Author Archives: Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
Obama’s Nuclear Strategy Gives Away The Store Every businessman knows you cannot sell a product if your customer thinks you are willing to give it away. Businesses do make judicious use of “freebies” at times in order to get customers in the door, create awareness of products [Read More...]
The Metamorphosis Of Robert Gates There are all kinds of stories told about the Pentagon. But until now it has never been said that the building was haunted. It has been three and a half years since Robert Gates became Secretary of Defense. Last week, [Read More...]
Is Rebalancing The Military The Right Answer? For more than two years, the Department of Defense and the armed forces of the United States have been undergoing what the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, termed a process of finding balance. Secretary Gates announced his new approach to [Read More...]
Gates To The Military: Get Ready For A Trainwreck The Secretary of Defense is a man on a mission. Well, really several. His first mission is to win our current wars. His second mission is to rebalance the military both in terms of how it is structured to deal [Read More...]
Predictably, Pentagon Insourcing Plan Goes Awry There is a lot of truth behind the old joke that an elephant is a mouse built to government specifications. So it should not be a surprise to discover that only a year after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced [Read More...]
Naval Power: Robert Gates Is No Henry Knox This past Monday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates took on the U.S. Navy. In a speech to the Navy League he basically said that virtually the entire structure of today’s Navy was irrelevant to the threats of the future and [Read More...]
The Obama Strategy To Create A Proliferated Middle East The first rule of arms control, as in medicine, is to do no harm. This is not the approach taken by the Obama Administration. Whether it is through its failure to create a new era of engagement with the Muslim [Read More...]
Iran Sanctions: Time For A New “Jackson-Vanik” Bill History repeats itself, but never the same way. The President and the Congress are at odds over placing sanctions on Iran. For the administration it is a complex issue involving not only trying to change Iran’s behavior but also the [Read More...]
Whatever Happened To Soft Power? The Obama Administration came into office determined to revolutionize the conduct of U.S. foreign and security policies. The essence of the Administration’s argument was that too much emphasis had been placed on the military instrument of national power and much [Read More...]
Pentagon Proposes Major Changes To Rules On Contractor Conflicts of Interest A problem that has plagued defense procurement for many years is the perception that contracts were not awarded based on a fair and open competition. As a result, critics argue, many programs experience schedule delays, technical problems or cost overruns. [Read More...]