Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
Lexington Launches A Different Kind Of Defense Blog Issue Brief
Greetings from New England. Yes, I too am at the beach. But I’m still working, and the purpose of this brief is to tell you about a new project that the Lexington Institute has launched while you were [Read More...]
End Of Empire (II) Economists are in transition from the end-of-the-world pessimism that they express at the bottom of every recession to the all-is-well optimism they evince when recovery begins. We will soon be treated to non-stop praise of the American economy’s strength and [Read More...]
UCAS Delay Could Be Only The Beginning Aerospace Daily reports the Navy has delayed the first flight of its Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) in order to investigate “anomalies” in the system’s performance. The current delay probably won’t last long, but the program is facing the prospect [Read More...]
The Secret Mission That Makes Subs Indispensible The Pentagon has begun building its fiscal 2011 budget request, which will be sent to the Congress next February. 2011 is the year that production of the Virginia-class attack submarine — the only class of subs the U.S. is currently [Read More...]
The Lurking Fear Behind Air Force Changes According to QDR insiders, Air Force leaders are pushing ahead with plans to buy a small fleet of propeller-driven planes for irregular warfare. The planes are better suited than jets to some tactical applications, and easier for unsophisticated partners like [Read More...]
Succession Question: Who Follows Gates? With Pentagon insiders taking bets on when defense secretary Robert Gates will depart public service (see my posting of August 7), some observers have started to handicap the field of potential successors. It isn’t a very big group. Some of [Read More...]
Army Struggles To Preserve Core Of FCS Program Although the Army has officially terminated its massive Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, the real situation is a bit more complicated. It still wants to build the System of Systems Common Operating Environment network that was to be the glue [Read More...]
Defense Insiders Debate Timing Of Gates Departure All the talk a few months back about President Obama and defense secretary Robert Gates doing a mind-meld that would result in Gates staying on for four years is gone. The prevailing view now is that Gates will leave relatively [Read More...]
Raytheon Could Win Big From Shipbuilding Plan The most frustrating experience Raytheon executives have had to deal with in recent years is the Navy’s decision to kill its next-generation DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer after only three vessels. Raytheon won the competition to build the ship’s electronic combat system, [Read More...]
QDR Notes Impact Of People Costs But Has No Solutions Quadrennial Defense Review insiders say all the participants understand that current trends in military pay and benefits are unsustainable, but no one has a solution. The basic problem is that the nation is trying to conduct big, protracted military operations [Read More...]