Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
Gates Is Right: An Extra Engine For F-35 Wastes Money Issue Brief
It is now four years since the defense department decided it didn’t need to develop two different engines for its single-engine F-35 fighter, and stopped requesting money for the second engine. Since that time, the United Technologies engine [Read More...]
What Washington Summers Tell You About The Power Of Technology There’s a school of thought that says big government wasn’t possible in America until air conditioning was invented. Before air conditioning came along it was just too hot to get anything done in D.C. during the summer, so America had [Read More...]
Skyrocketing Trade Deficit Signals Trouble Ahead For Proponents Of Free Trade There are two basic ways you can look at the $50 billion trade deficit that America managed to accumulate in June. Either the U.S. economy has ceased being competitive in the items that consumers most want, or our trading partners [Read More...]
General Meltdown: What My Bid To Help America’s Carmakers Got Me Anybody who has read my commentaries on the economy knows how concerned I am about the decline of American manufacturing. It upsets me to find only Asian electronics in the Best Buy, or to see a row of German cars [Read More...]
Gates Struggling To Prevent Defense Cuts By Congress Issue Brief
History will remember Robert Gates as the defense secretary who averted U.S. military defeat in Iraq. Right now, though, he is struggling to prevent a different kind of military setback: congressional budget cuts that could compel the military [Read More...]
China’s New “Carrier-Killing” Missile Is Overrated Last week saw another round of semi-hysterical speculation about China’s new Dong Feng missile, which supposedly has the accuracy required to attack U.S. aircraft carriers from 900 miles away. Prof. Toshi Yoshihara of the Naval War College told the Associated [Read More...]
The Twilight Of Network-Centric Warfare When a Defense Business Board task force recommended last month that the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) eliminate its networking and information integration secretariat, it signaled just how far from grace the notion of network-centric warfare has fallen. [Read More...]
USS Missouri: Proof Some People At The Pentagon Already Know How To Buy Weapons Efficiently On July 31 the USS Missouri, seventh vessel in the Virginia class of nuclear-powered attack submarines, was commissioned at the naval submarine base in Connecticut. A crowd of 3,000 people attended the ceremony, including defense secretary Robert Gates and his [Read More...]
The Defense Industry’s Summer Of Discontent Issue Brief
Last week, the top executives of the U.S. defense industry met with defense secretary Robert Gates and his key subordinates to discuss Pentagon plans for reducing the cost of doing business. Gates told the assembled captains of industry [Read More...]
General Dynamics Business Mix Protects Company From Coming Downturn General Dynamics is arguably the most investor-conscious company in the defense business. Under the leadership of industry legend Nicholas Chabraja, GD remade itself from a run-of-the-mill military contractor into a consistent earnings performer deploying capital across a diverse portfolio of [Read More...]