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Policy Blog
- USPS Doesn’t Need Money From Congress, It Needs Financial Reform (From The Detroit News)
While there are compelling reasons for Congress and the Administration to provide a fifth COVID relief package, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is today flush with cash. Beginning in April there were many predictions that USPS would collapse because of the pandemic. The opposite has occurred as demand for packages has soared. USPS does have long-term financial structural issues that [ Read More…]
- Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
- To Avoid A Bloodbath, The U.S. Army Needs To Demonstrate Its Relevance In The Pacific (From The National Interest)
The rise of China is the one overarching national security challenge for the foreseeable future, and it will be vital to continue maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific region through deterrence measures. Complicating those efforts is the need to modernize and restructure the U.S. military. The Pentagon’s plans to expand the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force, reorient the Marine Corps and build a Space Force with warfighting [ Read More…]
- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
- Love Him Or Hate Him, President Trump’s Defense Legacy Is Profound (From Forbes)
The various controversies surrounding President Trump should not be allowed to obscure the important changes he made to the nation’s defense posture. Among other things, he kept us out of new wars, refocused national strategy on the China threat, forced a rethink of longstanding alliances, began the revitalization of America’s nuclear deterrent, greatly accelerated military innovation, organized the joint force [ Read More…]
- Geospatial Intelligence–‘Geoint’–Becomes A Focus Of Military & Economic Competition (From Forbes)
After dominating the use of geospatial intelligence for decades, the United States is beginning to fall behind other nations, particularly in fostering a commercial ‘geoint’ industry. The science of using satellites to relate human activity to geography is equally useful for national security and economic purposes, but other nations in Asia and Europe have done far more to make the commercial side of the business attractive to investors. Existing federal policy makes it easier for China to dominate this and [ Read More…]
- Why Lloyd Austin Is A Superior Pick To Run The Defense Department (From Forbes)
President-elect Biden’s reported decision to nominate retired Army general Lloyd Austin to become Secretary of Defense is a wise move. Neither Biden nor the other announced members of his national security team have any intimate understanding of what modern war is like. They need at least one peer in their deliberations who has seen war up close, a professional who grasps the human dimensions of conflict. General Austin has seen combat at close hand from several perspectives, and has distinguished [ Read More…]
- Five Reasons Federal Stimulus Money To The Postal Service Is Harmful
Congress is moving in the direction of enacting the country’s fifth COVID relief package. And with millions of Americans facing extraordinary life and death challenges, there is clearly a need for targeted emergency relief, especially to our tens of millions of vulnerable citizens who are hungry and out of work through no fault of their own. Since April, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been at the forefront of discussions and debates about additional COVID relief. Yet, USPS received $10 [ Read More…]
- Applying Science and Analytics To The Exploitation of Open Source Intelligence (From RealClearDefense)
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, a commonly heard phrase has been “trust the science.” The same can be said in the realm of intelligence. The more that scientific wisdom and quantitative analytic tools can be applied to the collection and analysis of raw data, the greater the likelihood that useful intelligence can be generated. This is particularly the case when it comes to exploiting the vast amounts of data available from open sources. Publicly available information or open source intelligence (OSINT) [ Read More…]
- Army’s Newest Long-Range Fires System Isn’t New, But It Will Be Effective (From RealClearDefense)
The U.S. Army’s highest-priority modernization effort is long-range precision fires. The Army’s current program envisions an array of fires systems–cannons, rockets and missiles that, taken in totality, will be able to engage targets at ranges from the close-in battlefield to the adversary’s strategic depth. But as the Army made progress on multiple long-range fires programs, it realized that it needed an additional capability specifically designed to address targets at ranges between about 550 and about 2,000 kilometers. To meet the [ Read More…]
- Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbofan Is Poised To Emerge From The Pandemic In Great Shape (From Forbes)
Nobody at Pratt & Whitney, the engine business of Raytheon Technologies, is going to remember 2020 as a good year for the company. Commercial sales are way off. But the military side of the house is going gangbusters with engines for Air Force fighters, bombers and tankers. Meanwhile, Pratt has used pandemic downtime to raise the dispatch rate of its Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine on the Airbus A320 to an astounding 99.98%. It has also proven that all the performance [ Read More…]
- Five Reasons Return Of Boeing’s 737 MAX To Service Is Important To National Security (From Forbes)
Aerospace is one of the few technology areas where America still unquestionably leads the world. Maintaining that edge is vital to national security. However, many observers don’t grasp the connection between the return of Boeing’s 737 MAX to service and remaining the world’s preeminent aerospace innovator. 737 is the main reason that Boeing is the nation’s biggest exporter. It is a source of cashflow that funds company R&D. It helps sustain an industrial ecosystem containing thousands of U.S. companies. And [ Read More…]
- The Next Administration Will Need To Fix Military Sealift (From The National Interest)
The next administration must address the crisis in military sealift. Multiple studies, government officials, and experts have warned that the sealift fleet is in jeopardy in recent years. Unless a major effort is undertaken to correct the situation, the United States could lose its ability to project military power abroad and sustain forward-deployed forces. This means that the Department of Defense must be willing to spend resources on support vessels at a time when resources for major weapons programs will [ Read More…]
- Why Slow Construction Of The Navy’s ‘Fabulously Successful’ DDG-51 Destroyer When Plans For A Successor Are Unclear? (From Forbes)
The DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class of destroyers is one of the most successful naval construction programs in modern history. It is the most versatile destroyer ever built, and on any given day dozens are deployed around the globe. But the Navy has begun talking about a Large Surface Combatant that might serve as the Burke’s successor–one with more space and power generation for new weapons. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about tomorrow, but the new warship is a long way [ Read More…]
- Why We Should Watch The Electric Grid Blow Up
For years, a bevy of national security, cybersecurity, energy, and other experts in important government agencies have strongly and clearly warned about the cataclysmic dangers facing America from cyberattacks on the electric grid. Hostile nation-states and others could wipe out electricity in large parts of the country for weeks or longer, leading to widespread death, economic chaos, and other upheavals. So how come this issue is seldom discussed at major political forums or a topic of kitchen table conversations? A [ Read More…]