Defense
When We’ll Need an Army, You Can Bet We’ll Need it Bad
Twice in just the past 15 years the U.S. government has made the decision to shrink the size of the Army. Under the Bush Administration the argument was that the real threat was from rising near-peer powers and regional adversaries empowered by advance ...
The IEDs of the Next War: Small Drones
They are cheap, readily constructed from items lying around the garage and gardening shed, come in every imaginable shape and size and can be triggered in a myriad of ways. I am referring to improvised explosive devices or IEDs. This was the one tactic ...
The Army’s Technology Edge is Ebbing Away
After six years of slashing funds for military modernization, the Obama Administration has suddenly discovered that countries like China are closing the gap with America in warfighting technology. If Mr. Obama was the first president to skimp on milit ...
The Real Trouble With Defense Acquisition Isn’t The Workforce
Last week, the staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s permanent subcommittee on investigations published a weighty compendium of the responses of 31 experts’ on defense acquisition to a set of questions about fixing ...
Destroying ISIS In Iraq: The Missing Element
The campaign of air strikes against ISIS has now grown to include targets in Syria with support from several Arab states. And in their aftermath, the Administration has wasted little time in describing the effectiveness of these strikes in degrading IS ...
Raytheon Is Rearranging The Defense Industry’s Competitive Landscape
This week's win of a major Air Force radar contract by Raytheon is the latest installment in what is beginning to look like a trend. The Massachusetts-based company is gradually displacing competitors once thought to be superior in technical talent and ...
Automated Flight Services Station Modernization Program Is An Example Of Acquisition Done Right
Every day it seems there is a new media report of a federal department or agency that can’t seem to do its job correctly. Even when entities manage to take care of their day-to-day responsibilities they often have real challenges spending the public’s ...
The U.S. Army’s Next Fighting Vehicle May Already Be Available — In Britain (From Forbes)
On September 3, the British Ministry of Defense announced its biggest order for armored vehicles in three decades. It will buy nearly 600 Scout SV tracked combat vehicles in six variants from General Dynamics, the big U.S. builder of tanks, warships, ...
Proliferation Of Surface-To-Air Missile Threat Will Require Investment In Airborne Countermeasures
Commercial and even military aircraft can no longer count on being able to fly the friendly skies. This is the lesson brought home by the downing of MH17 over Ukraine. These same air defenses have also brought down Ukrainian military jets including bot ...
Behind Air Strikes On ISIS A Big Air Operation Is Underway
To date, there have been approximately 240 coalition air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria since air operations began nearly a month ago. On the first night of operations against ISIS in Syria, the U.S. put most of its best assets into the ...