Defense
Military Transformation: The Danger of Convenient Ideas In America's centennial year of 1876, barely a decade after it had enrolled over a million soldiers in its ranks, the U.S. Army was cut to a postwar low of 24,000 personnel -- in a nation of 46 million. Few . . .
Comanche Chopper is Vital to Objective Force The heart and soul of the Army's plan to transform itself into a 21st Century force, its so-called Objective Force, is the Future Combat System (FCS). As described in Army publications and briefings, the FCS is . . .
The Myth of Aircraft Carrier Vulnerability On the eve of America's entry into World War One, Senator Hiram Johnson warned that "the first casualty when war comes is truth." It turns out that the truth about some military programs is obscure . . .
Air Power’s Proponents May Be Its Biggest Problem You don't need to be a Pentagon insider to know where the Rumsfeld defense review is headed. It's going to nudge the military’s force posture in the direction of aerospace and sea power, at the expense of . . .
The Limits of Transformation Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has surprised almost everyone in the Pentagon by taking seriously President Bush's campaign rhetoric about the need to transform the military. The conventional wisdom . . .
Army Leads Transformation For almost a decade now, the central focus of defense planning in the U.S. and the source of innumerable articles, has been how to transform the military that won the Cold War into a 21st Century . . .
Key Challenges Confronting Naval Shipbuilding II The Navy’s shipbuilding budget is underfunded. As a result, the service is only building enough vessels to sustain a 200-ship fleet over the long run, rather than the 300 ships called for in the 1997 Quadrennial . . .
Naval Air Power, 2001 The U.S. Navy’s twelve aircraft carriers and ten carrier air wings are the most powerful expression of American military might in the post-communist era. Combined with other sea-based forces, they have . . .
Key Choices Confronting Naval Shipbuilding I Aside from aging aircraft, shipbuilding is the biggest question mark in the new administration’s military investment plans. The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review recommended a naval force structure of about . . .
The Marine Corps’ Common-Sense Approach to Fire Support The Marine Corps’ decision to field the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), along with the Lightweight 155mm Howitzer are yet more examples of the Corps’ common-sense solutions to its tactical . . .