The U.S. Army’s top modernization priority is increasing the range and lethality of its fires. That effort is going so well that it is now generating options for the future beyond what would have been imaginable a decade or two ago, like a cannon that can hit pinpoint targets over a thousand miles away and a missile that maneuvers at five times the speed of sound. These programs have the potential to change the way the joint force wages war, [ Read More…]

The USS Gerald R. Ford, lead ship in a new generation of large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, is a lot more capable than the Nimitz class which it will replace. It can launch a third more aircraft sorties each day, including unmanned aircraft which Nimitz cannot. It has greatly increased electrical-power generation capacity, and far more efficient weapons handling procedures. Its multi-function radar is a revolution in sensing technology. There is more deck space and the ship has increased margin for [ Read More…]

The United States has had its hands full over the past few months as it tries to stamp out the COVID-19 virus. While some criticize the federal government’s response to the virus for being unorganized, ineffective or in some cases an overreaction, I disagree. The U.S. government, on all levels, has reacted in a way that would make our founding fathers proud. Our country was established as a Federalist system, under which power is divided between the federal government and [ Read More…]

It’s election season. Politicians at both the federal and state levels are looking for ways of bolstering their reelection prospects. One way of doing this is to stage public spectacles, the modern version of ancient Rome’s gladiatorial games, designed to gain support for politicians from average voters. The most recent example of this strategy in action has been a campaign of attacks on so-called Big Tech: companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google. I have written more about this [ Read More…]

U.S. presidential elections tend to be decided by small numbers of voters in a handful of battleground states. Partisan sentiment is so evenly split in those states that seemingly minor factors can decide who wins all of a state’s electoral college votes. So the fact that weapons makers play a major role in the economies of states like Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania has intriguing implications for the November election. I have written a commentary for Forbes detailing the role played [ Read More…]

It has been noted that countries with authoritarian or semi-authoritarian leadership are more likely to become COVID-19 hotspots for longer amounts of time than their liberal-democratic counterparts. The same pattern rings true in Latin America: Authoritarian leadership is one of the clearest deciding factors of any country’s approach to COVID-19. Brazil and Mexico are the most striking examples of this, where each of their presidents was elected on a populist platform, and each has neglected the virus’s danger since it exploded into a global pandemic. I have written more on this topic here. 

Aerojet Rocketdyne has shifted production of large solid rocket motors to Camden, Arkansas from its heritage headquarters site in Sacramento, California. Camden isn’t the most likely place to locate a hub of aerospace innovation, but that is what the company in effect has done. Aerojet has also built new facilities at Camden to support missile defense interceptors, making the small (population: 11,000) city one of the largest rocket and missile propulsion complexes in the world. I have written a piece [ Read More…]

The cost of electricity is having significant, negative effects on the working class and poor. A 2018 U.S. Department of Energy study found that 21 percent of American households, at least once a year, must forego necessities like food, rent or medicine to keep the electricity on. This problem has become much more troubling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent court and regulatory decisions are likely to make the situation even worse. While the price of natural gas, the main staple [ Read More…]

Throughout history, China has been recognized as one of the most powerful nations to exist on this planet. Dominance in the spice trade and the control over the Silk Road placed the Chinese Empire at a great economic advantage for centuries. Once European nations started to colonize the America’s, however, that took away focus from the materials and supplies Chinese markets produced. For 400 years China was in the background, becoming regarded as a third world country, especially during World [ Read More…]

The Boeing Company is competing head-to-head with the Sikorsky unit of Lockheed Martin to supply a new generation of heavy lift helicopters to Germany and Israel. Both countries are looking to replace aged CH-53D helicopters, which in effect makes Sikorsky the incumbent. However, Boeing thinks it can beat the latest “K” variant on the CH-53, called King Stallion, with an upgraded version of its CH-47 Chinook. It is telling Germany and Israel it provides just as much usable lifting power [ Read More…]