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Pentagon Spending
Governments, like individuals, can suffer from the effects of too much of a good thing. This is the case when it comes to the degree and intensity of competition for Pentagon contracts. The current leadership of the Department of Defense sees increased competition as a way of reducing costs. Unfortunately,
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Date:
4/22/2013
Anyone in the Department of Defense in a position of responsibility for maintenance activities will tell you that rising costs have been “eating their lunch.” One reason for this is that we have a force structure half the size that it was at the end of the Cold War that is five times more active
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Date:
1/29/2013
A widely-read defense blog recently opined that the Lexington Institute is dreaming of a Romney election victory. Well, guess again: I voted for Obama in 2008 and probably will again if Republicans can't learn to do honest arithmetic about the government's fiscal options. However, I confess that
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Date:
6/20/2012
In May, the U.S. Navy released a massive, 1,100 page request for proposals (RFP) for the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) IT program. NGEN will provide secure data and information technology services, such as data storage, email, and video-teleconferencing for around 700,000 users at 2,500
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Date:
6/13/2012
The Department of Defense has proposed a change in the way it buys goods and services that could have far-reaching and destructive consequences, not only for the nation's warfighters but also for the global competitiveness of the U.S. economy. As reported in Defense News this week, policymakers
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Date:
5/4/2012
This is the week the Obama Administration releases its fiscal 2013 budget request. It's real big. In fact, it took the defense department 140 pages just to summarize its portion of the request -- which it is happy to do, since Pentagon policymakers have been highlighting the shift to new spending
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Date:
2/13/2012
Defense department officials and the chiefs of the military services have been reassuring anyone who will listen that the Pentagon has its act together when it comes to implementing the new defense strategy and creating a “leaner and more flexible” force structure. There will be cuts that are painful,
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Date:
2/10/2012
Among the world's major-league military players, there isn't much doubt which team dominates. It's Team America. But that doesn't mean everyone fares equally well when the team's budget request is released each February. This year, the Obama Administration will crown the U.S. Navy as most valuable
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Date:
2/9/2012
The Department of Defense is facing the prospect of massive spending cuts beginning next January as a result of the Budget Control Act. The law mandates automatic cuts to military spending beyond the $490 billion already planned because a special congressional committee failed to identify $1.2
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Date:
1/17/2012
When wars end, weapons programs get cut. Sometimes the cuts are straightforward, and sometimes they are more subtle. The Clinton Administration's approach to national-security space programs -- both military and spy satellites -- fell into the latter category. Even though it funded a series of
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Date:
1/12/2012
There were no big surprises in President Obama’s announcement today of his new defense strategy. The President made a lot of promises in his brief address. “As commander in chief, I am determined that we meet the challenges of this moment responsibly and that we emerge even stronger in a manner
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Date:
1/5/2012
According to The New York Times, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is poised to reveal the Pentagon’s new leaner but not meaner defense strategy. As expected,
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Date:
1/3/2012
There is a mistaken notion floating around Washington that even if the super committee fails to arrive at a deficit reduction agreement this is no big deal because the reductions do not go into effect until January 2013. The theory goes that Congress will have plenty of time to undo the law or protect
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Date:
11/21/2011
If you need evidence that the Joint Chiefs of Staff weren't exaggerating when they told Congress that budget cuts threaten military modernization, just look at what's happening inside the Air Force. The service is proposing to kill a next-generation weather satellite, which would leave U.S. warfighters
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Date:
11/15/2011
Although you would not know it from the current political debate in Washington on federal spending, the government does try to save money. One way of reducing costs is by adopting commercial practices and standards. Another way is by buying commercial products and systems.
The Department of
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Date:
10/13/2011
The tragic paradox of America's Army is that the only time it truly thrives is when it is dying. When soldiers are under fire in Korea or Indochina or Iraq, political leaders shovel huge amounts of money to the service because the consequences of under-funding warfighters are all too obvious.
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Date:
10/12/2011
Proponents of the administration's jobs bill say that if the $447 billion measure is enacted, it could create 1-2 million new jobs. However, defense cuts that may occur pursuant to the deficit-reduction law signed by President Obama in August could wipe out a million jobs, blunting the job-creation
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Date:
9/20/2011
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 13, deputy defense secretary-designate Ashton Carter assured legislators that the Pentagon is working real hard to reduce a trillion-dollar bill for sustaining the F-35 fighter over its 50-year operational lifetime.
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Date:
9/14/2011
The current U.S. air campaign in Libya is being described as a low-cost operation. It isn't. The federal government has spent many trillions of dollars building and sustaining a global military posture capable of dealing expeditiously with the likes of Col. Gadhafi. Our allies have not made similar
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Date:
3/29/2011