Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
Northrop Move Portends Reshaping Of Sector
Bloomberg Business News reported yesterday that Northrop Grumman plans to sell its TASC technical services unit. On its face, the move seems like a simple divestiture of a non-core business — possibly hastened by new federal rules about conflicts of [Read More...]
Unmanned Aircraft Have Limitations Too
The well-sourced insidedefense.com website reports this week that the Navy will spend $6 billion over the next five years on unmanned aircraft such as the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) system. Proponents of using unmanned aircraft for every mission under [Read More...]
Dog Days: Rumors About Air Force Programs Mostly Wrong
It’s the dog days of August here in River City, but reporters still have to earn a living. Maybe that explains why there is so much nonsense floating around about Air Force weapons programs. Anyway, here are three rumors you [Read More...]
Reversing Industrial Decline: A Role for the Defense Budget
Research Study
After dominating global industrial activity for a century, the United States is losing its edge in manufacturing to other nations. Over the last 30 years, manufacturing has fallen from a quarter to an eighth of the domestic economy, [Read More...]
Are Policymakers Too Enchanted With Unmanned Aircraft?
Issue Brief
The Pentagon’s quadrennial review of strategy and requirements is returning the joint force to a threat-based military posture. After eight years of toying with the idea of a “capabilities-based” posture, policymakers are keying military preparations much more closely [Read More...]
Airbus Threats Signal It Has Lost WTO Case
After long deliberations, the World Trade Organization is about to rule on a complaint that the European Union’s launch subsidies to Airbus are an unfair distortion of free trade. Apparently Airbus believes it will lose the case — and have [Read More...]
The Achilles Heel Of Chinese Anti-Access Missiles
The U.S. Navy has become increasingly concerned about China’s efforts to develop a maneuvering warhead for its theater ballistic missiles. There have been at least three ground tests of the necessary technology, and if the tests lead to an operational [Read More...]
OMB Reforms More Likely To Waste Money Than Save It
When President Obama declared shortly after taking office that reforms in the way the government buys goods and services could save $40 billion annually, many longtime observers of the federal bureaucracy rolled their eyes. Every new administration launches such initiatives, [Read More...]
Proliferation Of Unmanned Aircraft Produces Push-Back
Defense secretary Robert Gates seems to be waging a counter-transformation, terminating Rumsfeld-era tech programs and shifting to a more labor-intensive military posture. But there is one technology Rumsfeld championed of which Gates is similarly enamored: unmanned aircraft like Predator. No [Read More...]
Have Republicans Abandoned Relativism?
One of the nice things about being out of power is that parties can restore consistency to their agendas. Rather than catering to every constituency that might sway an election outcome, they can craft a coherent platform with which to [Read More...]