This is the week that Marillyn Hewson relinquished the helm of Lockheed Martin to her handpicked successor, James Taiclet. As President & CEO of the world’s leading military contractor, Taiclet will have some big shoes to fill, because Hewson is the most successful defense executive that her generation has produced. However, there are compelling reasons to expect that Taiclet can meet the challenge. First, he was a world-class manager at American Tower, increasing its market cap by 5000% during his [ Read More…]

Earlier this week, NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, launched a new initiative, NATO 2030, to strengthen the Alliance and prepare it for new challenges over the next several decades. NATO 2030 could not come at a more important moment for the Alliance. The Alliance’s geographic, demographic, economic and technological circumstances have all changed significantly over the past three decades. One element of this new security environment is the growing importance of Poland in NATO’s defense strategy. It is important to [ Read More…]

Senior defense officials are increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of U.S. space assets, and it isn’t hard to see what the most immediate danger is. It’s cyberattacks. Now ManTech has come up with a novel solution. On May 4 it stood up a “Space Range” that enables users to precisely replicate space networks so they can be subjected to cyberattacks in a bid to find their vulnerabilities. Space Range can be scaled to any size architecture and any level of [ Read More…]

Megan Brennan, the 74th Postmaster General (PMG) of the United States and the first woman to serve in that position, retires today. Americans owe her a big thank you. Here are some of the reasons why. When Megan Brennan became PMG in February 2015, the Postal Service was already facing some of the greatest challenges in its 245-year history. The internet was and is continuing to knock mail volume to significantly lower levels. During most of her tenure as PMG [ Read More…]

Lost amid the near-daily complaints about the Trump Administration’s attempt to secure America’s southern border is the fact that, by every metric, illegal border crossings have dropped significantly in recent months, because crossing is no longer as easy as it once was. During April 2020, according to the U.S. Border Patrol, fewer than 16,000 people tried to illegally enter the U.S., including: 14,524 single adults (down ~39% from March 2020) 734 unaccompanied minors (down ~75% from March) 604 families (down [ Read More…]

There has been a persistent drumbeat of concern since the Cold War ended about the supposed vulnerability of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The nature of the threat and the likely perpetrators change over time, but somehow the danger to the carriers is always there–at least in the minds of some pundits. It turns out, though, that the carriers aren’t really as doomed as some claim. In fact, Pentagon analysts who want to reorganize the Navy are turning away [ Read More…]

As part of his new Force Design 2030, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger, proposes to radically reshape the Navy’s fleet of amphibious vessels. Large amphibious warfare vessels are considered too vulnerable to future long-range precision strike weapons. The Marine Corps wants to rely less on the current classes of relatively large, expensive, and allegedly vulnerable platforms and field larger numbers of smaller, less detectable and cheaper amphibs. The proposed changes are complex and will take time [ Read More…]

The Coast Guard, like the other uniformed services, is working hard to cope with a perfect storm of domestic and international challenges. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic confronted it, the Coast Guard was challenged by the need to respond to an increase in Chinese aggression across the Western Pacific, an upsurge in drug smuggling, increased illegal fishing and waste dumping, and severe natural disasters. Fortunately, the Coast Guard had initiated a program to modernize virtually its entire fleet of ships [ Read More…]

“Fog of war” isn’t just a metaphor for warfighters. It’s a real problem when battlefields are covered with smoke, dust, mist, smog and other obscurants. The Pentagon says most of the helicopters it lost in Afghanistan and Iraq suffered mishaps caused by “degraded visual environments.” Now Sierra Nevada Corporation has come up with a solution that allows military pilots to see through any kind of obscurant under any conditions, identifying natural and man-made obstructions that might otherwise lead to accidents.  [ Read More…]

By virtually every measure—military power and reach, economic might, humanitarian assistance and science and technology—the United States remains today the world’s sole superpower. One area where this country has a significant advantage over any other nation, particularly potential adversaries, is in logistics. The real secret to the Defense Department’s global ability to move, supply, and support modern military forces rests in the support it receives from private sector cargo shippers. There are a handful of U.S.-based shipping companies that provide [ Read More…]