Author Archives: Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
Is Afghanistan Withdrawal America’s “East of Suez” Moment? In 1968, the sun truly sank on the British Empire. Then Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced the beginning of a phased withdrawal of British forces from bases and outposts east of the Suez Canal. Planned to extend over a number [Read More...]
Harnessing The Power Of The Sun: Investing In Utility-Scale Solar Technologies Research Study
Executive Summary
The three canonical reasons to support development of alternative energy sources have been increasing energy demand, rising energy costs and climate change. To these now must be added political instability in oil producing regions and technological [Read More...]
Better Supply Chain Management Could Improve DoD’s Energy Posture With little fanfare or public comment, the Department of Defense (DoD) last month published its Operational Energy Strategy. This is not your traditional green document with broad generalizations about the problems of profligate energy use and the need for conservation. [Read More...]
Costs of Vehicles Dominate Army, Pentagon Spending Media reporting tends to give the impression that the Department of Defense (DoD) is a high tech operation. When people think about Pentagon spending it’s usually in the context of such technologies as stealth fighters, nuclear ships and submarines, unmanned [Read More...]
U.S. Military Has Two Choices: Large And Weak Or Small And Strong The question of how to squeeze $400 billion out of national-security spending has taken on greater intensity in recent weeks. Senior defense officials, both outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the incoming Leon Panetta have spoken out against “salami-slicing” [Read More...]
House Report On V-22 Should Put Criticisms To Rest For years, critics of defense spending have used the V-22 as almost a poster child for wrongheaded defense programs. Proponents of reduced defense spending, including the President’s deficit commission, included the V-22 as an example of a program they would [Read More...]
Gates to Europe: In Order To Play You Have To Put A Team On The Field What was the point to Secretary Gates’ speech in Brussels on Friday? If it was simply to tell our European allies that they are not spending enough to maintain their own defense, that they are free riding and that they [Read More...]
Could DARPA’s “Crowdsourcing” Solve Military Vehicle Problems? As reported here and by other sources, many of the military’s vehicle programs are in deep difficulty. There are serious questions being raised regarding the viability of new starts for the Ground Combat Vehicle and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. Stories [Read More...]
“Wars Fatigue” And Its Implications For U.S. National Security The American people and their elected representatives appear to be suffering from “wars fatigue,” which I define as the inevitable exhaustion that occurs when the nation suffers through multiple, protracted and not too successful conflicts. Not since World War Two [Read More...]
Leon Panetta, The Pentagon And The China Threat Many observers expect the incoming Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, to be focused on reining in spending and cutting expenses at the Pentagon. However, it is possible that the focus of Secretary Panetta’s time in office may be devoted to [Read More...]