Author Archives: Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
Gates Is Right: Budget Cuts Would Mean A Smaller Force On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to give testimony on the FY2011 defense budget. In response to a question from Colorado Senator Udall on the likelihood of the Department of Defense having [Read More...]
Bring Back The Two War Standard One of the innovations in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) much lauded in the media is the abandonment of the so-called two major regional conflicts or wars standard. This was the central metric by which the force structure was [Read More...]
The QDR’s Fallacy Of Hybrid Warfare An important feature of the future security environment according to the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) will be something called “hybrid warfare.” This is the idea that states will use a variety of traditional and asymmetric tactics, techniques, and procedures [Read More...]
2010 QDR Fails To Consider New Russian Fighter The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is supposed to take a twenty year view of the threats to U.S. security and the requirements for U.S military forces. One of this QDR’s assumptions is that the United States can afford to [Read More...]
2010 QDR Means More Work For Support Contractors One of the oddities of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review is its treatment of the private sector. The document has an entire chapter devoted to changing the way the Department of Defense (DoD) does business. This chapter contains some important [Read More...]
2010 QDR: Thoughtful, Reasonable And Irrelevant In general, Quadrennial Defense Reviews (QDRs) are like State of the Union addresses: long on vision and short on practical steps to be taken. Having reviewed a draft of the 2010 QDR I can say that it is the best [Read More...]
Quadrennial Defense Review Retains Much Of Bush Defense Strategy The Department of Defense is about to release the unclassified version of its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) which will provide high-level guidance to the department for the remainder of the Obama Administration’s first term. As such, one might have [Read More...]
China Will Never Be The Model For The World It has become commonplace for analysts to suggest that China offers an alternative economic model to the democratic capitalism espoused by the United States. The Western model is based on the idea that political freedom and economic liberalization go hand-in-hand. [Read More...]
Airborne Laser Could Revolutionize Air Warfare Two weeks ago the Airborne Laser (ABL) conducted a successful full-up, non-destructive test against a boosting target. This test was in preparation for the first-ever shoot-down test planned for later this year. Lasers are one of a new class of [Read More...]
Why Massachusetts Election May Be Bad For Defense Tuesday’s level 10 earthquake on the political Richter scale may not bode well for defense, specifically future defense spending. One interpretation of Scott Brown’s surprise victory in Massachusetts was extreme unhappiness with decisions being made in Washington on a host [Read More...]