightly focused on the postwar period, and provided charts from other periods and countries
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Date:
12/6/2011
Pentagon policymakers keep saying they want contractors to be healthy and profitable, but their actions indicate otherwise. The latest installment in a litany of destructive measures is to threaten subpoenas if companies selling commercial items refuse to turn over competition-sensitive information
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Date:
10/5/2011
With the usual tools for stimulating a weak economy largely exhausted, the Obama Administration may be belatedly considering how weapons spending by the Pentagon contributes to growth. It appears that weapons outlays have a sizable impact on job creation, export performance, and economic competitiveness.
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Date:
8/22/2011
Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter warned an audience at the Heritage Foundation last week that more cancellations of big weapons programs are likely to occur in the years ahead. The Obama Administration has already killed over $330 billion in planned weapons expenditures, from the Air Force's
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Date:
4/26/2011
When Democrats took control of the White House in early 2009, they immediately set about reversing the Bush Administration's efforts to outsource federal work. The Democrats believed that Bush had been too willing to contract out functions that were "inherently governmental" in nature, regardless
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Date:
3/7/2011
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