Even before this summer’s mail delays, first-class mail service had been sharply deteriorating. Today, it takes close to a day longer to deliver a letter than it did in 2012. The key reasons for this are the U.S. Postal Service has twice lowered delivery standards (in 2012 and 2015) while aggressively pursuing packages. The Postal Service needs a fundamental restructuring so that first-class mail service improves and so that costs are better understood and delineated between the separate mail and [ Read More…]

Read the full report as a PDF here. Executive Summary The U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) mail delivery standards and performance are under intense scrutiny as the election approaches and it recovers from a summer disruption. First-class mail delivered on time fell to as low as 83 percent in July before starting to recover. It was above 90 percent when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took office on June 15. Getting back to the 90 percent rate, however, is nothing to celebrate. [ Read More…]

Japan’s decision to cancel construction of a land-based missile defense for the home islands has opened up a new competitive battleground between rivals Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies. Both companies manufacture state-of-the-art missile defense radars, but Raytheon’s SPY-6 is the U.S. Navy’s baseline for upgrading missile defenses at sea. Lockheed’s SPY-7 is being developed for defense of the U.S. homeland from sites on shore. So if Japan sticks with its plan to rely on Aegis warships for homeland defense rather [ Read More…]

On August 7, United Launch Alliance and SpaceX won the competition to provide launch services to the Space Force through 2027. However, a curious thing happened with pricing. ULA got $337 million to perform two missions during the first year, while SpaceX got $316 million to perform one mission. The latter amount is over twice the price that SpaceX founder Elon Musk stated in 2018 would be the maximum cost for using its Falcon Heavy rocket. It is also far [ Read More…]

The U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee will be doing something today it has not done in this session of Congress: marking up, that is acting on, a piece of legislation specific to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). On August 25, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), chair of the committee, introduced H.R. 8109, the Nonpartisan Postmaster General Act. The crux of the measure is to prevent anyone who has held elected office in the past four years, or served [ Read More…]

Over the last 20 years, the Pratt & Whitney unit of Raytheon Technologies has won contracts to provide engines for the Air Force’s newest fighter, tanker and bomber. You could say it has won the Triple Crown of Air Force propulsion competitions. Only one competition remains to cement its dominance for decades to come: the program that will reengine the iconic B-52 bomber. Each of the planes is 60 years old and has eight engines, which means reengining entails “significant [ Read More…]

The U.S. Army was a mess when Donald Trump became president in January of 2017. Only two of its brigades were in a high state of readiness, its modernization plan was faltering, and the Army seemed trapped in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, four years later, the Army has been transformed. What happened? Five things stand out: a team at the top with good chemistry that agreed on what had to be done to fix the institution; more money [ Read More…]

What are the capabilities or technologies that distinguish advanced fighter aircraft from their predecessors? Any list should include electronically-scanning radar and other sensors, high-performance engines, advanced avionics, and maybe precision munitions. For fifth-generation aircraft, the F-22 and F-35, supercruise power, stealth shaping and coating, and information sharing would be added. But what about helmet-mounted displays (HMDs)? HMDs are now part of the equipment aboard thousands of fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft. HMDs constitute a key advantage for U.S. and allied pilots [ Read More…]

China poses many, unacceptable threats to the U.S. power grid. It can already shut down the grid through a cyberattack and has become a major provider of transformers and other key grid components to U.S. utilities. It is imperative that U.S. grid equipment be made in America, or at least quite friendly countries, as envisioned in a May 1 Executive Order. Lexington Institute’s Paul Steidler discusses these matters here.

North Korea is expected to increase the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal in the years ahead, including its weapons capable of hitting America. The Trump Administration was planning to upgrade the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system in response; GMD is the only Pentagon program currently capable of intercepting North Korean warheads aimed at the U.S. However, former Pentagon tech chief Michael Griffin derailed key upgrades and decided to pursue an all-new interceptor, raising the prospect of a prolonged period [ Read More…]