Defense
Five Reasons America’s Rivals Are Catching Up In Military Technology (From Forbes)
There is growing concern in the Pentagon that potential adversaries such as China and Russia are chipping away at America's lead in military technology. However, a close look at why this is happening suggests that the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our ...
U.S. Needs To Invest In New Capabilities To Counter Aerial IED Threat At Home
The U.S. military has long been worried about the growing overseas hybrid threat. Hybrid threats are those that combine elements of modern warfare such as precision-guided weapons, unmanned aerial systems, rockets and short-range ballistic missiles and ...
Jefferson’s Political Revolution
Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, so it is probably too late for you and me to achieve such a notable level of fame. He also attempted, in his draft, to blast the British for bringing slavery to America, but the Southern delegates insisted on excising . . .
“High Road Contracting” Will Be A Dead End For DoD
The Department of Defense (DoD) is growing more desperate by the day to avail itself of the skills and technological advances of commercial companies. As the Pentagon leadership readily acknowledges, the locus of technological innovation has shifted fr ...
Dan Goure’s Speech: Acquisition Reform Must Start with Culture
This speech was given by Dan Goure at the Lexington Institute’s Capitol Hill Defense Acquisition Reform event on June 24, 2015. Why is acquisition reform still so difficult? The answer is we are trying to impose the existing 20th Century, gover ...
Acquisition Reform: The Elusive Quest
We all want acquisition reform. We want our forces to acquire new weapons faster, cheaper, and with the most advanced capabilities possible. The problem is that these goals trade off against one another. If we attempt to accelerate weapon developmen ...
You Say The F-35 Can’t Dogfight? I Say Good.
A report is making the rounds of defense blogs of a test of the F-35A’s close-in dogfighting capability. According to this report, the F-35A was significantly less maneuverable than the opposing aircraft, an F-16C, and was at a distinct disadvantage wh ...
Remembering George Washington’s Advice About How To Avoid Wars (From Forbes)
As the nation's birthday of July 4th approaches, America is awash in foreign commitments that might lead to war -- in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East, in the Western Pacific. One patriot who was present at the creation, George Washington, had firm ...
Who Says That U.S. Defense Industry Can No Longer Innovate?
Of late, the never-ending debate in Washington over U.S. defense policy has been dominated by two related topics. The first is the growing concern that this country is losing its long-held qualitative advantage in military capabilities. The second is t ...
Scott Chandler’s Speech: Rethinking Acquisition
This speech was given by Scott Chandler at Lexington's Defense Acquisition Forum on June 24, 2015. Chandler is a Manager for Pratt & Whitney's military engine business. The views here are his own, and do not represent his company. I have n ...