Most major U.S. defense programs have been based on both revolution and evolution. Historically, the Pentagon has invested in an initial leap-ahead capability, one designed to provide the military with a qualitative edge. But from their early years, virtually all major acquisition programs include plans to add newer capabilities as they become available. Perhaps the best example of this combination of revolution and evolution is the Standard Missile family. Since its deployment in the late 1960s, the Standard Missile has [ Read More…]

Plans to replace the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with a new “ground-based strategic deterrent” are likely to be carefully scrutinized by the Biden Pentagon. If the scrutiny is objective, here is what it will find: maintaining a resilient, reliable ICBM force is an essential hedge against unexpected weaknesses in the other two legs of the nuclear triad. For instance, if ICBMs were eliminated and China then figured out how to track ballistic missile submarines, the U.S. could be [ Read More…]

The most recent dispute between Turkey and Greece has created a disturbance within the alliance that was supposed to deter such conflicts. In September of 2020, Turkey began to actively search for oil and natural gas deposits close to Cyprus, quickly escalating into a quarrel over boundaries similar to those in the past. The boundary dispute could be the last straw for NATO given Turkey’s inconsistent record as an ally. Turkey, which has the second-largest military in NATO, had already [ Read More…]

Lexington’s Paul Steidler was quoted in a December 23rd FreightWaves article about the forgiveness of a $10 billion loan to the Postal Service as part of the COVID-19 stimulus and government funding bill passed by Congress that month.  Once the Postal Service borrows the $10 billion, it will not have to repay it. The article quoted from a December 4 op-ed by Steidler which said that USPS had so much cash on hand that it should not need to borrow [ Read More…]

Joe Biden is about to inherit a diverse portfolio of defense innovations funded by his predecessor. One of the most ambitious initiatives is the Navy’s effort to develop unmanned surface warships and submersibles capable of supporting the manned fleet in wartime. For instance, Boeing has a contract to deliver five robotic submarines capable of executive diverse missions with its modular payloads, from mine countermeasures to anti-submarine warfare to tactical reconnaissance. Sea Hunter, an unmanned surface vessel, is a testbed for [ Read More…]

Lockheed Martin disclosed on Sunday that it plans to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. Unlike some other mergers in the aerospace sector, this deal is likely to bolster competition. There are only two domestic producers of the large solid rocket motors used on long-range missiles and launch vehicles. Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of Orbital ATK two years ago raised questions about whether Aerojet might be squeezed out of the market for large solids. What Aerojet needed was a [ Read More…]

Two years after the Pentagon released a strategy directing that defense users migrate to an enterprise-wide cloud computing architecture, little progress has been made. The next-generation JEDI program remains mired in legal wrangling, while various defense components retain over 500 separate clouds. This is a cyber crisis waiting to happen. With so many disconnected clouds, it is inevitable there will be seams in the system enabling intruders to penetrate networks. The Pentagon already has a suitable cloud system available for [ Read More…]

During the pandemic America’s large technology companies have been critical to the economy while providing significant health and safety benefits. If America did not have the services of our large technology companies, we would hear calls for the government to invest tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to invent them. Instead, there are now aggressive antitrust actions against these companies by elected officials and central bureaucrats that pose major risks to the engine of our economy and our health and [ Read More…]

While there are compelling reasons for Congress and the Administration to provide a fifth COVID relief package, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is today flush with cash. Beginning in April there were many predictions that USPS would collapse because of the pandemic. The opposite has occurred as demand for packages has soared. USPS does have long-term financial structural issues that Congress should address. In fact, providing bailout funds lets Congress off the hook for this work and perpetuates a bad [ Read More…]

The rise of China is the one overarching national security challenge for the foreseeable future, and it will be vital to continue maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific region through deterrence measures. Complicating those efforts is the need to modernize and restructure the U.S. military. The Pentagon’s plans to expand the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force, reorient the Marine Corps and build a Space Force with warfighting potential are being pursued largely with the growing threat from China in mind. However, the Service largely being left out [ Read More…]