The Russian invasion of Ukraine shows that the world is not finished with industrial-age warfare. It also underscores the critical role of heavy armor in at least some future high-end conflicts. The large losses in armored fighting vehicles suffered by both sides are not an argument against tanks and armored fighting vehicles but a reflection, at least in part, of the lack of active protection systems for those platforms. U.S. M1 Abrams tanks sent to Europe are equipped with such a [ Read More…]

In 2015, the U.S. Army awarded Oshkosh Corporation a contract to develop and produce a successor to the Humvee called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The program has turned out to be a smashing success, delivering the first light military truck that is sufficiently fast, protected and versatile to maneuver with combat forces. Oshkosh not only has built 18,000 vehicles on schedule, but at a price per vehicle 17% less than what the Army was expected. Now the company is [ Read More…]

The lead ship in the Navy’s new generation of supercarriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is about to begin its first deployment. The Navy expects to buy ten Ford-class carriers, the last of which will not exit the fleet until 2105. The class incorporates two dozen major new technologies not available when the previous Nimitz class was conceived, making the new generation more lethal, survivable, and versatile than what came before. So now the challenge is to identify the optimal [ Read More…]

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has caused many defense experts and military leaders to posit the existence of a new “mini-domain:” the air littorals. This is the region from the ground to approximately 1,000 ft. As the current conflict demonstrates, this new zone is becoming increasingly central to how the war on the ground is evolving. The air littoral region has seen the proliferation of many new capabilities, most notably in the form of low-flying drones, but also including cruise and anti-tank [ Read More…]

The Pentagon is mulling whether the Air Force should develop a new engine to replace Pratt & Whitney’s F135 propulsion system on its F-35 fighter. This is an awful idea. The existing engine is the safest, most reliable fighter engine in history and fully capable of supporting future upgrades to the aircraft. Its built-in growth margin and modular design can accommodate performance enhancements for a fraction of what it would cost to develop a new engine. Beyond that, the new [ Read More…]

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the democratic world’s most significant strategic challenge and the United States’ pacing military competitor. Beijing has achieved this status primarily because of its growing economic power and enormous technological progress over the past half-century. China is seeking to build on this success by becoming dominant in a set of critical advanced technologies which, if successful, would give it economic, military, and even political dominance over the entire world. The risks to this country’s [ Read More…]

Lexington Institute’s Paul Steidler and Washington Post reporter Jacob Bogage were the guests on NPR’s hour-long program On Point. They discussed the Postal Service Reform Act and the future of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) with host Meghna Chakrabarti. Mr. Steidler emphasized that the legislation, signed by President Biden in April, is insufficient because it does not address several fundamental issues, including the need for USPS to better understand and allocate costs, the need to strengthen USPS’s regulators, and omission [ Read More…]

The size and complexity of both private and public networks – and the number of devices on them – are growing at a rapid pace. It is apparent to all that the old way of providing security for Department of Defense (DoD) networks, by creating an ostensibly penetration-proof barrier, will not work. As recent major cybersecurity breaches have demonstrated, all systems are vulnerable to penetration. DoD recognizes that it must pursue with all possible speed a strategy based on zero [ Read More…]

The CH-47F Chinook tandem-rotor helicopter is the fastest rotorcraft in the U.S. Army fleet, capable of transporting up to 55 soldiers to remote locations at a speed of nearly 200 miles per hour. It has doubled its payload capacity to 11 tons since first seeing service during the Vietnam era, and now incorporates an extensive series of self-protection and other enhancements. Nonetheless, Chinook is due for another round of upgrades, and the Army is taking too long to give the [ Read More…]

The U.S. Navy several years ago made the smart decision to replace aged turboprop aircraft used for delivering critical supplies to carriers at sea with a version of the Bell/Boeing V-22 tiltrotor. Tiltrotors combine the vertical agility of a helicopter with the speed and reach of a fixed-wing aircraft, making them a uniquely flexible tactical asset. However, the Navy elected to purchase only 44 of the aircraft, which are designated CMV-22B. That isn’t likely to be a sufficient force to [ Read More…]