The recent conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky has generated renewed interest in the subject of the fight against corruption in the former Soviet Republics (FSRs) and Moscow’s erstwhile allies, often referred to as post-Soviet states in Europe. Almost from their first days as independent nations, corruption has been a major problem for these countries. Corrupt practices have created an avenue for outsiders, particularly Russia, to undermine fragile institutions, blackmail leaders and influence political processes. In Ukraine, the [ Read More…]

There’s an easy way for European governments to avoid the tariffs that the U.S. Trade Representative is threatening to levy in response to illegal aircraft subsidies. All they have to do is kill the subsidies and bring their behavior into compliance with treaty obligations under the World Trade Organization. The WTO ruled a decade ago that Airbus might never have brought any aircraft to market had it not received massive, prohibited subsidies, mainly in the form of euphemistically-named “launch aid.” [ Read More…]

The U.S. military only has one program capable of intercepting long-range ballistic missiles aimed at America. It is called the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, and it is not in good shape. Many years of under-investment have left GMD in a state of gradual decay, and a plan to turn it around was recently aborted. Pentagon tech gurus want to start over with a secret effort called the Next Generation Interceptor. There’s only one problem: the next-gen solution won’t be [ Read More…]

The United States just won a significant trade victory over China. No longer will we and other countries subsidize the international shipment of e-commerce and other small packages from China. This helps U.S. manufacturers, retailers, e-commerce companies and the U.S. Postal Service. The U.S. took a tough and clear stand, negotiating for 15 months. We also forged alliances with other countries and even a United Nations-organization to achieve these results. Paul Steidler has written a commentary for InsideSources here.

Boris Johnson, describing himself as the ‘Hulk’, has borrowed from Trump’s playbook to ‘smash’ his Brexit policy through parliament. Too bad he’s only ‘incredible’ in a very literal sense.  Those who are bewildered by the current state of American politics need only look across the pond for a dismal reminder that it could be worse. Brexit is as torturous as ever, parliament was suspended, and the Supreme Court has deemed the government’s actions unlawful. Voices from both sides of the [ Read More…]

In conjunction with today’s agreement at the Universal Postal Union on international postal rates, Paul Steidler, Senior Fellow with the Lexington Institute, issued the following statement. “This agreement will significantly help U.S. manufacturers, retailers, e-commerce companies and others. It is a win. It will be a catalyst for billions of dollars in increased annual U.S. sales, more jobs and higher tax revenues. “The Trump Administration is to be commended for its patience and leadership in working intently over the past [ Read More…]

The Air Force’s tech chief, Will Roper, is pushing a plan to develop future aircraft in small numbers on greatly compressed schedules. Using digital engineering and other innovations, he wants to acquire tactical aircraft in a few years that would only stay in service for a decade. The initiative is named after the Century Series of fighters developed at a very fast pace in the 1950s.  However, the plan does not look promising. The original Century Series was something of [ Read More…]

A handful of special interests who benefit from our trade deficit with China have joined with some progressive advocates to stoke fears that overseas troops and other Americans may not be able to vote this year if the U.S. leaves an international postal organization. The charges are flat out wrong and classic fearmongering. Let’s start with the postal situation. The U.S. and most other industrialized countries for decades have been getting a raw deal on international package shipping. The Trump [ Read More…]

There is a new urgency to the search for cost-effective counters to the growing threat posed by unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or drones. Large, high-flying UASs can be countered by anti-aircraft systems, although this is an expensive solution. But new answers are needed for medium and small drones, those that fly slowly and close to the ground. There has been a rush to field counters to the growing UAS threat which has produced dozens of potential solutions. As more candidate [ Read More…]

The Air Force has reviewed all of its programs — over a thousand projects — with an eye to determining whether they fit with the Trump national defense strategy. The items that don’t fit will become bill-payers for new projects that do. The Air Force hasn’t said much about what efforts it intends to kill, but if you have been listening to its public pronouncements about the future of warfighting, some obvious candidates stand out. They include the E-8 radar [ Read More…]