Bruce Walker is the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Electricity at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Confirmed by the U.S. Senate in October 2017, he is responsible for leading national efforts to develop technologies that enhance the security and reliability of energy infrastructure, including work done by DOE’s 17 National Laboratories. Under Mr. Walker’s leadership, DOE has introduced the North American Energy Resilience Model to assess risks to the electric grid. The Lexington Institute’s Paul Steidler spoke with [ Read More…]

The Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, General David Berger, has just released his long-anticipated Force Design 2030. It proposes a transformation of the Corps’ force structure, types of ships, the mix of platforms and weapons systems, and operational concepts to address the demands of deterrence and warfighting in an era of great power competition. In response to this new environment, the Marine Corps must shift from its current focus on conducting amphibious landing operations and protracted on-shore missions. Its [ Read More…]

The coronavirus crisis has renewed concern about whether the U.S. has become too dependent on China for manufactured goods, particularly goods with potential defense applications. The most immediate concern is drugs such as antibiotics; even when they are not made in China, the drugs may require active ingredients from China. But that conversation leads to a broader debate about how China has used subsidies and other trade-distorting practices to dominate global markets for everything from aluminum to solar panels to [ Read More…]

Over the past few years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has undertaken a major effort to encourage non-traditional defense companies to do business with the Pentagon. These are firms of all sizes and types that do not provide defense-specific goods or services. The idea is that DoD acquisition can benefit not only from access to the unique products such companies produce but from their alternative approaches to design, production and sustainment. The Pentagon’s interest in accessing non-traditional providers has focused [ Read More…]

Blackouts during COVID-19 would be especially disastrous. And there is an unacceptable, heightened risk that they will occur if the skilled professionals at power plants, utilities and grid operators become infected and spread COVID-19 to their colleagues, with whom they typically work in tight quarters. Similar events have already led the New York Stock Exchange to cancel in-person trading and caused disruptions in the air traffic control system. With the grid, the consequences are far more serious as electricity is [ Read More…]

Lockheed Martin, the nation’s biggest military contractor, disclosed steps this week to cope with the spread of coronavirus. Chairman & CEO Marillyn Hewson said the company will sustain production of defense items while protecting workers and making its capabilities available to fight the viral plague. It also will rely on virtual technology to continue recruiting and hiring talent. Hewson revealed Lockheed will make $50 million available to small and medium-size suppliers whose businesses may be threatened by the pandemic, and [ Read More…]

At this writing, Congress seems poised to provide billions in financial assistance to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to ensure that it will be able to continue to operate amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The action needs to be taken and is not unexpected. Unlike many entities, however, the USPS’s financial problems started well before COVID-19. USPS has been on the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) High-Risk List of government agencies since 2009. The Postal Service had previously warned in a [ Read More…]

The complexity of nuclear threats posed to the U.S. homeland by North Korea is expected to grow, requiring military planners to add a second layer to the nation’s missile defense architecture. If each line of defense in a two-layer architecture can intercept 80% of the missiles seeking to penetrate it, 96% of attacking warheads will not reach their targets in America. The most readily available systems suitable for providing that second layer, which would complement the existing Ground-based Midcourse Defense, [ Read More…]

According to the Bible, all humanity once spoke the same language. But when the people sought to build a tower that would reach to the Heavens, God responded by causing them to suddenly speak different languages so they could not communicate and work together to complete the Tower of Babel. The word derived from this story, babble, means a confusion of sounds. Over the decades, the U.S. military has created a “Tower of Babel” problem in the form of incompatible [ Read More…]

The COVID-19 pandemic is all but certain to have a severe, negative financial impact on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), significantly accelerating when it will face a liquidity crisis and be unable to provide basic services. Even if that liquidity crisis is after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, this must be avoided as it would grind the American economy to a halt and disrupt daily life. It is likely that the U.S. Treasury will soon increase a $15 billion line of [ Read More…]