Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
China Trade Tensions Spreading Fast
If you thought signs of economic recovery would bring a relaxation of trade tensions, guess again. In China’s case, the friction with U.S. producers looks likely to grow even as recovery unfolds. Following imposition of tariffs on Chinese tire exports [Read More...]
How Serious Is The Chinese Antiship Ballistic Missile Threat?
The future survivability of U.S. Navy carrier strike groups operating in the Western Pacific has been called into question by the discovery that the People’s Liberation Army is conducting tests of technology for a maneuvering ballistic-missile warhead. Maneuvering in the [Read More...]
Saving JTRS AMF Will Save Lives, And Money Too
Defense secretary Robert Gates has taken a lot of grief for killing programs. But the worst idea for killing a military program this year did not come from Secretary Gates. It came from the Air Force and Navy. They want [Read More...]
Mixed Fleet Of Search-And-Rescue Rotorcraft Is Best Option
When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates canceled the Air Force’s planned re-competition of a next-generation combat search-and-rescue (CSAR) helicopter earlier this year, it wasn’t so clear where that mission was headed. While each military service possesses helicopters that can be [Read More...]
Obama Threats Not Deterring Defense Plus-Ups
The threat of White House retribution doesn’t seem to be stopping legislators from adding money for programs that the Pentagon opposes. House appropriators added $485 million to the fiscal 2010 defense budget for presidential helicopters that President Obama wanted to [Read More...]
E-Reader Reflects U.S. Tech Erosion
Anybody who has tried to lift a seventh-grade history textbook knows that Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-reader is the wave of the future. Books will always have a place in our culture, but e-readers are just a lot easier (and cheaper) [Read More...]
White House Helicopter Plan Triples Cost, Delays Delivery
If you want to understand why voters quickly lose faith in politicians elected to reform the political process, check out what Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) has discovered about plans to develop a new presidential helicopter. Hinchey’s district was hit hard [Read More...]
Democrat Views Of Defense Industry Are Self-Defeating
Issue Brief
It is now 20 years since the Soviet Union began breaking up, removing the threat to American survival that spawned the modern defense industry. Industry fortunes have oscillated wildly in the post-communist world, from the despair of Billy [Read More...]
EADS Estimates Of U.S. Content Vary With Audience
The recent finding by the World Trade Organization that European countries illegally subsidized the development of Airbus planes has created a problem for parent company EADS. It wants to prove it isn’t hurting American workers, but it also wants to [Read More...]
Against Odds, GD Outlook Brightens
For the last several years, General Dynamics chairman Nicholas Chabraja has faced a peculiar problem. It’s the kind of problem only successful people have. After a decade of continuously increasing earnings at GD, Chabraja’s name had become synonymous with shareholder [Read More...]