After much hemming and hawing, the Army’s M1A2 tank is headed for Ukraine. Much of the information that appeared in public media explaining why the Pentagon was not eager to send it exaggerated the logistical and training challenges associated with sharing the world’s most formidable combat vehicle. Abrams is a technological marvel, by far the best main battle tank ever fielded–thanks in part to continuous upgrades since the Cold War ended. However, the upgrades need to continue, because new threats [ Read More…]

The U.S. rotorcraft industry is heavily dependent on military funding, and at the moment two of the top three manufacturers aren’t so sure how reliable that funding will be in the future. First, the Army has awarded the contract to develop a Black Hawk successor to Bell/Textron, potentially signaling the demise of Sikorsky’s most important revenue source. Second, the service has not developed long-term plans for Apache and Chinook, its other two combat rotorcraft and the biggest revenue generators at [ Read More…]

Raytheon Technologies reported its fourth-quarter and full-year results for 2022 on January 24, matching or exceeding company forecasts. However, the big news in the earnings call was disclosure of a plan to realign business units, combining both legacy Raytheon units into a single entity. The company thus intends to operate with three overarching business units: Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and the new unit, called simply “Raytheon.” Chairman & CEO Greg Hayes says the realignment will cut costs, bolster cross-corporate [ Read More…]

The Biden Administration seems quite happy with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and its leadership, i.e., Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former sizable fundraiser for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And it is easy to understand why. Yes, really. USPS’s strong performance in delivering 2022 election mail on time, the ongoing delivery of COVID test kits, a December 20 announcement that most new USPS vehicle purchases will be electric, and DeJoy’s pivotal role in getting Republicans to support the [ Read More…]

A hundred years ago, the United States did not have a defense industry. Today it does, thanks to a series of Russian military developments in the early postwar era that made the threat to U.S. survival permanent. In response, Washington for the first time in its history began funding large peacetime defense budgets–which made the existence of a permanent, private-sector defense industry possible. This year, roughly $400 billion in military contracts will be awarded to over 200,000 companies. The footprint [ Read More…]

The U.S. Army is currently investing in two of the three critical capabilities for future fires systems (artillery, rockets, and missiles). These capabilities are range and precision. The Army even calls its fires modernization effort the Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) program. But what Army fires systems also need is mobility. While new systems such as the Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA), Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), Strategic Mid-Range Fires (SMRF) and the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) will be deployed in mobile [ Read More…]

The decisions by two “holdout” major Western powers, Germany and Canada, to acquire the F-35 leaves no doubt regarding the unique contributions that this aircraft can make to both U.S. and NATO security. Multiple analyses and flyoffs by these two countries and others have ended with the same conclusion: the JSF is the best choice with respect to overall value, capability, price, and maintainability for nations needing to modernize their tactical fighter fleets in the first half of the 21st century. I have written [ Read More…]

L3Harris Chairman & CEO Chris Kubasik announced in December that his company would seek to merge with Aerojet Rocketdyne. The last time a company–Lockheed Martin–sought to acquire rocket-engine maker Aerojet, it was rebuffed by federal regulators. This time is likely to go differently. The L3Harris bid does not involve horizontal or vertical integration. L3Harris is a fraction of Lockheed’s size, and more credible as a merchant supplier of rocket engines to the marketplace. And the two companies can make a [ Read More…]

Lockheed Martin, in consultation with team member Boeing, has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office alleging that the Army made multiple mistakes in awarding the development contract for its future assault aircraft to Bell Helicopter/Textron. Among other things, Lockheed, speaking for its Sikorsky unit, contends that the Army preferred from the start to select a tiltrotor design, and bent the rules to favor that outcome; applied selection criteria subjectively and unfairly; discriminated on the basis of selection criteria [ Read More…]

The Russo-Ukrainian War is the world’s first digital conflict with profound implications for global security. While Russia’s cyber offensive at the outset of hostilities was expected, what came as a surprise was Ukraine’s ability to blunt Moscow’s attacks. This was the result to a significant degree of early support provided to Ukraine by U.S. digital giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft. Almost from the first day of the Russian invasion, AWS stepped in to help secure the Ukrainian government’s critical information. [ Read More…]