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Policy Blog
- Army Budget Cuts Hit Pennsylvania Hard As Trump Reelection Bid Gears Up (From Forbes)
The same week that workers at the Army’s Ohio tank plant learned their programs were getting more money, workers at a helicopter plant in Pennsylvania learned that their Army program was being canceled. It’s a big deal at the Boeing rotorcraft plant near Philadelphia, because 2,000 workers support production of the Army’s CH-47 Chinook. Chinook is the Army’s heaviest, fastest [ Read More…]
- Paul Steidler
- Don’t Squander America’s Energy Prowess (From InsideSources)
America has become a worldwide energy powerhouse. This means millions of middle-class jobs, an improved balance of trade, far less likelihood of wars over oil and a cleaner environment. The biggest threat to these gains is not the Green New Deal, but rather various actions by governors and state utility commissions. Lexington Institute’s Paul Steidler addresses these issues in a [ Read More…]
- Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
- The A-29 Super Tucano Is The International Market Leader For Light Attack Aircraft
The U.S. Air Force’s program to acquire a light attack aircraft appears to be on hold indefinitely. One issue that contributed to the decision to cancel its planned procurement and to re-open the OA-X experiment with alternative platforms was uncertainty regarding the international demand for a light attack platform. However, the international market appears to have made its choice. The [ Read More…]
- President Trump Visits The Last Tank Plant In America, Which He Helped Save (From Forbes)
The Joint Systems Manufacturing Center at Lima, Ohio is the last factory in the United States capable of building main battle tanks. President Trump is visiting there this week to highlight his military plans and efforts to revitalize American manufacturing. After suffering a near-death experience under the president’s predecessor, the tank plant is gearing up for increased activity thanks to the strong support of legislators like Mike Turner (R-OH) and increased Pentagon spending on the Abrams tank. President Trump has [ Read More…]
- US Missile Defense Breakthrough: Navy Ships to Destroy Enemy ICBMs (From Warrior Maven)
The Pentagon plans a “first-of-its-kind” test of an unprecedented weapons capability to intercept and destroy an enemy Intercontinental Ballistic Missile *ICBM” — from a Navy ship at sea using a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA. The concept, as articulated by Pentagon officials and cited briefly in this years’ DoD “Missile Defense Review,” would be to use an advanced SM-3 IIA to “underlay” and assist existing Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI), adding new dimensions to the current US missile defense posture. Read the full [ Read More…]
- Plan To Retire USS Truman Early Makes No Sense–Which Is Why The Navy Doesn’t Really Want To Do It (From Forbes)
Congress is pushing back on the wrongheaded proposal to retire one of the Navy’s large-deck aircraft carriers prematurely. That probably won’t upset the sea service, which was pressured by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to reduce the carrier force to ten flattops even though the law requires 11 and the service says it actually needs 12. Rumors of carrier vulnerability are greatly exaggerated, whereas the operational problems of cutting to ten are not widely understood. Truman should stay [ Read More…]
- Prepared Remarks of Paul Steidler, Advisory Committee on International Postal and Delivery Services
U.S. Department of State March 14, 2019 Meeting There has been a lot of discussion today about international postal rates and the processes of the Universal Postal Union. That is indeed important, but we should also keep in mind that postal rates can accelerate or inhibit a lot of economic activity. Broader Economic Ramifications In a January 2019 report, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers was clear about this and said, “… distortions in the pricing of international [ Read More…]
- From Out Of The Skies: The Revolution In Precision Airdrop Delivery
Since the advent of military aviation, armies and air forces have been working on ever more sophisticated ways of airdropping personnel and supplies from moving aircraft. While the largest air landing operations were in World War Two, they have been employed in military operations as recently as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In addition to air assaults, the delivery of equipment supplies by parachute became an important means of supporting forward deployed forces, particularly those operating behind enemy lines. Advances [ Read More…]
- Raytheon’s Case For Building Army Radar Grounded In Deep Knowledge of GaN Technology (From Forbes)
The U.S. Army is accelerating its search for a new Patriot air defense radar that can detect diverse threats approaching from any direction at any altitude. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon will compete in a “sense-off” this spring to see which company can offer the most versatile, reliable, resilient and producible solution. Raytheon is staking its claim on the basis of unique experience with gallium nitride technology (GaN). GaN functions far better than the silicon traditionally used in chips [ Read More…]
- The Abrams Tank Going “Nowhere” Soon – To Fight Into The 2030s And Beyond (From Warrior Maven)
— Kris Osborn is a Senior Fellow at The Lexington Institute — Should a mechanized column of heavily armored Russian vehicles launch an aggressive, forward-leaning assault into Eastern Europe 10 years from now, complete with air and artillery support – – just what kinds of specific armored vehicles would best position a US/NATO response? Such a scenario, however likely, incorporates some of the complexities now informing current Army thinking. How much can current platforms, such as the 1980s-era Abrams tank, be upgraded [ Read More…]
- Warship Worries: Does The U.S. Navy Really Need A New Large Surface Combatant? (From National Interest)
The U.S. Navy wants to acquire a new large surface combatant (LSC). The question is why? Ostensibly, the LSC will replace the aging Ticonderoga-class cruisers and possibly supersede the Arleigh Burke DDG-51 destroyers. It is supposed to be larger than the Arleigh Burkes but deploy many of the same systems, have lots of room for future growth and be capable of incorporating new capabilities such as large missiles, autonomous platforms and directed-energy weapons when they are developed. Considering that the Navy [ Read More…]
- Next Generation Air Warfare Will Require New Aerial Refueling Capabilities (From Warrior Maven)
Air-to-air refueling is the capability that allows airpower to achieve both reach and persistence. From the early days of flight, clever engineers worked on ways to refuel aircraft in flight. The dominant airpower nations are those that invested in aerial refueling capabilities, not only specially configured aircraft and the systems to transfer fuel, but the techniques that allow refueling operations to be integrated into air mobility and strike missions. The U.S. military has been a pioneer in the field of [ Read More…]
- Heather Wilson Was Uniquely Qualified To Be Air Force Secretary. So Why Is She Leaving? (From Forbes)
Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson disclosed on March 8 that she will likely leave government service in May to become president of the University of Texas at El Paso. It isn’t hard to understand the attraction of running a highly-regarded research university near her home state of New Mexico, but you have to wonder why a person so perfectly suited to leading the Air Force would want to leave after only two years on the job. The answer [ Read More…]